Popular law enforcement leader is up for re-election
By W. Thomas Smith Jr.
This is an easy story to write – easy in one way, challenging in another (which I’ll get to momentarily) – because I am again making the case to re-elect Richland County Sheriff Leon Lott to the office which he has held since he was first elected in 1996. Four years ago, I penned a similar piece entitled “Sheriff Lott is the best man for the job.” He was then. He still is today.
I mentioned the “challenging” component of writing this because Lott’s ever-expanding body of stellar professional work is a bit too ponderous to incorporate fully into a single op-ed piece with limited space.
Full transparency: Sheriff Lott is my boss. He has been for more than eight years. He is also my loyal friend, and I don’t say that flippantly. In fact, he’s everybody’s friend. At least that’s how he makes everyone feel who is blessed enough to have crossed his path: Yes, even the bad guys or the troubled souls whose lives might be heading in the wrong direction.
TOUGH GUY WITH A SOFT HEART
Leon Lott is tough. He is especially tough on violent crime and criminals, and he’s demanding of his subordinate deputy sheriffs. But he’s fair, exceedingly kind and compassionate, and he’s always willing to give of himself regardless of circumstance. And I’m not the only one who knows this to be true.
I say these things only because of my unique vantage point in having worked so closely with the Sheriff now for nearly a decade; not to mention having known him for many years prior and having worked on indirect projects with him before I began my part-time work with him at the Richland County Sheriff’s Department (RCSD) in 2016.
Others speak similarly of him.
My near-90-year-old mom simply says: “Leon Lott makes me feel safe in this very dangerous world. I know he’s going to take care of me. And he knows me, singles me out, and gives me a hug whenever I see him at any event or community function.”
UNMATCHED COMMUNITY OUTREACH
Lott is tireless in his community outreach and attendance at any and all community events and functions, from birthday parties, to back-to-school bashes, sporting events (befriending players, coaches, and fans alike), to state fairs, community carnivals, barbeques, pizza parties, ice cream socials, rodeos, parades, fall festivals, church services (regardless of denomination), delivering meals to the elderly, ringing bells for the Salvation Army, attending and speaking at group lunches, civic club meetings, university lectures, criminal justice panels, and nursing home visits.
And for Lott, it is not simply knocking on doors, standing on the front porch and talking. He steps inside, sits down and breaks bread with families. He always has, and that’s key.
But this is just scratching the surface: Again the challenge of writing such a piece.
A STERLING REPUTATION
Like many of us who have spent most of our lives in central S.C., I’ve “known-of” Leon Lott all my life. As a teenager during the 1970’s, I remember hearing my dad and others talk about this “young forward-thinking up-and-comer” at the Richland County Sheriff’s Department. I was just a kid, but I remember thinking Lott was larger than life.
His legend and reputation have only grown.
“For years, decades really, I’ve watched Sheriff Lott as a respected law enforcement leader who continuously leads from the front,” said S.C. Black Belt Hall of Famer Bruce Brutschy, past president and current member of the West Columbia Police Foundation and former boardmember of the Columbia Police Foundation. “I am nothing short of amazed at how much time he also spends in the community building bridges that are especially important when bad things happen. During the riots of May 2020, he literally saved our city.”
Brutschy adds: “I have a friend that was at his wits end with his teenage son and asked me to see if Sheriff Lott could meet with them. Sheriff Lott met with this young man for over an hour and helped guide him back on the right path. We are beyond blessed to have a man like Sheriff Lott that cares so much, and everyone I’m in contact with says the same.”
WHO IS SHERIFF LEON LOTT?
A one-time college baseball player and semi-pro ballplayer who today holds degrees from several universities including the FBI National Academy, the FBI National Executive Institute, Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, and Furman University’s Diversity Leadership Academy, Lott holds an Associate’s degree from the University of South Carolina-Aiken, a Bachelor’s degree from the University of South Carolina in Columbia, a Masters in Emergency Management from Lander, and an honorary doctorate also from USC.
Lott began his policing career as an RCSD patrol officer in 1975, quickly rising through the ranks and ultimately becoming captain holding (at different times) various command and leadership posts including that of the narcotics division, administration, uniformed patrol, an officer on the SWAT team, and a watch commander. Though such a listing doesn’t begin to do justice to the story of Lott’s work prior to 1993 when he left Columbia to become chief of police for the town of St. Matthews.
Three years later, in 1996, Lott ran a successful campaign for sheriff of Richland County, returning to Columbia and beginning the quest to transform RCSD into a high-speed, technologically advanced, 21st-century police force – at 900-plus personnel the largest in the state – and one which has been widely said to be “America’s law enforcement agency.”
In addition to his serving as sheriff, Lott commands the near 1,000-person S.C. State Guard (SCSG), a component part of the S.C. Military Dept. (SCMD) which includes the S.C. Army National Guard, the S.C. Air National Guard, the Emergency Management Division, and other elements. Under Lott’s command, the SCSG augments the S.C. National Guard during statewide emergencies and other missions. Lott previously served in varying command positions in both the SCSG and the SCMD’s Joint Services Detachment. The latter provides direct support to the state’s adjutant general.
