Former law officers challenging incumbent Bibb County sheriff

Three Macon natives who all wore a badge, carried a gun and patrolled the streets of Bibb County are vying to be the community’s top lawman.

As David Davis completes his first full term in office, he is battling two men who served under him: Mike Smallwood, who retired after more than 40 years at the Bibb County Sheriff’s Office, and Tim Rivers, a four-year veteran of the Macon Police Department who spent a year as a deputy before resigning.

Although Davis did not want to talk about his opponents’ motives, he admitted it bothered him that two men he supervised are trying to unseat him.

“Everybody thinks they can do things differently or better, but everybody has their motivation for running,” the 58-year-old Davis said during a recent interview in his office at the Bibb County Law Enforcement Center.

In the past four years, Davis considers his major accomplishments to be the merger with the Macon Police Department, attaining certification from the Georgia Association of Chiefs of Police and developing outreach programs such as safety walks, a social media push and this year’s new PRIDE initiative, which stands for Presence, Reaction, Interaction, Deterrence, Excellence.

“You go into these neighborhoods and you see blight, lack of job opportunities and you see despair and a kind of hopelessness,” Davis said.

He believes in a holistic approach to fighting crime by reaching the community and balancing the concept of protector with warrior, when necessary.

Rivers wants to ‘lead the city out of the crisis’

Rivers grew up in the Unionville neighborhood under the discipline of a single mother who kept him from falling into crime, as some of his friends did. He joined the Georgia National Guard at age 17 and served two and a half years.

After working as a loss prevention officer at Kohl’s Distribution Center and Goodwill Industries, he joined the Macon Police Department in 2010.

From patrol, he became a K-9 bomb handler, graduating first in his class, he said, and moved to the Bibb County Sheriff’s Office in 2014.

“Three years ago, riding up the road, God just spoke to me that it’s time to lead the city out of the crisis, being the homicide rate and burglary rate,” Rivers said in an interview.

The 33-year-old, who left the Fort Valley Police Department to launch his campaign, has a problem with Davis’ leadership.

He cited what he described as a bungled response to a Lake Tobesofkee shooting in 2015, in which shots came within feet of three fishermen in a boat.

Rivers asked: “Why did it take a father and a son going to the media for something to happen?”

After a monthlong investigation, Davis disciplined deputies and said he took “ultimate responsibility” for their performance.

Rivers also pointed to the killing of Bridgette Flowers, whose children are suing Davis and six Sheriff’s Office employees after the woman’s estranged husband, Jasento Flowers, was released from jail eight days before she was shot in the face.

Flowers’ family contends that the accused killer, a parolee, should not have been released after he was caught on Wal-Mart surveillance cameras punching his estranged wife and knocking her out.

“We’re not moving forward. We’re taking a step backwards,” said Rivers, who left the Sheriff’s Office after he was demoted following an Internal Affairs probe in November 2014.

He has two pending lawsuits filed against the department last year.

Rivers said he was disciplined due to his race, alleged that Bibb deputies were negligent in handling disputes at his home concerning his ex-girlfriend, and accused Davis and an Internal Affairs lieutenant of being members of the Ku Klux Klan.

Davis said a photograph of him peering out of holes cut in a white paper towel was in jest after members of the drug squad balked at getting photographed for a department yearbook.

Smallwood wants more officers on the street

Smallwood grew up on Woolfolk Street in the Fort Hill neighborhood as the son of a firefighter.

He, his dad and two brothers have a combined 144 years of service with Macon and Bibb County.

The former captain of investigations, who worked the Taylor Fargason slaying and the sexual assault at the former Rio Bravo restaurant, said he was looking forward to working with old Macon police colleagues until he read the “handwriting on the wall” of Davis’ merger plans.

“No, I didn’t want to retire. Probably half of us that left didn’t want to,” Smallwood said. “I don’t want people to think I’m running because of bad grapes, but I put so many years into that department and I’m proud of what it was, and I appreciate those guys at the Macon Police Department.”

Smallwood, who worked under five sheriffs, criticized Davis for hiring someone without law enforcement experience to manage the consolidation process instead of relying more on the input of veteran officers from both departments.

Not enough cuts were made to administration, he maintained, at the expense of street officers.

“The department is 100 short. Put some back on patrol right now,” Smallwood said. “We’re in a crisis. Put more people on the street.”

Smallwood thinks it was a mistake to eliminate the police department’s STRIKE unit that deployed to counter flare-ups in crime.

“I’m dissatisfied with the way things are going. I want to bring this burglary rate down. I want to get into these gangs, this truancy, this violence. I want it all to stop,” Smallwood said.

If he had been sheriff in 2013, Smallwood would have partnered former police officers with deputies so they could learn more about the city’s higher-crime neighborhoods. He also would have traveled to other consolidated cities to see what was working and learn from others’ mistakes.

Davis, who grew up in the shadow of the old Lanier High School and donned a cowboy hat and toy guns as a youngster to direct traffic, considers his job a calling.

He believes he has a strong record of dealing with problem officers while striking a balance between running a major metropolitan sheriff’s office and being a warden of a large detention center.

“I think that makes me unique among those running.”

This story was originally published May 12, 2016 at 4:54 PM with the headline "Former law officers challenging incumbent Bibb County sheriff."