The Leflore County Board of Supervisors requested an inventory Monday for the county’s Department of Homeland Security, to determine what, if anything, has become of dozens of mobile radios.
According to Leflore County Chancery Clerk Sam Abraham, the board is not certain that anything is missing, but, at the suggestion of District 4 Supervisor Wayne Self, it will run an inventory check to uncover any losses.
A motion to approve a grant that will provide the county with 80 mobile radios came before the board Monday. Self said someone at the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency had told him that a large number of radios had been stolen from the Leflore County Department of Homeland Security. How many radios might be missing is unclear.
T.W. Cooper, director of the county Department of Homeland Security, told the board he did not know if anything had happened to the radios.
Abraham told the Commonwealth, “I don’t know what’s going on because normally when you have something like that, you have someone come and tell you that something is missing.”
Abraham said he would coordinate with the inventory clerk today to go through all of the equipment that the county has received. He said it was possible that the radios might have been assigned to people without record not stolen.
“But if there are radios missing, we need to do a police report on them. That should have been performed immediately after they went missing,” he said.
Abraham said much of the equipment the department receives is kept in a movable communications trailer. Sheriff Ricky Banks said during Monday’s meeting that there may be “too many keys” to the trailer.
Abraham said the inventory would begin today and should be finished by the end of the week.
Despite the pending investigation, the board approved the grant that will allow the county to receive the new radios.
Also Monday, the Board of Supervisors:
• Granted $500 to Greenwood High School student Korey Roberson to attend a football combine in Los Angeles in January. Roberson was the only student in the region to be invited, and the event will be aired on national television.
Board Attorney Joyce Chiles said the board was legally allowed to donate the money as long as the action is considered an “advertisement of the county’s resources.” Self abstained from the vote.
• Approved closing the courthouse at 1 p.m. Friday for the Roy Martin Delta Band Festival and Christmas Parade.
• Approved a holiday schedule giving employees Christmas Eve and Christmas Day off.
• Contact Jeanie Riess at 581-7235 or jriess@gwcommonwealth.com.
