Sheriff candidate’s past should haunt the election

When Sheronica Smith was a school resource officer almost a year ago, she assaulted my 14-year-old daughter on the school bus. My child’s offense? She sat in the wrong seat. Now Smith wants this community to vote for her to become the sheriff of Scotland County.

Experts and good sense tell us negative experiences with law enforcement lead to decreased public confidence in the system and ultimately impact their ability to protect and serve our communities. How can anyone have confidence in a chief law enforcement officer who resorts to physically assaulting a child?

I still remember hearing my daughter’s screams and seeing Smith on top of her on that bus like it was yesterday. I remember Smith told me one story, and kids on the bus who witnessed the incident told me an entirely different one. I remember seeing my daughter cry on the way home with blood on her face.

I thought my daughter had done something wrong because Smith portrayed her as an aggressor. Now, I regret apologizing to Smith in the moment because multiple videos of the incident showed that was a lie. To this day, Smith has not apologized to me or my child. She was demoted, suspended without pay, and disciplined for her actions by the Sheriff’s Office, but it wasn’t enough.

My daughter has struggled with post-traumatic stress and anxiety since the assault. She is a good kid who never had run-ins with authority previously – never in a million years did I think something like this would happen to my child. Now, the littlest things trigger her and she has panic attacks that sometimes require medical intervention. There have been countless sleepless nights with my daughter because of her anxiety or nightmares from this incident. As a parent, I wouldn’t wish this on anyone — there’s a certain kind of pain that comes from seeing your child suffer.

All of my children are now afraid of law enforcement, including my son, who also witnessed Smith’s assault on my daughter. Smith’s campaign slogan is “A Sheriff for All,” but “all” does not include my child, and I would argue it doesn’t include any of our children. In a moment when Smith was tasked with protecting and serving our children, she chose to physically strike my child, who was in trouble for sitting in the wrong seat on a school bus.

I have no hard feelings toward Smith; I just think she and others — including the school and sheriff’s office — could have handled the situation with my daughter better. True leaders make better choices and, when they falter, they acknowledge their mistake, make amends, and learn from it. Smith has shown she is not capable of working in schools with our children, and she certainly should not inherit the largely unchecked power that comes with being a sheriff in North Carolina.

Sheriffs are different from police chiefs in that there is far less accountability — they don’t report to city or county officials and have fewer checks on power. Their roles can vary, but they are responsible for managing personnel, overseeing local jails, determining how to enforce the law, and addressing crime as they see fit.

I’m not here to endorse any candidates, I only ask that my fellow voters be wary of who they choose to empower at a time when relations with law enforcement, particularly with communities of color, are already so fraught. We need someone who leads by example, who practices de-escalation in difficult situations, who treats all people in their jurisdiction equally, and who takes ownership of their actions. We need a leader who prioritizes and takes seriously our youth, who are our future.

It’s my duty as a mother to demand better for my daughter. It’s our duty as voters to come together and demand better for our community.