Substantial changes are occurring at the McCurtain County Sheriff’s Office.
Larry Hendrix has resigned. He was a former undersheriff who became jail administrator, who was then fired by the jail trust and hired immediately by the sheriff’s office.
A few other people have been fired.
Meanwhile, two high-caliber officers who had been run off by the former sheriff, Devin Black and John Jones, have volunteered to help the new administration, and have been welcomed there.
But the changes go deeper than that. Word is now getting out that the former sheriff, Kevin Clardy, wasn’t just neutral on drug enforcement or rather the lack of enforcement. He reportedly even threatened to fire officers who wanted to work drug cases.
And that’s not all.
The Department of Corrections obtained an arrest warrant for a former inmate involved in drugs.
The sheriff reportedly refused to arrest the man, who lived west of Idabel and outside city limits.
DOC then contacted Idabel police, who assisted in making the arrest. When officers arrived where the man was, his relatives came outside and reportedly asked why Kevin wasn’t working the case (since they were outside city limits).
“Kevin would take care of this,” they said.
The man was taken into custody and arrested without incident, but DOC officials were reportedly astounded by the sequence of events and wrote down what happened.
Since Bruce Shirey has become sheriff, a huge quantity of methamphetamine has been seized and multiple drug trafficking cases filed.
Also, the sheriff’s office is once again assisting and backing up the Broken Bow Police Department, which it hadn’t done in a long time under the former sheriff.
Clardy reportedly stopped helping the department when it took on former sheriff’s investigator John Jones as a reserve officer.
Broken Bow Police Richard Wiggins told the Broken Bow News this week that Jones has been a “blessing” to the department.
Wiggins is clearly elated with the new sheriff.
“I think we’re definitely on the right track, on the upswing,” he said. “I feel like we’re going back to an era like we had when Johnny Tadlock was sheriff…cooperation between all the agencies.”
A comparison to Tadlock is high praise. Tadlock had one of the best reputations as county sheriff because he was both frugal and highly effective in his leadership.
