When former police chief Richard Coleman won the election for Chatham County sheriff last fall, he said his top priorities would be filling longstanding vacancies on the force, expanding law enforcement presence in the county and making the state’s fifth-largest jail more humane.
Just under 100 days into his term, he is making headway on one of those goals by restoring in-person visits between detainees waiting for trial and their loved ones face-to-face at the jail.
But other initiatives, like recruitment and staffing, have proven more difficult, as he contends with external criticism for the ways he is rearranging budgets and changing the status quo set by long-time incumbent John Wilcher.
Despite these headwinds, Coleman said he likes the direction the office is going.
“We’ve accomplished so much, and we’ve tackled so much, and this is not political talk. We have.” said Coleman, the county’s first Black sheriff and the first Democrat to hold the office in decades.
Visits with detainees
Coleman says that the jail is nearly ready to restart in-person visits at the Chatham County Detention Center, a practice that stopped more than a decade ago. During 2020 former Sheriff Wilcher switched the jail to fully remote visitation — a measure intended to halt the spread of the COVID-19 virus — and families of detainees had to pay for the right to communicate with their loved ones after one free virtual visit a week.
Wilcher kept the practice after the pandemic ended, citing the decreased contraband risk and burden on staff.
The fees for remote visits and phone calls also proved lucrative for the agency, as revealed by The Current in a 2023 investigation examining fees collected by Coastal Georgia sheriffs. This reporting prompted then-candidate Coleman to run for office and pledge to resume face-to-face visits should he be elected.
In an interview this month, Coleman said renovation should be complete in April in one unit of the jail. Equipment is being installed so that people will be able to talk safely in stations with plexiglass and phones, Coleman said, adding that his office will begin informing detainees and families of the change.
“Everyone’s going to have access to see their loved ones,” he said.
Multiple studies have established a link between in-person visits and a reduction in the likelihood an incarcerated person will reoffend upon their release.
However, the new sheriff is leaving in place remote visits and phone calls, including fees, for the time being. Coleman said that option is meant for families who are unable to travel to the jail. He said he hopes to eventually end the practice of charging detainees for contact.
“You know, I ain’t crazy about them fees. I’m all about humanity. Some people can’t afford these things,” Coleman said.
Changes in hiring
Since Coleman took over in January, former top officials to Wilcher, a Republican, and other county law enforcement officials have been grumbling about his new ways of doing business. Privately, they complain about Coleman hiring deputies whose personal and professional behavior, they believe, would have made them unsuitable for Wilcher’s force.
When Coleman took office in late December, there were 131 officer vacancies at the agency, the majority of which were for corrections positions. He has reduced vacancies overall by approximately 42%, according to statistics provided by the sheriff’s office in March.
The sheriff said that he’s willing to give people a second chance at a law enforcement job as a way to reverse the longstanding staff shortages. To that end, Coleman has loosened restrictions for applicants with past criminal history or relationship to somebody who committed a crime.
“We look for people who are dedicated, who meet the qualification standards, but they don’t have to walk on water,” he said.
One of the new hires raising eyebrows is Mark Gerbino, who heads the criminal investigations division of the sheriff’s department.
Gerbino once worked under two former Savannah-Chatham Metropolitan Police chiefs, Michael Berkow and Willie Lovett. He led criminal investigations at that time, and he was one of the whistleblowers to report corruption allegations about Lovett, according to news reports. He later worked as chief of the Americus Police Department, but resigned in 2012 over offensive remarks about female officers, according to an Americus newspaper report.
Gerbino was hired as chief of the Rincon Police Department but resigned in 2019, following allegations by one of his officers alleging racial discrimination. A federal lawsuit by that officer was dismissed in 2022.
Coleman said his agency conducts a criminal background check to exclude people with felony convictions, checks Georgia Peace Officer Standards and Training (POST) certification and records and interviews candidates individually to determine their eligibility.
In the interview with The Current, Coleman addressed another issue that veteran law enforcement officers have been gossiping about: his hiring of a security detail, something Wilcher did not do.
Coleman said he hired a private security guard after receiving a death threat while eating lunch at a Pooler restaurant recently. Coleman did not provide any further details about the incident.
“Say what they want, I’m gonna have security,” he said.
Immigration policy
Coleman is not straying far from his predecessor on the issue of immigration.
He told news outlets in January he will follow the law but won’t go out of his way to help Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detain people in the country illegally.
In practice, that means eschewing participation in the federal 287(g) program, which empowers state law enforcement to partner with ICE, enforce immigration laws and detain “criminal aliens” for deportation.
During President Donald Trump’s first term, then-Sheriff Wilcher distanced his agency’s work from ICE.
Examining contracts
Coleman says he is reviewing jail contracts to improve detainee care and safety in the jail.
One such contract is the current health care agreement with CorrectHealth.
Earlier this year, Chatham County paid out a half of a million dollars in a legal settlement to the family of a man who overdosed in the jail in 2020, according to the Savannah Morning News. The lawsuit cited lax procedures by CorrectHealth workers that the family claimed led to the man’s death.
CorrectHealth’s contract at the Chatham jail was the topic of a Reuters news investigation nine years ago. The company made campaign donations to Wilcher and employed other politically-connected Savannahians, according to Reuters reporting.
The contract is up for renewal at the end of fiscal year 2025, and Coleman said he will be reviewing the company’s performance, especially in light of the in-custody death that occurred shortly after he took office.
Marquan Bryant, 24, died on Jan. 22, after being found unresponsive in his cell, according to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. Coleman said he believed the death of the Savannah man accused of felony burglary was due to natural causes. The death is still under investigation.
One other contract Coleman said he is re-evaluating for detainee welfare is the jail food services provider. The meals are a frequent source of complaints among detainees.
“I’ve told my food service program that if I can’t eat it, they can’t eat,” he said. “So we’re looking at providing a balanced diet throughout the week … but also (having) fiscal responsibility to the taxpayer and citizens.”
Traffic enforcement
For the public, perhaps the most visible change in Coleman’s tenure department is increased street patrols by sheriff’s deputies, especially on Waters Avenue.
Coleman wants to decrease county crime with a more visible presence of his deputies, but many of the planned patrols await funding and equipment, he said. .
Most criminal enforcement in Chatham County is done by the area’s multiple law enforcement agencies; its two largest being the Savannah Police Department (city limits) and Chatham County Police Department (unincorporated county). There is also traffic enforcement from the Georgia State Patrol.
A Georgia sheriff’s base responsibilities include caretaking the jail, safeguarding the courts and serving court papers. In smaller counties, the sheriff’s department also acts as the main law enforcement body.
Chatham County District 4 Commissioner Pat Farrell, part of the elected body that approves the sheriff’s budget, said he and his colleagues are waiting to see a budget proposal for the sheriff’s office to cover these planned changes.
But he questioned whether it is an efficient use of resources for sheriff’s deputies to duplicate patrols handled by other forces. “I would be very happy to hear that all the vacancies that are funded for jail security and court security are fully staffed before (moving) into areas that would be redundant,” Farrell said.
Georgia’s fiscal year runs July-June, and Coleman will soon be creating his first department-wide budget.
Looking forward, Coleman said his office will be analyzing and incorporating data from the Governor’s Office of Highway Safety about serious traffic crashes in the county to better patrol dangerous roads.
He wants to establish two, five-car units. They will patrol and write citations on the highways and inner-county roads. He said both should be operational in “probably the next two weeks.”
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