York County sheriff refutes candidate’s claims about ticket quotas

York County Sheriff Bruce Bryant on Tuesday criticized former investigator John H. Williams and his statements about ticket quotas during Williams’ campaign to succeed the sheriff.

Williams was an officer and crime scene investigator at the York County Sheriff’s Office for 33 years and has made the elimination of traffic ticket quotas part of his campaign to become the next sheriff. While his opponent, Kevin Tolson, argued during a Monday debate that such quotas do not exist, Williams maintained that they are a problem and held up a packet of papers that, he said, show the agency’s “goals” for traffic tickets in 2013.

Bryant on Tuesday called Williams’ statements during the debate “a farce” and “very misleading.”

“John Williams should be ashamed of himself, because anybody in this profession knows that is just plain not true,” Bryant said Tuesday. “... He’s talking about the integrity of the York County Sheriff’s Office. I absolutely resent anyone that would jeopardize the integrity of this organization for their political gain.”

The packet of papers that include the goal numbers was from an email sent in April 2013 by the District 1 uniform lieutenant of the sheriff’s office to officers in that district, Williams told The Herald on Tuesday. Those types of semi-annual messages indicated totals for items such as field interviews, property crimes, violent crimes and DUI arrests that had been completed by deputies, and listed “goal” amounts for the coming year.

Goals were listed for most of the items each year except for traffic citations and warnings, Williams said, adding that goal amounts for those two items were only visible in the 2013 email and were omitted in the years before and after.

“That was the only year that I saw the traffic tickets and warning tickets with numbers actually on the list,” he said. “They omitted those on the other ones.”

Williams said he doesn’t have any numbers except for the 2013 email that suggest the use of quotas. He also said he has never received any verbal rules or instructions within the sheriff’s office regarding quotas.

“It wasn’t discussed with me other than what was printed up and sent out,” he said. “I have never discussed it verbally with anybody, as far as supervisors telling me that I needed to keep the quotas up, because I was stationed in the office for most of the time.”

Bryant said traffic enforcement has never been a primary focus of the sheriff’s office, and that traffic enforcement in the county’s jurisdiction is left mostly to the S.C. Highway Patrol except for “blatant” violations that deputies see.

“We don’t work traffic, we don’t work traffic accidents,” he said. “The only time you see us at a traffic accident is if we’re directing traffic until the Highway Patrol gets there.”

Additionally, Bryant said, the agency is accredited with the Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies, which has standards forbidding quotas.

“That’s why they call them ‘goals,’” Williams said of the tables in the emails.

Williams and Tolson are both vying to succeed Bryant, who announced in January that he will not seek re-election at the end of his term. The winner of the June 14 primary will likely face former deputy Michael Scurlock, who is collecting signatures to run as an independent.

This story was originally published May 24, 2016 at 8:55 PM with the headline "York County sheriff refutes candidate’s claims about ticket quotas."