Clint ShrumNew Grundy County, Tenn., Sheriff Clint Shrum, who took his post Sept. 1, has spent the month getting started with a clean slate, beginning with an evidence room audit and policy updates.
“We wanted to make sure that we had all our evidence where it’s supposed to be,” Shrum said. “That was one of the pieces here at the Sheriff’s Office that was in question, because we had an employee here that was indicted for stealing guns.”
The employee charged in July in a Tennessee Bureau of Investigation probe was Deke Stone, a former captain with the department.
The audit is in its fourth week and, along with other evidence, includes 329 guns connected to cases that go back as far as 2001, Shrum said. The U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives is assisting in the audit.
In the TBI investigation, Stone was charged with official misconduct and theft over $1,000 for allegedly swiping three handguns from the Sheriff’s Office evidence room in June 2013. Stone, 33 at the time he was charged in July, left his job before the TBI investigation began.