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Marshall Judge Exec: Sheriff’s School Officer Comments Politically Motivated

Nicole Erwin / WKMS

Marshall County Judge Executive Kevin Neal said he believes recent comments made about a denied request for additional school resource officers were for political gain.

According to Neal, local Sheriff Kevin Byars said at a campaign event that his plan for additional officers at Marshall County High School was blocked. In January, two students were killed in a shooting at the school. Neal said Byars’s comment implies that his office or the fiscal court prevented him from putting officers in the high school.

“This county had a tragic event and some of the families are trying to move on and it just seems like a scab keeps getting pulled off in this type of stuff,” Neil said.

Neil said Byars had presented two grants at a budget workshop to put more officers in middle schools, not at the high school. Byars has not responded to requests for comment from WKMS but told WPSD that Neal’s middle school comment “doesn’t matter.” Byars said he asked for more school resource officers that he could move between schools as needed.

 

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