‘Boots on the ground running’: Marty Sawyer sworn in as new Aiken County sheriff

AIKEN, S.C. (WRDW/WAGT) - For the first time in more than two decades, Aiken County has a new sheriff.

On Tuesday, Marty Sawyer swore in as the county’s 19th sheriff, taking over for former sheriff Michael Hunt, who held the position since 2003.

Sawyer was sworn in a little after 1:30 p.m. at the Aiken County Courthouse.

He succeeds Michael Hunt, who’s retiring after decades in office.

Hunt gave a farewell speech that was broadcast over law enforcement radio.

“It has been a privilege and a pleasure to lead you,” he told deputies over the radio. “May God bless your families and continue to bless the sheriff’s office. So with 43 years of service and 29 as your sheriff, I’m officially out of service and retired.”

We got the chance to speak with Sheriff Sawyer and hear his goals for the year ahead to make Aiken better and safer.

“We’re boots on the ground running,” said Sawyer. “We’re gonna get things done.”

And he’s already putting plans into place.

“We’ve already started with improving stuff, with getting a new building started,” said Sawyer. “We hope to have an architect on the hook and ready to go by the end of February. We’re going to be putting printers in cars. Electronic ticket writing so they won’t have to write tickets anymore, it will all be electronic. And then the rural areas of Aiken County during the campaign, that’s all I heard is ‘We don’t ever see any cars, never seen a car.’ Visibility deters crime, so we’re going to move some people around and change some schedules to have a bigger presence in the rural areas of Aiken County.”

He also plans on adding as many school resource officers as possible and says his employees are a priority. He says they need to be treated well to serve well, starting by promoting within.

“There’s a bunch of good men and women over there, a bunch of men and women that want to serve the citizens of Aiken County, and I’m going to give them that opportunity to do it,” he said.

But as some move up, others move on.

Ready for a fresh start, without forgetting how they got there.

“He built a good foundation for us so we can start going up and there’s no other way to look at it,” said Sawyer. “I’m not going to filll his shoes. You have to think out of the box and go up.”

Two weeks ago, Sawyer announced several positions for his command staff.

Capt. Eric Abdullah will serve as chief deputy and has been in the position since Dec. 13.

Other appointments include Nick Gallam, detention center operations manager; Clay Adams, sheriff’s office operations manager; Peggy Desmarais, istrative service director; and Andrew Dailey, uniformed patrol captain; Kevin Liles, criminal investigations captain; Jason Todd, special operations captain; Richard Sullivan, technical services captain; Stephanie Callahan, detention center operations captain; and Robert Bowman, detention center captain.

Gallam and Adams will have the rank of major, according to Abdullah.

Sawyer, a Republican, defeated Democrat Lucas Grant for the sheriff position in November.

Sawyer started as a public safety officer at the Aiken Department of Public Safety in 1989, where he worked in the patrol division for eight years. After assignments in the special operations and narcotics divisions and the ATF Rage Task Force, Sawyer was promoted to Captain of Investigations in 2012.

Also in Aiken

Aiken County Council took the Oath of Office with a swearing-in ceremony on Tuesday.

• P.K. Hightower was sworn in for District 8.
• Andrew Siders was sworn in and re-elected for District 7.
• Landon Ball for District 4.
• Danny Feagin for District 3.

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