Rabun County Sheriff’s Office allows public insight on daily operations

CLAYTON — As a means to educate the community about what operations are conducted on a day-to-day basis at the Rabun County Sheriff’s Office, Sheriff Chad Nichols welcomes the public to attend the citizen’s law enforcement academy.

Nichols told WRBN the academy course will cover a variety of topics related to the sheriff’s office such as patrol, investigations, detention center and the courts. He also said individuals who attend can meet the K9-dogs which deputies utilize in some cases.

“It allows the public to gain a better insight as to what we do here instead of just seeing us out driving around in a car,” Nichols said.

He also mentioned the academy will illustrate the differences between a city police department and a sheriff’s office.

“There is a big difference about what the sheriff’s office is required to do as compared to a police department. The sheriff has countless mandates from the state, the jail, the courts and civil processing,” Nichols explained. “A lot of those mandates are required to be fulfilled by the sheriff so that falls back to the county to pay it which is why we are allowing people to learn what our operations are.”

Nichols said if anyone is interested in seeing how the different sects of the sheriff’s office work then all they have to do is stop by the Rabun County Sheriff’s Office in Clayton and pick up a registration form which is free of charge but required for attendance.

The academy will start on Tuesday, March 6 and will continue every Tuesday evening through Tuesday, April 24. The course is expected to last a couple hours and will begin at 6:30 p.m. to 9:00 p.m.