‘Preacher’s son’ to be county’s next sheriff – Washington Daily News

Scott Hammonds is “humbled and grateful” to be chosen as Beaufort County’s next sheriff and to be the sheriff of “a county that doesn’t have a lot of the country’s problems,” he said.

Growing up as a self-described “preacher’s son,” Hammonds said slavery was a lifelong passion and the reason he became interested in joining the military and later law enforcement. His father was a Church of God minister who raised Hammonds in an environment that taught him loyalty, discipline, structure, expectations and responsibility. Those are the same traits required of sheriff’s and law enforcement officers, Hammonds said.

Hammonds served in the U.S. National Guard for 32 years before earning his Basic Law Enforcement Certificate in 1993 from Beaufort County Community College. He worked for the Chacowinity Police Department, the Beaufort County Sheriff’s Office and the North Carolina Highway Patrol, spending more than 27 years with the Highway Patrol. He has military police experience and an associate’s degree in criminal justice from Beaufort County Community College.

On Monday, Dec. 5, Hammonds will take on his next job as Beaufort County’s new sheriff. But what will it look like on December 6, his first full day?

His first day will consist of going through inventory, receiving safety briefings and setting expectations for what he will do with his newly appointed chief deputy sheriff of his choosing.

From there, he can begin implementing his campaign agenda, which includes returning deputies from the Beaufort County Sheriff’s Office to Beaufort County schools as school resource officers, increasing patrol staff to improve response times and forming alliances with sheriffs in border counties to address ongoing problems of illicit drug use and gang violence.