Former Sherriff Arrested for Murder of Sherriff-Elect

accessatlanta.com ^ | 11/30/01

[lugsoul]

Former DeKalb sheriff charged in sheriff-elect's murder

By Erin McClam, The Associated Press

A former DeKalb County sheriff was arrested Friday in the slaying of a sheriff-elect who was gunned down in his driveway just days before he was to take office.

Former Sheriff Sidney Dorsey and two other men were jailed before dawn and each charged with murder in the shooting death of Sheriff-elect Derwin Brown last December, DeKalb police chief E.J. Moody said.

Brown beat Dorsey in a bitter runoff election just months before the shooting, promising to clean up a sheriff's department plagued by years of corruption. Dorsey had repeatedly denied involvement in the sheriff-elect's killing.

Also arrested were Melvin D. Walker, a former DeKalb sheriff's deputy, and David Isaiah Ramsey, whom authorities said Dorsey once tried to recruit as a sheriff's deputy.

The arrests were announced by Moody and DeKalb District Attorney J. Tom Morgan at a predawn news conference in the Atlanta suburb of Decatur.

Authorities declined to say whether they believed any of the men pulled the trigger Dec. 15, 2000. Brown was shot 11 times in front of his home in what the sheriff's department called an assassination.

"This has been a long 11 months," Moody told reporters. "It's been a long haul. It's been a long time getting here."

All three men were arrested without incident, Moody said. Dorsey surrendered himself at police headquarters, and the other two men were arrested at their homes, he said.

The men were scheduled to appear before a judge later in the day.

Authorities awoke Brown's widow, Phyllis, to tell her about the arrests.

"I just want it to be over," she told WSB-TV. "The sad thing is, nothing will bring my Derwin back."

Dorsey was under investigation for allegedly using on-duty deputies to work for his private security company and for letting jail inmates work in a home repair program run by his wife.

Brown told 38 department employees they would be fired when he took office Jan. 1.

Dorsey's wife, Sherry, was defeated earlier this month in a race to keep her seat on the Atlanta City Council.

In interviews in the weeks after the slaying, Dorsey repeatedly denied any involvement. In one television appearance, he said the people responsible "should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. And I mean capital punishment."

Walker and Ramsey both were charged in March with lying to investigators probing the Brown slaying. Ramsey applied for a job in the DeKalb sheriff's office but was rejected for falsifying his employment history.

As recently as August, the district attorney said the investigation into Brown's murder had stalled, with no fresh evidence collected in months. Morgan had characterized the case as "dead in the water."

But a break in the investigation apparently came earlier this week, when a former sheriff's deputy won a plea deal from prosecutors for his role in a deadly shootout in DeKalb County in March.

Patrick Cuffy, who had been charged with murder, was allowed to plead guilty to assault Wednesday.

Authorities have said they believe the March shootout and the Brown murder are somehow related.

[lugsoul]

Got 'im - finally.

[justshutupandtakeit]

Local politics at its finest. Hell, we don't even kill newly elected sheriffs in Cook County so this must be a real rat's nest of corruption.

[WhyisaTexasgirlinPA]

We also experienced a corrupt Sheriff while we lived in Texas. Many people literally lived in fear of him for years.

When he was finally defeated, enough evidence was gathered to send him to the Federal Penitentiary. Unfortunately, he pled to a lesser charge of theft under $180,000 and got a light sentence. Those who investigated the story believed he stole over a million dollars.....

We got lucky - our corrupt Sheriff only stole money, he didn't kill....

[katykelly]

I wonder who was killed in the March shoot out?

[Howie]

I wonder if this will be put in the "hate-crime" column? Was the incumbent sheriff white? Just curious.

[lugsoul]

A dealer, they believe.

[lugsoul]

This family, at least. Former Sherriff Dorsey's wife was an Atlanta city councilperson until about three weeks ago, when we voters threw her ass out (the victorious challenger should be watching her back). She is under investigation for using prisoners from her husband's jail to renovate properties owned by political supporters.

[writmeister]

The former sheriff must have also been black. Else, the story would have portrayed the shooting in the obligatory racial hate crime perspective.

[lugsoul]

No - both are black.

[coloradan]

People don't kill people - sheriffs kill people. This is why we need common-sense, reasonable, modest, sheriff-safety legislation.

[mercy]

Faulkner was right. Corruption is the bain of the South. Not that corruption is not found everywhere but it is deeply and firmly ingrained in the deep South. It is palpable still although better than it was in the days of the KKK. The more Northerners that immigrate the better it will get. Yankees may be a pain but generally they do not tollerate cooked cops. Pols maybe, but not cops. (yes, there are exceptions but for every example cited I can cite major arrests of cops in those precincts)

[hgro]

Looks like the law of the jungle doesn't it?

[beckett]

An amazing case. I remember watching on TV shortly after the murder and remarking about the boldness with which Dorsey proclaimed his innocence!

[Ben Chad]

This is excellent news. The Sherriff's office in Dekalb has been a den of corruption. Derwin Brown, a good man, was going to clean the place up. Derwin reminded me of Buford Pusser, Walking Tall Sherriff of McNairy County TN from 1964 to 1970, who tried to rid the county of mob-related corruption. If Dorsey is convicted, he will not be the first Dekalb sheriff to have that distinction. Sheriff Pat Jarvis, former pitcher for the Atlanta Braves and husband of family court judge Gail Flake, was sent to prison for his part in a jail contract kickback scheme. The greater Atlanta area sorely needs a few good men like Buford Pusser and Derwin Brown.

[rushtafarian]

We were living up in the Atlanta area during the time this happened. Derwin Brown was indeed an honest man. The corruption up there starts at the Atlanta mayor's office and heads downward. That idiot has been in more hot water than any fifty lobsters you might have known. The idiot mayor's idiot son's friend was being chased by the Atlanta cops for suspected drug possession, etc. The idiot friend drove up in the idiot mayor's yard and the idiot mayor REFUSED to allow the cops to come on his property to get the idiot kid. Sounds like the type of guy I'd want to run my city, doesn't it to you? Glad to be back in SW FL.

God bless the true patriot.

rushtafarian

[.45MAN]

Maybe we can get a universal safty lock on all Sherrifs'.

[Ben Chad]

I couldn't agree more. It's not just crooked cops. It's also crooked judges and courts that have a penchant to award child custody in divorce cases to pedophiles with deep pockets (cf., this outrageous case that, by golly, has the imprint of Gail Flake). Dekalb County, Cobb County, it's all the same.

[Ben Chad]

Former Sherriff Dorsey's wife was an Atlanta city councilperson until about three weeks ago, when we voters threw her ass out (the victorious challenger should be watching her back).

Warms my heart. With voters like you, maybe there is hope.

[Clemenza]

The more Northerners that immigrate the better it will get.

Be careful what you wish for and consider yourself luck that most transplants to Texas come from the midwest. Transplants from New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, etc. took over much of South Florida 25 years ago and it has been a left-wing hell hole ever since. I will take corruption over communism any day of the week. :-)

--- Transplanted Yankee

[Diddle E. Squat]

Huh? Ever heard of Philly, NYC, Newark, Boston, Baltimore, DC, Cleveland, Detroit, Chicago? And you have the gall to insinuate that the South is more corrupt? The mob is nowhere near as entrenched in the South as the north. Sure there are exceptions, and to an extent corruption is a problem everywhere, but your statement is pretty ignorant.