Somerset —
Wayne County Deputy Sheriff Barry Shoemaker also agrees with those sentiments.
Deputy Shoemaker is the sole part-time officer who regularly patrols the remote area of Wayne County that was the subject of a front page article in yesterday’s Commonwealth Journal. During an interview yesterday afternoon, a defensive Shoemaker contended that accusations made by Mill Springs Road resident Daniel Fleagle were overblown. Fleagle has insisted that a racial slur drawn on the road near his house was a “hate crime” directed toward him, and is just the tip of a proverbial iceberg of criminal activities in the area.
“This is no hate crime,” Shoemaker asserted. “It’s a disagreement between two neighbors. ... I’m a U.S. Army veteran just like the Indian, and I don’t think this has anything to do with his ancestry.”
Fleagle, who said he is a Seneca from the Iroquois Nation, said he thinks the message scrawled in Kentucky blue paint above a drawing of a fist with an extended middle finger, “911 Indian” is a gangland reference to the World Trade Center tragedy and is a veiled threat to him.
“The Iroquois have never run from a fight and I don’t plan to,” he said.
Fleagle claims he personally saw Epperson, accompanied by a couple youths, painting the message on the roadway the night of June 13.
“He’s violating my civil rights. It’s like telling a woman that because she wears a halter top she deserves to be raped,” Fleagle said.
(As of yesterday the message was still on the road, probably due to rainy weather. However District 8 Highway Department officials said the obscene graffiti will be painted over.)
Shoemaker indicated that bad blood has existed for sometime between Fleagle and the man who formerly owned Fleagle’s house, Clifford Epperson. Epperson now lives on a property just up the road from Fleagle.
Shoemaker said Fleagle had filed criminal complaints against Epperson, the most recent of which was made earlier this month and served on Epperson on the Fourth of July. In it, Fleagle accused Epperson of harassment related to the obscene gesture painted on the roadway. A hearing on the complaint is scheduled August 16 in Wayne County.
(Wayne County Attorney L. Lee Tobbee declined to prosecute a February 2009 criminal complaint by Fleagle accusing Epperson of stealing gravel from Lynn Lane, which runs by Fleagle’s property. In a letter to Fleagle, Tobbee said there is an agreement that Epperson and others who own property at the end of Lynn Lane will share the expense of it’s maintenance. Tobbee said Fleagle could pursue it as a civil matter.)
Shoemaker, who has been patrolling the area part-time for three years, said Epperson has been cooperative in the current and past investigations. He referred to a log book he maintains that details each complaint he has received from Fleagle along with the results of his investigations. He also said he only recently became aware of the road painting.
“Clifford let me search his place and I couldn’t find any blue paint,” Shoemaker said of his investigation of Fleagle’s most recent harassment charge concerning the drawing. “I told the Indian I think he’s pushing Cliff and he should back off.”
“Clifford lost his house due to doctor bills of his wife — I served the foreclosure papers on him — and he has been trying to get back on his feet,” Shoemaker added.
If there is any point of agreement between Fleagle and Shoemaker, it’s that law enforcement in the tiny community which is part of Wayne County, but is isolated from the main land mass of Wayne County by the waters of Lake Cumberland, is very problematic.
“I’m a retired Fish and Wildlife officer and that’s considered a dangerous job. In my 20 years of service I only had to draw my gun once. But since patrolling this area, I have to pull it several times including last May when I had to put two guys down in a domestic dispute. I had them on the ground handcuffing them when a State Police unit arrived as backup. I didn’t even know they were on the way,” Shoemaker said.
Shoemaker, who works part-time for Wayne County Sheriff Charles Boston, lives in downtown Somerset — about 30 or more miles from the area he patrols.
“My primary responsibility is to patrol the Cumberland Point Recreation Area on weekends under contract with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers,” he explained.
Shoemaker said he doesn’t have much trouble on Mill Springs Road where Fleagle and Epperson live. He said a local resident has been helpful in monitoring the area as a Community Watch volunteer.
“I do have trouble in other areas such as Old Richardson Road,” Shoemaker acknowledged. “But the only 911 call out there was two months ago for a possible burglary in progress.”
He also admitted that law enforcement in the area is complicated by the fact that cell phone service in the meandering hollows can be intermittent at best.
“By the time I can respond to a call out there, whatever’s happening will already be over,” Shoemaker said. “My work is really lonely — and I don’t have any backup but the State Police ... and I can’t go arresting people without actually seeing them commit a crime.”
Although the isolated Wayne County area receives utility services from Pulaski County and fire protection from Faubush Tri-County Fire Station, past attempts to be annexed into Pulaski County — then it would be covered by the Pulaski County Sheriff — have failed.
“When the (expletive deleted) hits the fan, I tell people they better be armed if they need to protect themselves,” Shoemaker said. “It can take me a while to get out there.”
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