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Volunteers exceed 6,900 hours

From the Liberty County Sheriff’s Office:

It has been an amazing past year of citizen volunteer participation by the four organizations assigned to the Liberty County Sheriff’s Office Special Operations Division. With a combined 6,969.3 hours of volunteer work donated to county community service computed at the national accepted rate of approximately $26.19 per hour, including benefits, for volunteer work if someone had to pay for such volunteer work.  The volunteers have saved Liberty County tax payers a grand total of $182,525-96 for the year of 2014 as well as assisting a very undermanned Sheriff’s office in the process. 

The Sheriff’s office had an eleven Deputy Reserve force that put in a total of 2,529.8 hours of free volunteer time in 2014 patrolling the county, working court house security, helping to transport inmates to other facilities as well as other related assignments. And, being a reserve, they served without any pay, whatsoever.   

The Sheriff’s Mounted Posse has a membership of twenty-nine members who volunteered 1,848.5 hours of their time to conduct searches for lost persons, evidence gathering and other related duty assignments during the past year. Their training is ongoing all of which is on their own time and all equipment and horses are their own and maintained at their own expense.

Our Citizen Police Academy Alumni Association which was sponsored by Sheriff Bobby Rader and District Attorney Logan Pickett, numbers 23 members that have only been in operation since July of 2014 and already logged 2,487 hours of volunteer time also patrolling the county neighborhoods with the Departments newly formed “Citizen On Patrol” team, warrant service, record filing and other duties. Several neighborhoods have already requested their services and have responded in a positive manner to their presence in their areas. These CPAAA members are a “observe and report” team that drives a Sheriff’s marked vehicle and radio equipped to report suspicious activity to the dispatcher so a Deputy can be dispatched to the incident for further investigation. The CPAAA members are available to any other public service agency in Liberty County to assist in any way possible. Their driver training as well as other ongoing training is on their own time which each member donates willingly to the Sheriff’s department and community.

A fourth and final organization is something new in our area and only in operation since school started this year. It is hoped to be used as a “model” for other school districts to follow in the future. Mr. Terry Higginbothem, teacher at Liberty High School, proposed this program to Sheriff Rader who quickly agreed to the proposal as it is a very positive program for both the student and the future growth of law enforcement. Working with the Liberty High School Advanced Law Enforcement and Correctional Class there are six outstanding students who wants a career related to law enforcement upon graduation. They have logged 104 hours of volunteer time in both the Sheriff’s Office as well as the County jail building conducting office work related to that field. This is not only a learning experience for the youth of our school but, again, a cost saving factor for the county for their volunteer office work.

Sheriff Bobby Rader is quoted as saying… “Liberty County is fortunate to have citizens who are willing to donate their time and talents to serve the community in which they live and work and it is my feeling that through this type of cooperative team work we have built a stronger relationship between the Sheriff’s Office and our citizens. I sincerely appreciate each member of these organizations for assisting our office and the county with their volunteer time”.

Only two of the four organizations were active during the entire past year. It is hoped that 2015 will be an even better year with a full year’s operation by all four organizations.

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