Richmond County Chief Deputy Patrick Clayton’s career has been interconnected with Sheriff Richard Roundtree’s for many years.
Roundtree and Clayton have a long history working together that now spans decades, and Clayton describes their relationship almost as that of brothers from different mothers. Both started their law enforcement careers policing the grittier sides of their respective cities.
Clayton’s first beat as a cop was in North Charleston, S.C. Far away from the famous Market Street, North Charleston is what Clayton terms “a high operational area.”
North Charleston in the early 1980s was a place where robberies and shootings occurred during broad day light, and not carry a gun was unsafe due to the wharf rats that roamed freely and would aggressively attack from the shadows.
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Meanwhile, Roundtree rose to prominence in his career by being unafraid to put on waders and trudge into the muck that he was charged with eradicating. Willing to find dependable sources in any low-lit corner, Roundtree developed contacts that aided him in solving murder after murder.
“Tree’s” reputation was that of a cop who protected his sources and people were not afraid to talk to him.
Clayton says he first encountered Roundtree when he was a Naval Criminal Investigative agent operating out of the regional office in Augusta. At the time, Roundtree was a crime scene investigator with Richmond County. The pair encountered each other often while working on individual cases and formed a friendship.
Then, the two found themselves vying for the same job.
In 2009, Clayton retired from the Drug Enforcement Agency and applied for the job of Richmond County School Board Chief of Police and found himself a finalist alongside Roundtree.
“In the interview, they tried so hard to get me to say anything bad about Richard, and they did the same thing to him. We both refused to bad-talk each other, and they realized we might be a good package deal,” Clayton said.
In that instance, Clayton got the top job.
Under his leadership, Clayton says the board of education’s police department was able to add cameras throughout the schools, increase nighttime patrols and develop a strong investigative unit that has proven to be proactive in numerous instances.
The tables then turned when Roundtree was elected Sheriff of Richmond County in 2012.
“He still tells me that I was a terrible boss, but he hired me to be his chief deputy, so I couldn’t have been that bad of a boss,” Clayton said.
He doesn’t mind not being the boss anymore and says that he and Roundtree’s experience as boots-on-the-ground crime scene investigators has led to a department that now has an 83% clearance rate in solving homicides when the national average is 56%.
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Clayton insists his top priority is continuing to work closely with Roundtree on the immediate challenges facing law enforcement and the community of Augusta. He says that a rise in gun violence locally, as well as staff shortages, are at the top of the priority list.
In terms of the staffing issues within the Sheriff’s Office, Clayton says it is a nationwide problem and that Augusta is faring much better than similarly sized cities such as Macon.
According to Clayton, he and Roundtree’s current challenge is amping up their “Augusta Gives Back” program that identifies people who are at risk of being the victims or even perpetrators of gang violence and offering them a path out of that lifestyle.
“We got waylaid a bit with COVID, but we have had some success. Some people have listened to us, and we have been able to protect them and help them, others have spurned us, and they wound up being shot,” Clayton said.
Clayton hedges on the talk of him one day becoming Columbia County’s chief law enforcer, preferring to provide evidence that his now 42 year-long career in law enforcement is still evolving and right now the word “retirement” is, to him, just a word.
And he doesn’t address rumors about a 2024 run for Columbia County Sheriff, saying his work in Richmond County is far from complete.
“I am eligible for retirement that year, but that’s a long way off. I guess I should say ‘stay tuned,’” Clayton said.
Scott Hudson is the senior reporter for The Augusta Press. Reach him at scott@theaugustapress.com
