Carter County sheriff looks forward to 2020 after rough year

VAN BUREN — The Carter County Sheriff’s Department has seen its share of challenges in recent years, including its office and jail being destroyed by historic flooding.

While still housed in temporary space nearly three years after the flood, 2019 brought another unexpected challenge when Deputy Brigg Pierson was shot in the line of duty.

Pierson was shot multiple times in August while he and other officers were serving a court-ordered removal for a man from his Highway M residence.

Carter County Sheriff Rick Stephens described having a deputy get shot as “definitely nothing you can prepare for.”

Not only did Stephens have to deal “with that individual deputy, but being a smaller organization, I had to take active steps because, in the days after that, I could feel the department crumbling … whether it would be survivor’s guilt or whether it would be anxiety … or be deputies, them and their spouses starting to re-evaluate things because things like this don’t happen in rural America, and now it has.”

That, according to Stephens, was a very big challenge.

“In the aftermath of the Deputy Pierson shooting, I was thankful to a lot of our community partners,” Stephens said.

Several mental health partners came together and “assisted me with providing counseling and so forth for my staff, which was extremely beneficial,” Stephens said.

The Family Counseling Center (FCC) and the Missouri State Highway Patrol’s Defense Team, Stephens said, came “to my call for help and assistance.”

Stephens said the FCC set up mandatory counseling sessions, where employees could “meet with an actual licensed counselor/therapist to discuss any issues they may have.”

For those not experiencing issues at the time, the FCC was an available tool in the future to deal with any psychological issues, he said.

The patrol’s Defense Team, he said, provided critical incident debriefing and counseling for those “directly involved with the incident,” providing an opportunity for those involved “to sit down with peer counselors and professional counselors to really discuss the incident and how it is effecting them.

“So, we were really able to … push through.”

What Stephens also saw in the shooting’s aftermath was how his department came together, just as his staff did after the April 2017 flood and at other times.

“With it being a smaller department, I didn’t have to call people in,” Stephens said. “They’re there … whether off duty or not.

“We’re all a family, so it does effect everybody. That’s why I made it a point for even our dispatch personnel and our clerical personnel to go through the meetings as well.”

Stephens said there also were meetings for the spouses, who he described as the “forgotten group,” on how they deal with “the stress of their spouse going to work with potentially having a problem” arise during his or her shift.

The day of the shooting there was an interim supervisor, said Stephens, who had been at a Missouri Sheriff’s Association conference the preceding day.

“We had some personnel issues; someone needed a day off, and Brigg came in on his day off” to cover that shift, Stephens said.

In the days and weeks that followed, “I had to explain to people, even Brigg, from the get go, it was nobody’s fault,” Stephens said. “One person chose this action.”

And, as a result, he said, there was “no need for guilt, but people still feel that,” including the sheriff.

As a supervisor, Stephens said, there are times when he feels guilt.

“Am I keeping my guys safe?” Stephens asked.

That, he said, is something to be worked through.

“It is a huge challenge,” he said. “I wouldn’t wish that challenge on anybody, but I think we came out … in a positive manner and really set the tone for our officers.

“Not only are their job performances, not only their ethics, but also their physical and mental health are important to us as an organization,” Stephens said. “We’re going to be there to address that and help them address any needs they have.”

With the challenges his department has faced, Stephens said, he is “getting tired” of them, and admitted there are times when he wants to say he can’t handle it anymore.

When what Stephens described as a bad storm came through Van Buren a couple of weeks after Pierson was shot, “I remember looking at some of my people (and saying), ‘If we get a tornado, I’m done,’” said Stephens. “The only damage was the roof of my hotel; everything else was safe.”

Despite the challenges, “you just keep plugging along and remembering why we’re doing it in the first place,” Stephens said. “That is to serve our public.

“I doesn’t benefit our public to give up. We’ve just got to keep fighting forward regardless of the challenges.”

As Stephens has faced those challenges, “I’m thankful for the staff we have. They really show what I’ve known in my heart, that they care about the community.

“They’ve walked through a lot of difficult situations with only the intent to serve this community. I’m very proud of each and every one of them.”

As Stephens looks ahead to the new year, he said, he and his department “look forward to entering 2020 with a renewed vigor for community enhancement and revitalization.”

Stephens said he and his staff are excited about the department’s new location in the Griffin Business Complex off of U.S. 60 and “our enhanced ability to serve our citizens more effectively.”

Having said goodbye to some “special staff members” in 2019, Stephens said, his department looks “forward to adding new faces as we lay the foundation for positive public safety throughout Carter County.”