Deputy Sims shot – Report by Robert A. Williams

Sources report that Cleveland County Sheriff’s Department Deputy Sims, son of Senior Pastor Dr. Timothy Sims of the Bethel Baptist Church, was shot in the face and thigh Tuesday night around 10:30 PM during a traffic stop on Highway 74 between Kings Mountain and Shelby. Deputy Sims was airlifted to Charlotte and is expected to recover relatively soon. Our thoughts and Prayers should go out to the Sims family.

Deputy Sims also fired his weapon during the shootout but missed. A suspect was arrested early Wednesday morning walking down the street in Harrisburg, NC. It has been reported that the suspect was not being sought out by law enforcement at the time of the shooting.

Please note that Deputy Sims has not been formally identified as the victim in this shooting by the Sheriff’s Department or TV News. We are not bound by such rules or policies and believe that the public should be fully aware of dangers that surround us every day-and night. And, the identities of our sources are protected.

That being said, we can now extrapolate what we do know to form statistical based theories of what has happened here.

First, it is likely and probable that the suspect here is on probation for a previous crime or crimes. Perhaps the suspect was attempting to escape from a crime scene at that very moment. His criminal experience with the justice system would have told him that he faced with very serious charges if he was caught with a weapon or stolen goods in a random traffic stop. This is a very logical in that almost 80% of crimes are committed by repeat offenders. Offenders who get plea bargains and probation because the court system is overloaded with administration of their own making such that they don’t want to hold trials anymore. It’s the revolving door down at the Courthouse that Sheriff Alan Norman has complained about. During my recent call to jury duty, I happened to look over the Superior Court Calendar and the vast majority of cases were for probation violations.

The probation system has obviously developed into an industry and a bureaucracy all of it’s own.