CLEVELAND, Tenn. - Several hundred supporters of Bradley County sheriff candidates Eric Watson and Steve Lawson turned out Saturday night for a lively but civil debate between the two veteran lawmen.
Whoever wins the May 1 Republican primary will become the sheriff, since there is no Democrat in the race.
The event was put on by the Bradley County Republican Party and moderated by party chairman Richard Burnette, who asked the crowd, some wearing gold T-shirts for Watson and some in blue for Lawson, to be respectful and neighborly no matter whom they support. Burnette posed questions for the two candidates.
Incumbent Watson and challenger Lawson weren't far apart on most of the issues. Both want to battle the opioid epidemic that's taking lives and ruining families by going after dealers and cracking down on pain clinics, and neither favors arming teachers to make schools safer; instead, they favor volunteers with professional training. They both want to beef up the DARE anti-drug program in schools.
Asked about balancing between the cost of expanding the jail and the income from housing state prisoners, Watson said crowding is a problem everywhere and it will continue "until America gets God back."
Watson boasted that the BCSO's crime solvability rate was fourth in the state in 2o16, according to the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation. Lawson reminded the crowd those numbers were achieved while he was captain of the Criminal Investigation Division.
Lawson said he would talk with county commissioners, who would have to come up with funding. And he took a swipe at Watson's "knee-jerk reaction" of sending a school bus loaded with felons up to the state prison in Bledsoe County after the jail flunked a February inspection for overcrowding. Watson said his pleas for the state to come get some of its prisoners had been ignored.
There were questions about the workhouse, which opened last year but is being used more for housing than for its mission of letting inmates work outside the jail during the day and be secured at night. Both said they want to work with judges to sentence more offenders to the workhouse.
Asked about nasty social media posts on either side, both said they would tell their supporters to knock it off.
"There's no need in dragging somebody down and kicking them just because they ran for public office," Lawson said.
Lawson promised to be a "full-time sheriff" with "no side jobs" or conflicts of interests. It was a reference to the controversies that have raged for nearly two years around Watson. He was the target of three investigations over allegations of credit card misuse and other wrongdoing, and was indicted on 12 felony counts of forged titles over cars he sold.
Watson accused Lawson of negative campaigning and said the allegations were a "bunch of lies, just trying to put a cloud over the sheriff's office," cooked up by a county commissioner and the Times Free Press. He noted the felony counts were dismissed and claimed "I got an apology for that" but didn't say from whom.
Watson also denounced the "fake Christian special interest group" that has launched two critical videos online this week: One showed Watson with a group of current jail inmates at a church, in civilian clothes and with no shackles or guards visible; the second showed one of the same inmates with one taking a selfie with a girl outdoors at the July 4 fireworks show. Both ads asserted Watson was endangering the public with lax security.
Contact staff writer Judy Walton at jwalton@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6416.