The Bradley County commissioner who has long been at odds with the sheriff’s department on Monday tore into a reporter for the local paper as a “PR outlet for the sheriff’s department” who has “repeatedly printed things that are not true.”
During the commission agenda session, Commissioner Dan Rawls said Cleveland Daily Banner reporter Brian Graves last year printed a story quoting Sheriff Eric Watson that falsely implied Rawls had been involved in a murder case years ago, before he moved to Tennessee.
At a commission law enforcement committee meeting last week, Rawls said Bradley County corrections chief Capt. Gabe Thomas had supplied him with a list of people who were paid out of the corrections budget but allegedly didn’t work in that department – which was an $800,000-a-year hit to the strapped department’s budget.
Graves reported that Thomas flatly denied giving the list to Rawls and said Rawls never asked him about the subject.
Thomas didn’t attend either meeting, though Rawls said he’d asked that Thomas be present.