GREENVILLE — When Greenville County Sheriff Hobart Lewis took office in 2020, he was tasked with leading one of the state's largest law enforcement agencies through the pandemic and further cleaning up the mess of a disgraced former sheriff.
Now, as he begins his first true reelection campaign, Lewis faces retired longtime sheriff's deputy Mike Fortner, an agency veteran who said more is yet to be done to improve the department's culture.
The vote is pivotal: The winner of the June 11 Republican primary will presumptively be Greenville County's sheriff for the next four years, as no other candidates filed to compete in the November general election.
With 29 years at the sheriff's office, Fortner told The Post and Courier that he's witnessed an entrenched "good ol' boy system" that's affecting morale and driving deputies to leave.
Favoritism reigns when it comes to discipline and promotions, he said. Some deputies get off easier than others for the same mistake, and some deputies consistently get passed over for promotions they feel they deserve.
When deputies are unhappy, they're not performing as well as they could be. And when they leave, it becomes an expensive burden on taxpayers to replace them.
Lewis agrees, at least in part.
"I came into that," Lewis told The Post and Courier. "I get what he's saying. He's right. Changing the culture here has been a large part of what we've done in four years."
Lewis said his sheriff's office has made progress, focusing on promoting the best people for the job and constantly evaluating policy. Most of the comments about deputies not getting a fair shake on promotions are coming from the ones who didn't make the cut, he said.
Lewis attributed "very low" retention to other factors related to a career in law enforcement, like deputies having troubling encounters or feeling like they don't make a difference.
Fortner said he has seen this culture within the department ever since he began as a reserve deputy in 1992.
"I think it’s probably worse today than it was when I first started," he said.
Since his taking office, Lewis pointed toward a shrinking number of vacancies in deputy positions. At its peak in 2022, Lewis said there were 100 vacancies out of 574 deputy positions. As of April 16, Lewis said the office is down to 18 vacancies.
To Fortner, the numbers don't tell the full story.
He's noticed a push to fill vacant positions regardless of the quality of the candidate. Hiring people who were just looking for a job but not necessarily a career in law enforcement has increased turnover, Fortner said.
"When I got hired, and you went down to the academy, and they found out that you worked at the Greenville County Sheriff's Office, they’d be like, ‘Oh wow, you work at the Greenville County Sheriff's Office.’ That really meant something," Fortner said. "I don't think that's the case today, so much.”
A turbulent start
Hobart Lewis was sworn in as sheriff on March 16, 2020, following a special election. He filled a vacancy left by disgraced predecessor Will Lewis, who was convicted in 2019 of misconduct in office and sentenced to a year in prison. Will Lewis (no relation to the current sheriff) was accused of pursuing a sexual affair with a subordinate employee by way of giving her a higher salary, a special car and other perks.
As Hobart Lewis took over for governor-appointed interim Sheriff Johnny Mack Brown, South Carolina officials had just begun their response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Two months later, protests after the death of George Floyd swept the nation and erupted in chaos, including on the streets of Greenville. In July, a shooting at a Greenville nightclub killed two and wounded eight. Then, in October, a deputy was killed in a drug-related traffic stop off Interstate 85 when the suspect tried to drive away, dragging the deputy into oncoming traffic. where he was struck a tractor-trailer.
"In my first several months being in office, those are the things that would shape the next four years for me," Lewis said. "And I didn’t know it at the time: There was a huge difference in running for sheriff and being the sheriff. Politics is a funny thing."
Along the way, Lewis has faced criticism for his deputies' interactions with the public.
In 2021, two Greenville City Council members expressed scathing concern about the "hostility" of deputies compared to city officers during the Black Lives Matter protests and in interactions in majority-Black neighborhoods.
Lewis dismissed their concerns as politically motivated and catering to their electorate, which is largely minority-based.
"I couldn’t care less what a City Council person’s opinion is," Lewis said. "I don’t care what County Council’s opinion is, to be honest. Until you strap on a uniform, put a helmet on and a gas mask, and come out there, don’t tell me nothing."
In the wake of national law enforcement reform, Lewis said his office reviewed their policy prohibiting chokeholds, brought sworn-deputy EMTs onto staff and started a "customer service program" to train deputies how to best interact with the public.
Greenville County sheriff race signs for incumbent Hobart Lewis and longtime sheriff’s deputy and challenger Mike Fortner.
Greenville County leads in deputy-involved shootings
Throughout Lewis's term, there have been 10 deputy-involved shootings resulting in eight deaths, the most of any agency in the state, according to a Post and Courier database of shootings involving law enforcement.
Lewis has attributed the statistic to increasing violence, drug problems and mental illness after the pandemic.
Fortner, who spent three years in the department's internal affairs division, is calling for more transparency into these investigations.
"Unfortunately, law enforcement can be a very ugly job sometimes," Fortner said. "And law enforcement officers are forced into doing things that they would rather not do. If it happens, it needs to be very transparent and very forthcoming to the general public."
With greater, quicker transparency, critical events will have less time to build tension within the community, he said. He acknowledged there is a necessary balance to avoid compromising the investigation by releasing too much information.
Lewis pushed back on the idea that the current sheriff's office is not transparent, saying that they are "as transparent as possible."
With deputy-involved incidents, Lewis pointed toward the office's community briefing policy, which publishes curated accounts using what the office considers privileged body-cam video of the situation 45 days after they occur. He also noted that they ask the State Law Enforcement Division to independently investigate all of their deputy-involved shootings.
Crime concerns in a growing Greenville County
As Greenville County continues to grow at record pace, both Lewis and Fortner expressed a need to prioritize combating gangs, illegal immigration and fentanyl overdoses.
At the local level, there is not much the sheriff's office can do to combat illegal immigration, but both candidates said they hope lawmakers give them an enforcement arm to take action.
Lewis said that the sheriff's office working with the region's Drug Enforcement Unit has helped to combat illegal drugs like fentanyl. Fentanyl investigators are assigned to specific overdoses to find the drug dealers and prosecute them, Lewis said.
By nature of its jurisdiction, the Greenville County Sheriff's Office is one of the state's largest law enforcement agencies.
Fortner said the sheriff's office should be setting the standard for other agencies, especially on training.
Lewis said that being sheriff has been the greatest professional honor of his life, a role that he has dedicated countless hours to and will continue to if reelected.
