Eugene “Gino Rock” Brantley will be at the Municipal building at 3 p.m. Tuesday, Sep. 12, to file his official declaration with the state making him a candidate for sheriff in the upcoming primary election.
Brantley will be facing off against incumbent Sheriff Richard Roundtree who was first elected in 2012. Roundtree has been reelected twice with little real opposition.
A veteran cop, Brantley has a combined 23 years serving in Augusta law enforcement. He served at the Richmond County Sheriff’s Office for 16 years and climbed the ranks to special operations on the housing squad. He has spent the last seven years at the Richmond County Marshal’s Office, achieving the rank of Sgt.
Brantley will run as a Democrat, therefore he will face Roundtree in the primary, and if there is no Republican challenger, then whoever wins the primary becomes sheriff.
Low morale among the current staff at the sheriff’s office is the primary reason Brantley decided to run, saying that morale is the most important factor in running a professional police force.
“I’ve been talking with a lot of the officers about the state of what is going on, and I believe that it is time for a change,” Brantley said.
If elected, one of the first orders of business, Brantley says, will be to work on bringing the staffing levels back up among the ranks of the force, noting that one reason crime is up is because road patrol officers are being forced to work the jail and it creates a domino effect, meaning that the members of groups like the gang task force have to double as traffic cops.
“I plan to show up to work every day and work hard to keep Augusta safe where people can not only live, but thrive,” Brantley said.
Scott Hudson is the Senior Investigative Reporter and Editorial Page Editor for The Augusta Press. Reach him at scott@theaugustapress.com