LOTT’S AND RCSD’S MYRIAD FIRSTS
In 2021, Lott was named NATIONAL SHERIFF OF THE YEAR by the National Sheriff’s Association, and in recent year’s RCSD has achieved a number of remarkable firsts including becoming the first law enforcement agency in the U.S. to participate in a still-ongoing 2018-present academic study (aimed at determining the impact of words and public perception) by branding all of its marked vehicles with the words PEACE OFFICER. In 2020, the department retrofitted approximately 500 deputy uniforms (both shirts and ballistic vests) with the words PEACE OFFICER stitched below the already existing words, DEPUTY SHERIFF. Two years later, Lott and RCSD proclaimed the first-ever “peace officer promise to do no harm” to those within the communities RCSD serves. And in 2023, RCSD became the first law enforcement agency nationwide to achieve peace officer certification by national non-profit POLICE2PEACE, the brainchild behind the peace officer branding initiative and the peace officer promise.
EVERYBODY WANTS TO WORK FOR LOTT
The good-will relationships are also internal. Everybody wants to work for Lott and RCSD. In the present-day environment where law enforcement agencies are struggling to recruit and retain officers and non-sworn personnel, there is a waiting list of hopeful new-hires for RCSD.
People in the department love their jobs. They don’t want to work anywhere else. Their work isn’t easy. But they know the Sheriff has their back. He takes care of his men and women. He trains with them. Earlier this month he celebrated his 71st birthday, but he’s every bit as physically fit – and works at it daily – as is the fittest officer on his Special Response Team (SWAT team) or the multi-agency Midlands Gang Task Force which his RCSD plays a leading command role.
“I won’t ask my people to do anything I won’t do and haven’t done,” says Lott, adding. “They are more than simply deputies and employees to me, they are family.”
One example of Lott’s familial care is RCSD’s pre-PTSD conditioning program; preemptive training for his deputies designed to mitigate the symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (what Lott always refers to as post-traumatic stress injury) before those deputies hit the street. The program is Lott’s brainchild, designed solely to protect the emotional well-being of his deputies, the first of its kind in the nation, and one which agencies around the country have implemented based on the RCSD model.
Speaking of firsts, Lott’s RCSD is the only law enforcement agency nationwide that was with A&E’s hit television series LIVE PD from its inception in 2016 until its final episode in 2020, and today Reelz hit series On Patrol: LIVE. Fans of both series’ have traveled from all over North America, even overseas, just to meet the Sheriff and his much-loved deputies.
INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS
Speaking of overseas, when war-ravaged Iraq needed to establish its first-ever female police academy in 2010, the Iraqi government sought someone whom they believed was the most-experienced, innovative, bridge-building law enforcement leader in the U.S. who could and would travel to the city of Erbil, Iraq – about 220 miles north of Baghdad – and help them do just that. The Iraqis discovered Leon Lott (by reputation), who with one of his senior female deputies, traveled to Erbil and taught the Iraqi internal security forces how to properly train and successfully field female police officers.
RCSD continues its strong relationship and an officer exchange program with Iraq, as it does with other foreign law enforcement agencies and U.S. military forces domestically.
Moreover in July of this year, Lott was named to the board of directors of CRIME STOPPERS GLOBAL SOLUTIONS (CSGS), the international arm of Crime Stoppers here in the U.S.
CSGS combats transnational crime and mitigates threats to national and international security with focuses on combating international terrorism, human trafficking, weapons trafficking, drug smuggling, illicit trade, cybercrime, bank fraud and money laundering.
Why Lott with CSGS? “With a legacy of safeguarding his community for nearly 50 years [27 years as sheriff], Sheriff Lott also brings tremendous international expertise to the CSGS board,” said Lisa Broderick, executive director of Police2Peace and a fellow CSGS boardmember.
“Local, state, national, or international, everything is connected,” says CSGS boardmember Justin Insalaco, a former New Jersey police officer. “Sheriff Lott has developed and proven at the local level – and in his work with foreign law enforcement agencies – the best methods of collecting information to be processed into finished intelligence. He has deep operational experience which is invaluable to us.”
Back home in Richland County there are Lott’s equally innovative, bridge-building programs from community advisory councils to community action teams to special diversionary efforts aimed at keeping at-risk youth out of prison.
SHERIFF LOTT’S POPULARITY
Sheriff Lott is a wildly popular sheriff; He always has been. I know because I have witnessed this enthusiastic popularity firsthand. And nowhere is this more apparent to me than watching him ring the bells for the Salvation Army during the Christmas season. Regardless of race, age, or ethnicity; All the women want to give him a hug. All the men want to shake his hand. All the children want to stand with him as he rings the bell. Everybody wants to take a group or individual picture with him. And everybody is always smiling.
As Sheriff Lott has said time-and-again: “It’s not about politics or political parties. It’s about people. Politics have no place in law enforcement except for the fact that I’m a cop that has to be elected to the position. My base is all of the citizens of Richland County and not one political party.”
For these reasons and myriad others, I urge everyone – Republican, Democrat, and Independent alike – to re-elect Richland County Sheriff Leon Lott. He is the only clear choice.
– W. Thomas Smith Jr., a special deputy with the Richland County Sheriff’s Department, is a formerly deployed U.S. Marine infantry leader, a former SWAT team officer in the nuclear industry, and a New York Times bestselling editor. Visit him online at http://uswriter.com.
