Dear Editor,

With nearly 60,000 hits on the “Sheriff Turner threatens…” story in a county with a population of about 67,764, one can assume that lots of people are upset about what the sheriff did. But why? The reason is that what our sheriff did is very, very wrong.

Forget family values, forget religious values and forget conservative values, because even in this most conservative buckle of the Bible Belt, human values are still the most important values to our people. Our Georgia code recognizes that we cherish liberty, and will tolerate no assault on it.

OCGA 21-2-567 says: “(a) Any person who uses or threatens to use force and violence, or acts in any other manner to intimidate any other person, to:

(1) Vote or refrain from voting at any primary or election, or to vote or refrain from voting for or against any particular candidate or question submitted to electors at such primary or election; or

(2) Place or refrain from placing his or her name upon a register of electors shall be guilty of a felony and, upon conviction thereof, shall be sentenced to imprisonment for not less than one nor more than ten years or to pay a fine not to exceed $100,000.00, or both.

(b) As used in this Code section, the term ‘acts in any other manner to intimidate’ means to undertake or pursue a knowing and willful course of conduct which causes emotional distress by placing another person in reasonable fear for such person’s safety or for the safety of another person and which serves no legitimate purpose.”

The next question is who will enforce this law?

Mike Smith

LaGrange