Is the Math Mathing to Y’all or Nah? — A Peculiar Timeline
Early January 2023
During the early week’s of 2023 Sheriff Nick Smith began to publicly express his frustrations about the WCSO being underfunded (his claims) in response to Chairman Steve Miller’s insistence that the Sheriff get the WCSO employee overtime under budget. Per the Daily Mountain Eagle, Sheriff Nick Smith expressed his great frustrations about the financial situation in the jail and once again decided to challenge the “commissioners to observe a shift” so that the Commissioners could experience the problems in the jail first hand due to a lack of staffing, and being critically underfunded.
(You can read the full write up from the DME on the Sheriff’s Office page here. It is no longer available on the DME website due to technical errors. Screenshots of WCSO re-post of the entire article can be found here in case they delete it.)
January 24, 2023
Per the recently released plea deal of Benjamin Daniel Shoemaker we learned that a Commissioner was scheduled to visit the jail on 1/24. In the plea deal Shoemaker states the he and other employees of the Walker County Sheriff’s Office planned to use Tony Mitchell and other detainees to “show the County Commissioner how difficult working at the Jail was, how "crazy" and "disgusting" some of the detainees were, and the amount of management the detainees required” in an effort to acquire financial gains for the Walker County Sheriff's Office and it’s employees.
(You can read the full plea deal with this link. The above statements can be found on pages 8-9 of the plea deal.)
January 26, 2023 Tony Mitchell would die from being abused for two weeks while in custody at the Walker County Jail leading to a subsequent attempted cover up.
February 6, 2023
At the end of the Walker County Commission meeting on 2/6/23 Commissioner Burroughs made it known that he had in fact taken up Sheriff Smith’s offer at the 1/10/23 County Commission meeting to visit the jail sometime in late January where he stated the following:
"I just want to make mention about a couple of things we did in the meeting. Nick, I hope that your equipment comes in handy, and I hope it's something that - I know y'all have been needing it and I'm proud we're getting it for you."
Sheriff Nick Smith responded, "I want to say this to you Jeff. I appreciate you coming down to the Sheriff's Office and seeing what those jailers and staff do day in and day out. And understand they need that equipment."
Commissioner Burroughs continued with a very interesting allusion to his experience followed up by a clear statement that his experience convinced him the jail needed more support and funding, "I actually went down and worked for a couple of hours. I was out of my environment, and it made me watch around everywhere you're at, you know, you're sort of uneasy. Like I said, we've got to work on this pay structure by the end of the time that the COVID funding goes out. I think Nick is running 4 to 6 jailers on a shift and then I see that there's need for more. But any way I was glad to come down and experience that. And thank you for taking care of me.”
(You can read the full meeting minutes with this link. The above quoted statements can be read on page five.)
In early 2024, once Tony's death certificate was leaked to the public and made known Tony’s cause of death was "homicide" as a result of sepsis and hypothermia developed from his abuse. Nicks Smith responded to this news by claiming that he “was not there” while Tony was being tortured and neglected right down the hall from his office. While we all know how absurd the Sheriff’s claim is, I find it quite interesting that both Nick and Burroughs' statements during the February 6, 2023 county commission meeting seems to imply that not only was Nick there when Tony was slowly being murdered, but played an active role in “taking care” of Burroughs during his visit (we do not know the exact date, or if other Commissioners visited during this time) to the jail as members of the WCSO staff sought to make Burroughs a victim of their conspiracy to manipulate him.
A visit in which WCSO staff would conspire to use inmates in a ploy to manipulate the Commissioner's experience of the jail in hopes of obtaining financial gain for the Sheriff’s department and leaving Burroughs feeling "uneasy" and thus seemingly convinced the Sheriff's department was in need of more funding per his statements during the 2/6/23 County Commission meeting.
So to recap, Nick Invites Commissioners to the Jail + WCSO employees conspire to manufacture a false experience and manipulate visiting commissioners upon their visits to the jail = The commissioners presumably leaves as a victim of their conspiracy and is thus successfully manipulated into believing Nick was right about needing more funding.
So the questions remain?
Was Nick actually there during the Commissioner Burroughs visit?
Was Jeff Burroughs the only commissioner that made a visit to the jail during that time or did others? If so, were they also presumably manipulated by WCSO staff in the same way?
Whose idea was it to manipulate the visiting Commissioner in the first place?
Did Sheriff Nick Smith know about the plot being undertaken by his employees?
What kind of culture would allow for such a devious plot to manipulate an elected official to form under the leadership of the Sheriff (assuming he had no idea)?
The County Commission would go on over the course of the next two years approving multiple financial requests made by the Walker County Sheriff’s Office (though at times with what appeared to be a great deal of reluctance.)
