What’s happened to Scott?
To the editor:
I have spent most of my life in law enforcement including teaching a variety of courses pertaining to all facets of law enforcement, at the graduate school level such as Police Science.
I have also been heavily involved in politics and the vagaries of public relations.
All of my back ground, education and experiences lead me to wonder what has happened to Sheriff Scott. I have known him for a number of years and find him honest, capable and dedicated and he should be an outstanding leader and organizer of the sheriff department.
Instead we have a Rube Goldberg department that seems to be self destructive as far as leadership is concerned. The most important thing an elected official can have is sound effective advice concerning public relations and politics. It would appear that Sheriff Scott has been receiving poor advice as one must gather from reports in the media.
Think back about going helmet-less on his motorcycle, endorsing a political candidate in a primary and introducing a vice presidential candidate all of the above and more while he was in full uniform (which brought him political criticism and claims of possible violation of the Hatch Act).
Now we have a department in disarray with long-term officers being fired, and demoted. The latest fiasco of his insisting that the department can investigate shootings by deputies without the taint of whitewash.
He recently issued a press release that implied that he was perfect and the press and public should stop pestering him. It was outrageous and proves that he is getting bad advice. A good PR person would have stopped him before any of these PR nightmares happened.
He is now above criticism until the next election when he will find the army of candidates who want his job because he has done such a poor job. He has forgotten that he was not elected but the incumbent was tossed out, but now, he can expect oppositions of his own creation.
He still has time to review and correct these past errors and hopefully will move toward developing a more constructive, rather than a destructive PR program.
Joe Campochiaro
Fort Myers