My friend Rodney sent me this link, concerning a new sheriff in Georgia who fired 27 sheriff’s office employees and had snipers on the roof while they were escorted out the door.

JONESBORO, Georgia (AP)—On his first day on the job, the new sheriff called 27 employees into his office, stripped them of their badges, fired them, and had rooftop snipers stand guard as they were escorted out the door.

The move Monday by Clayton County Sheriff Victor Hill provoked an angry reaction and prompted a judge to order him to rehire the employees.

“It appears … that employees of the Sheriff were terminated without cause” and in violation of the county’s civil service rules, Judge Stephen Boswell wrote in granting a 30-day restraining order.

At first I thought that maybe he was just ruffling feathers a bit with some housecleaning, but reading further sent my blood pressure to dangerous levels when I read this bit:

The firings had a racial overtone. Hill was among a spate of black candidates elected last year in the county once dominated by rural whites. The county seat was the setting for the fictional plantation Tara in “Gone With The Wind.”

The fired employees included four of the highest-ranking officers, all of them white. Hill told the newspaper their replacements would be black.

If the new sheriff had some reason to believe that these 27 officers were bad officers, then he could have put forth those reasons when firing them.  But if he’s just trying to bring in black officers to replace white ones, then that’s racist and should be considered as discrimination.  I don’t give a rat’s ass what previous “disparities” may have existed in the past, it’s just plain wrong to do this.

It’s heartening to see that there’s at least one black official in the county who understands that this is wrong:

Another of the newly elected black officials, Eldrin Bell, called the move illegal and filed for the restraining order granted by the judge. Bell is the new county commission chairman and former Atlanta police chief.

If the new sherriff has cause for the firings, then he can enumerate them.  Otherwise, this is just more racial BS, similar to what Terrell Bolton tried when he came to power in the Dallas PD.  The new sheriff may wish to ask the City of Dallas just how many millions of dollars that little fiasco cost the taxpayers.