HARDIN CO.—Following a period of mourning in Hardin County, apparently, “weird” is back in session.
Those mourning the passing of both Elizabethtown’s police chief Ed Conkle back in December, and sheriff Lloyd “Smokey” Cullison last month, have seen upheavals in law enforcement in the county…the leaders of which apparently believe that because they’re small, backwoods, and relatively forgotten, they can pretty much do anything they want and get away with it.
But this latest batch of crap even has corruption-hardened people like us shaking our heads in wonder.
First, we’ve been advised that the diva herself, Sandra “Sandbags” Conkle, the widow of dead Ed, is refusing to return the police vehicle to the town. You read that right. For whatever reason, apparently one known only to herself, Sandbags has parked the cruiser—which Ed used only intermittently, as he really didn’t do much policing as town marshal because of his poor health—in her drive, and has blocked it in. It’s unknown if anyone else has a key, but apparently she’s not taking any chances, as can be seen in the above photo. We’re trying to learn who it is who’s asked her (or told her; you never know who might get assertive under these circumstances) to return the vehicle. It can’t be her brother, Heck Rose, the former mayor of E-town, as he’s FORMER mayor (although we’ve heard there are whisperings that he’d like to return). We’re not sure whether it’s former sheriff/current mayor Tom Seiner. But if it IS Tom, good luck to him. Sandbags has little regard for the new mayor. Or anyone else, for that matter, who isn’t letting her suck from the public teat…the milk of which mostly dried up when Ed died.
And then there’s the sheriff’s issue.When Smokey died a few weeks ago, a guessing game broke out amongst Hardin residents as to what was going to happen. In the interim, coroner Roger Little was appropriately and properly appointed to fill Smokey’s office, to which he was elected only one election cycle ago, November 2010. Under proscription of law, the county coroner is the one who fills the office of sheriff if the sheriff dies, leaves, is arrested, or is otherwise incapacitated. Little was completely digging this, as he wanted to BE sheriff in 2010 and was running on the Dem ticket against JT Fricker, Republican, and Smokey—Independent. But Little, as coroner, could only hold the office for 60 days, then the party of the sheriff in office/formerly in office had to caucus and fill the seat until the next available election—November 2012.That couldn’t happen…because Smokey was an Independent. No party. No caucus. Someone else was going to have to take the seat, and the word was that it was going to be Joyce Cullison, Smokey’s widow, as soon as she was done grieving.
But that didn’t work out, either.
Brett Oxford...being businessy
As soon as Little won the Primary March 20 (barely, against Dem contender Brett Oxford, 255-246; a third contender, Rita Warren, took in 66 votes), he began making noises that he REALLY liked being sheriff, and so, ostensibly, a deal was struck with the ever-obnoxious county board chairman Wayne Eichorn: Roger Little would just stay sheriff, and give up his office of coroner to Brett Oxford, the runner-up (translated: the majority of the people didn’t WANT him to be coroner) until such time as there could be an election…and lil Brett could run this fall against Republican candidate Brian Lewis of Rosiclare, and Roger could take his chances at the ballot box for sheriff.However, into this musical chairs event comes this leetle tidbit of information.
Brett Oxford, former Hardin County deputy as of mid to early March, is under investigation by ISP. As of March 15, he’s been suspended from the department, hence the “former” designation.
What did lil Brett do? Well, it’s alleged that he executed a traffic stop on a girl and found her to be in possession of drug paraphernalia, but then told her that was no big worry, just provide him with a variety of sexual favors, and all of it would just go away. I’m serious; you can’t make this shit up, and who would WANT to? There are a number of other improprieties he’s said to have accomplished while on the job, including not breathalyzing a boy he stopped and issued a DUI to, even though the boy hadn’t been drinking, and even though every last damn bit of it was caught on dash cam, including the boy insisting on the test, and Oxford’s refusal. That’s the kind of thing that gets a county hemmed up around a false arrest lawsuit quickly. But it gets worse. It’s our understanding that when authorities went to view the dash cam in Oxford’s car, it had been tampered with.
So if this is all coming to pass, there’s your new coroner, Hardin County. As we’re so fond of saying, if you aren’t outraged by now, you haven’t been paying attention.
Why are they getting away with this? It’s an old boy’s club running the show down there, and nothing has been done about the old boys thus far. Nothing we write about it is going to do any good except give them exposure. And authorities don’t often take action on mere exposure. So what can you do? You need to get mad. You need to go to county board meetings. Not enough people opted to vote the head idiot, Wayne Eichorn, out of office, and he remains. Turnover of the county board would have helped; now you may have to wait until you get a decent state’s attorney in office this fall, someone who will take action against the moronic and illegal doings. While a new SA won’t be able to prosecute an officeholder without an appearance of conflict, he or she can bring in a special prosecutor—and that’s something that Hardin is long overdue for. And as far as Sandbags, that’s an E-town board issue. If you think it’s wrong that Sandbags, a councilperson, is holding city property, go to the meetings and demand that someone either move all the vehicles and tow that damn thing, or have her arrested.
There are remedies for this BS. But we can’t do them. Only you in Hardin can. Git er done…or you’re going to be in an even bigger mess come November…and beyond.