Sheriff’s Race: Upstart Jackson to Face Incumbent

publication date: Jul 14, 2008

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author/source: Shannon Alderman and John Fredericks / STAFF

By Shannon Alderman and John Fredericks / STAFF

Former FBI Agent and Fulton County Sheriff Democratic hopeful, Ted Jackson, watches the election results on television with campaign manager Ken Sanders at his headquarters on 14th Street in Midtown, Atlanta.

North Fulton County resident and former FBI agent Ted Jackson stunned Fulton County incumbent Sheriff Myron E. Freeman and seven other Democratic challengers by grabbing 17 percent of the vote and gaining a spot in the August 5 run-off with Freeman.

Jackson bested third place finisher Frank Brown by over 600 votes and hammered Alpharetta resident and candidate Aubrey Osteen by better than 4,000. Osteen ran an aggressive campaign but could not overcome Jackson’s robust plurality in Sandy Springs, Roswell and Johns Creek.

Jackson is now poised to upset the embattled Freeman, who is still reeling from the Brian Nichols tragedy. Although Freeman led the pack with 30 percent of the vote total, 70 percent of voters chose an opponent of his. Most of those votes will go to Ted Jackson in the run-off.

The winner will face GOP candidate Mike Rary in November.

The Scene at the ‘Ted’
It wasn’t a scene of fervor or excitement at Ted Jackson’s Midtown campaign headquarters; rather, the 25-plus campaign staff members ate food, talked and watched the television until close to midnight waiting for the election results of Tuesday night’s Democratic primary for Fulton County Sheriff to roll in.

Ken Sanders, campaign manager for Ted Jackson, was flabbergasted at the early results.

“I am really surprised by tonight. I thought we’d get 51 percent of the vote. This shocked me. The other candidates are not even close to Jackson. He is so much better qualified,” Sanders said.

In an old church building at 380 14th Street Jackson appeared stone faced at the prospect of an August 5 run-off against Freeman, whose tenure as sheriff has been beleaguered by troubles. He has had to deal with a 2005 shooting at the Fulton County courthouse and a recent order by a U.S. District Court judge to appear in court to be questioned about the overcrowded, dilapidated and deteriorating conditions of a jail he was ordered to fix – issues Jackson finds disturbing and perplexing.

“I don’t think people are aware of the jeopardy this current sheriff’s office has put this county in,” Jackson said. “Taxpayers [in this county] really need to pay attention because a federal judge is telling the current sheriff that he has misled the court and has ordered him to show cause as to why he shouldn’t be charged with contempt,” Jackson added. “That is a serious issue.”

Restoring integrity to the office of sheriff is one of Ted Jackson’s primary stated campaign goals. Jackson retired from the FBI after a 32-year career and he served as the interim sheriff of Fulton County from July through December 2004 when Jackie Barrett was removed as sheriff and before Freeman took office.

“We have to restore dignity, pride and prestige to the office of sheriff,” he said, “and we have to make people comfortable when they come into the courthouse by improving security and modernizing the technology on the inside.”

When pressed to articulate just what those modernizations would entail, Jackson was hard to pin down. “We need to upgrade the technology,” he reiterated.

Morale of the employees is another key issue that Jackson said has been overlooked in the three-plus years Freeman has been at the helm. “The employees have been without a leader and there is no organizational structure.”

Across town, defeated challenger Aubrey Osteen offered more tangible solutions to the overcrowding jail issues including building satellite jails akin to what he created in Alpharetta with the annexation of the jail there. But Jackson said that idea was pie in the sky.

“It sounds like a simple solution but that takes money, resources,” Jackson said. “And to say that you are going to do that without doing the proper analysis and proper study, without exploring it in a professional way, it is just not going to work.”

By midnight, red, tired eyes marred the faces of the dozen or so left in the room but Jackson stood to rouse his small crowd. He thanked his campaign and urged them to carry on. “I have been endorsed by [newspapers] on two occasions and people need to be aware of the reason for that,” he said. “In essence they said the sheriff is incompetent and they need to give him a pink slip and vote someone in to do the job. With so many issues and things currently wrong with the office of sheriff, it is going to take a lot of work and a good management team to restore it.”

Both Jackson and Sanders shared a similar thought when asked about their next steps leading up to the run-off against Freeman. “Tonight, sleep,” Sanders said flatly.

With a 16,000-vote deficit to make up, it may be Freeman who is losing sleep.