There is a chance that Nick Smith could be re-elected sheriff in Walker County.
Now, that might seem like an insignificant sentence to you, but I assure you that it is maybe the most mind-bending sentence you will read today. Because Nick Smith currently presides over a sheriff’s department that has seen 20 of its employees—nearly half the jail staff—be indicted for federal crimes.
Twenty.
Two-zero.
Let me put that in perspective for you: When the FBI busted the Gambino crime family in 2023, after a major sting operation, they arrested 16 people.
In Walker County so far, 14 of the 20 arrested have pleaded guilty. Almost all of the arrests and guilty pleas have stemmed from the torture death of Tony Mitchell.
I’ve written about Mitchell’s death before and it has been widely covered by state and national media. It continues to be a much discussed topic around Walker County, and a recent frontpage story in USA Today about Mitchell’s murder and the subsequent fallout has only thrown more gas on that fire.
Mitchell was arrested by the Walker County Sheriff’s Office following a mental health call out. Mitchell was suffering a psychotic episode, in which he told a family member he had found a portal to hell at his family home, when the family member called for help.
Mitchell fled into the woods when deputies arrived, and they claimed he fired a shot at them (although a firearm has never been entered into evidence, according to USA Today). He was taken into the Walker County Jail, where he was—and there is no more appropriate term—tortured for two weeks.
He was left naked in a cell for extended periods of time. He was barely provided food, most of which he could not chew because he had lost his dentures when officers tased him, and did not receive water for the final 70 hours he was in custody. There was no toilet in the cell and he was too weak to use the bathroom. After he was dragged to the showers, he was returned, naked and wet, to the cold, empty cell and left to freeze on the concrete floor.
And that’s how he died. After 14 days, his core body temperature reached 72 degrees by the time he finally was taken to a hospital. Hypothermia and sepsis killed him. He was so cold that attorneys and family members, along with some doctors, legitimately believed the employees at the Walker County Jail had put Mitchell in a freezer for an extended period.
Nick Smith was the sheriff during all of this. And he was the sheriff responsible for addressing it and cleaning it up and making sure that the general public knew that his jail was not a place for such barbaric and indecent behavior.
So, he responded by firing an employee—the woman who leaked the security footage of guards beating and dragging Tony Mitchell.
Make sure you read that properly.
He didn’t fire the men and women who beat, ignored, tortured, turned a blind eye to and ultimately killed Tony Mitchell.
He fired the lady who blew the whistle.
During a recent interview with USA Today, Smith refused to admit that Mitchell was treated badly. He ponders whether security footage might exist that exonerates his employees—the ones who have pleaded guilty already—although he failed to offer up a single second of video that would exonerate any of them or even paint any portion of the many awful acts in a somewhat better light.
He admitted in that interview to having never watched all of the security footage.
Because Nick Smith has no interest in cleaning up the Walker County Sheriff’s Department. Because Smith doesn’t think there’s a problem.
Even though there are many, many problems. In fact, there appears to be a higher percentage of criminals employed by the sheriff’s department at one time under Smith than there were residing in the jail controlled by Smith.
In addition to the 20 who have been arrested on federal charges, there are three other recent employees who have faced state charges. That includes a former reserve deputy indicted on child sex charges and it also includes Smith.
The sheriff is facing six misdemeanor charges for knowingly employing uncertified deputies. That includes hiring one uncertified deputy to work as a resource officer inside a school.
And yet, despite all of that, a recent poll published by the Cullman Daily—which may or may not be a legitimate source—showed Smith, who has positioned himself as the true conservative, with a slight lead (33 percent to 31 percent) over Jason Akins in the race for sheriff. (Because everyone knows that true conservatism is being OK with torturing people until they die.)
What are y’all doing?
Look, I don’t know Akins (or Smith, for that matter), but unless Akins is running a crime family that’s froze a person to death, I think he’s the safer bet. Honestly, if Smith was the only choice, you’d be better off without a sheriff.
Because it’s one thing to lack oversight, to blindly defend your employees, to fire a whistleblower and not the criminal, but it’s quite another to be confronted with clear evidence of all of that, and of the pain and destruction that it has caused the people you have sworn to protect, and refuse to even acknowledge it happened.
Walker County deserves better than that. But the people there are going to have to choose it for themselves.
