Monroe County sheriff’s race pits Bittick against newcomer

Shane Cook knows it won’t be easy to unseat a sheriff who was elected during Ronald Reagan’s first term as president.

Sheriffs in office that long — or any officials entrusted to that many consecutive terms — are more often than not shoo-ins.

“It’s definitely an uphill battle,” Cook said recently.

Even so, Cook, a Monroe County Fire Department lieutenant who has never run for office and who moved to the county in 2006, decided to take a chance at becoming sheriff.

And his opponent, Sheriff John Cary Bittick, in office since 1983 and one of the longest-serving sheriffs in Georgia, isn’t taking anything for granted.

Bittick was 28 when he was first elected to succeed his father as the county’s top lawman. Despite his decades-long tenure and name recognition, Bittick is approaching the race for the seat he has held for 33 years as if he is trailing at the polls. He said any candidate, no matter his local cachet and no matter how little-known the challenger, would be foolish not to.

“I take the obligation from the public to be their sheriff seriously,” said Bittick, 61. “I’m trying to be sure that everybody understands what a professional agency this is. This is not, nor has it ever been, the good-ol’-boy-operated system.”

Cook claims otherwise.

He says Bittick practices “the good-ol’-boy way of politics, where some people get special treatment.”

Cook, who is 33, has voiced similar sentiments in interviews with other news outlets since he made known his intentions to run for sheriff last year.

“He spends more time taking care of his personal law enforcement endeavors and obligations with the National Sheriff’s Association, the Georgia Sheriff’s Association,” Cook said of Bittick. “As I’ve gone through a lot of the areas of the county talking to people, people are ready for change.”

Cook was a Clayton County firefighter until about a decade ago when he moved to Monroe County to take a firefighting job and live closer to where his wife had kin. He cites having management experience from a stint running Shane’s Pizza & Café in High Falls along with a cigar shop and game room there.

Though he has no law enforcement work on his resume, Cook says running for sheriff was something he has considered for a while. He wants to improve the sheriff’s office’s radio-communications system, which is in the process of an upgrade. Cook also wants to train 911 operators to better handle medical emergencies such as telling callers how to perform CPR.

“When I would go to (county) commissioners’ meetings and see how out of touch the sheriff’s office, the sheriff, was with the community. … We’re so far behind where we need to be,” Cook said.

As for the election’s outcome, Cook said, “I don’t think it’s going to be as one-sided as my opponent thinks it is.”

He and Bittick are running as Republicans.

Bittick, meanwhile, says his experience running the 75-deputy department “with no blemishes” speaks for itself.

Of Cook, he said, “Even though he meets the minimum qualifications (to be sheriff), I meet the maximum.”

Bittick is an FBI Academy graduate with a degree in criminal justice from Mercer University. He manages a sheriff’s office budget of more than $6 million and has been an ardent supporter of his department’s nationally recognized victim-witness advocacy program.

He was named national sheriff of the year in 2008 and Georgia sheriff of the year in 1993. But he seems to take the most pride in being sheriff of his home county.

“I’ve got friends all over the country who are sheriffs, and every one of them says that I’ve got to be the sheriff in the best community in the country,” Bittick said. “They know what kind of support this community has given this agency.”

He points to the outpouring of support from area residents in the wake of the 2014 slaying of deputy Michael Norris.

“I have been humbled by this community,” Bittick said. “Not only have they chosen me to be their sheriff for the last 33 years, but truly humbled by the way that they reacted during our time of need after Michael got killed … when we needed them most.”

Bittick aims to see the department and the county through the trial of Norris’ accused killer, who is set to go on trial for his life in June 2017, and to usher in the sheriff’s office’s new radio system.

But don’t expect Bittick, one of the deans of Georgia sheriffs, to alter his style too much for campaigning’s sake.

“To say I was going to do something a whole lot differently when you’re operating one of only nine nationally accredited sheriff’s offices in the state of Georgia,” he said, “I don’t know that I need to.”

This story was originally published April 28, 2016 at 5:00 PM with the headline "Monroe County sheriff’s race pits Bittick against newcomer."