DeKalb County
Sheriff's Department
Important Numbers
Non Emergency Service (615) 215-3000
Emergency Calls Only (911)
Emergency Calls Only (911) Sheriff Patrick Ray 100 Public Square, Smithville, TN 37166 (615) 597- 4935 sheriff@dekalbsherifftn.com
Sheriff Patrick Ray
It is a distinct honor to serve the citizens of DeKalb County. I am exceptionally proud of the fine men and women of the Sheriff's Office who strive each day to keep the peace. They risk their lives each day to ensure the safety of our community.
As your Sheriff, I am committed to providing honest, fair, efficient, effective, professional and results oriented service to the citizens of DeKalb County while managing resources effectively to prevent and reduce crime.
We are trying to provide as much information as possible on this website to better serve you the citizens of Dekalb County. Hopefully you will visit all the menu tabs to the left and read the information.
As a means to assure quality service by the Sheriff's Office, I need your evaluation and comments as they relate to the way we responded to calls from you in the past, and/or your evaluation and comments concerning your impression of the Sheriff's Office and the manner in which we provide service.
Please take a few moments to complete the Neighborhood Attitude Survey. Your response will be personally reviewed by me, and will be used to assist us in determining how to best enhance our service to the community.
I would like to thank you in advance for completing and submitting the online questionnaire.
DUTIES
Duties include crime prevention, investigation of criminal activity and the arrest of criminals. Proper disposal of contraband, abandoned motor vehicles, and unlawful weapons. Supervision of the jail and inmates. Civil duties include keeping order in the courts and serving all process handed down by the courts. The office of sheriff is mandated by the Constitution of the State of Tennessee.
HISTORY OF THE OFFICE OF SHERIFF
The Office of Sheriff is one of antiquity. It is the oldest law enforcement office known within the common-law system and it has always been accorded great dignity and high trust. For the most part, the Office of Sheriff evolved of necessity. Were it not for laws which require enforcing, there would have been no necessity for the Sheriff. There would have been no need for the development of police administration, criminology, criminalists, etc. This is not the case, however. Man learned quite early that all is not orderly in the universe. All times and all places have generated those who covet the property of their neighbors and who are willing to expropriate this property by any means. As such, man's quest for equity and order gave birth to the Office of Sheriff, the history of which begins in the Old Testament and continues through the annals of Judeo-Christian tradition. Indeed, there is no honorable law enforcement authority in Anglo-American law so ancient as that of the County Sheriff. And today, as in the past, the County Sheriff is a peace officer entrusted with the maintenance of law and order and the preservation of domestic tranquility.
Sheriffs have served and protected the English-speaking peoples for a thousand years. The Office of Sheriff and the law enforcement, judicial and correctional functions he performs are more than 1000 years old. The Office of Sheriff dates back at least to the reign of Alfred the Great of England, and some scholars even argue that the Office of Sheriff was first created during the Roman occupation of England.
Around 500 AD, Germanic tribes from Europe (called the Anglo-Saxons) began an invasion of Celtic England which eventually led over the centuries to the consolidation of Anglo-Saxon England as a unified kingdom under Alfred the Great late in the 9th Century. Alfred divided England into geographic units called "shires", or counties.
In 1066, William the Conqueror defeated the Anglo-Saxons and instituted his own Norman government in England. Both under the Anglo-Saxons and under the Normans, the King of England appointed a representative called a "reeve" to act on behalf of the king in each shire or county. The "shire-reeve" or King's representative in each county became the "Sheriff" as the English language changed over the years. The shire-reeve, or Sheriff, was the chief law enforcement officer of each county in the year 1000 AD. He will still have the same function in the United States in the year 2000 AD.
The concepts of "county" and "Sheriff" were essentially the same as they had been during the previous 900 years of English legal history. Because of the English heritage of the American colonies, the new United States adopted the English law and legal institutions as its owner.
Clearly, the Sheriff is the only viable officer remaining of the ancient offices, and his contemporary responsibility as conservator of the peace has been influenced greatly by modern society. As the crossbow gave way to the primitive flintlock the Sheriff is not unaccustomed to change. But now, perhaps more than ever before in history, law enforcement is faced with complex, moving, rapid changes in methodology, technology, and social attitudes. As Thomas Jefferson wrote in his THE VALUE OF CONSTITUTIONS, "the Office of Sheriff is the most important of all the executive offices of the county."
DEKALB COUNTY SHERIFFS
(The term of office was two years, with a limit of three consecutive terms, until 1978)
Name and time period:
Pleasant A. Thomason 1833-1842James McGuire 1842-1845John Allen 1845-1848John L. Dearman 1848-1852Ezekiel W. Taylor, Sr. 1852-1856John Donnell 1856-1858J. Y. Stewart 1858-1860John Hallum 1860-1862Hezekiah Love 1862-1864Wm. L. Hathaway 1865-1868Charles J. Hill 1868-1870James Henry Blackburn 1870-1874M. F. Doss 1874-1878Charles S. Frazier 1882-1884Ben M. Merritt 1880-1882Charles S. Frazier 1882-1884Huston S. Gill 1884-1888Wm. H. C. Lassiter 1888-1892Silas F. Anderson 1892-1896Ben M. Merritt 1896-1898Louis Merritt 1898John T. Odom 1898-1902Barnabas Taylor 1902-1904L. Everett Love 1904-1908George C. Puckett 1908-1912Amon B. Frazier 1912-1916George C. Puckett 1916-1920Amon B. Frazier 1920-1922J. Harlie Cantrell 1922-1926Fred E. Terry 1926-1930Albert F. Foutch 1930-1932Charlie D. Eller 1932-1934John C. (Chub) Hill 1934-1938Will Vickers 1938-1940Alex O. Parker 1940-1942John C. (Chub) Hill 1942-1946Will Bullard 1946-1948C. H. Malone 1948-1954James Keith 1954-1958Harrison Puckett 1958-1960Harold Frazier 1960-1964W. H. Bing 1964-1966Doris Bing 1966Will Hall Windham 1966-1970Kelly Walker 1970-1972Creston Bain 1972-1976Dwight Mathis 1976-1986Kenneth Pack 1986-2002Lloyd Emmons 2002-2006Patrick Ray 2006-PresentCopyright © 2008-2010 - All rights reserved.
