FAIRMONT —
Sheriff Joe Carpenter has begun referring to drug arrests as part of Operation Do Your Job.
Carpenter, a Democrat running for a second term as sheriff, believes strongly in giving law enforcement the tools and motivation they need to be a positive influence in the community and get the job done.
A Rivesville native, Carpenter graduated from Rivesville High School and joined the Marine Corps. After his honorable discharge, he worked a variety of blue-collar jobs before entering law enforcement in 1994, when a friend suggested he apply to the Rivesville Police Department.
In 1996, Carpenter moved to the Westover police, where he built a lot of relationships with officers across the county line. Then, in 1998, he came back to Marion County as a deputy under former Sheriff Ron Watkins.
During his time as a deputy, Carpenter worked in the saturation patrol, a group of deputies who would case an area and make traffic stops and arrests. He said that they stopped a lot of crimes and found a lot of criminals “just from having some extra people on the road making traffic stops.”
So he went to his supervisors and the Marion County Commission to try to hire more officers so that the department could devote more resources to men on the street. The plan was well-received, but ultimately fell through.
“I actually started praying about how we could get this done,” Carpenter said, “because I knew how important it was, what with all the drugs we’d been seeing.”
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