Meet Stuart Prettel, one of the candidates running for Aiken County sheriff (2024)

Stuart Prettel is a candidate for Aiken County sheriff.

The current sheriff, Michael Hunt, announced early in 2023 that he wouldn’t be seeking reelection.

Prettel’s opponents in the June 11 Republican primary are Marty Sawyer and Ed Wilson.

Prettel has lived in Aiken for more than 30 years and is an Aiken County Sheriff’s Office retiree.

During a career in public service spanning several decades, he has served as a police officer, a deputy and a South Carolina state constable.

A Vietnam-era veteran and a member of Millbrook Baptist Church, Prettel has a daughter and a son, as well as three grandchildren.

Prettel’s son followed in his father’s footsteps and became a deputy sheriff.

Why do you want to be the sheriff of Aiken County?

I believe running for, and being sheriff of Aiken County should be a calling to serve.

I am retired from the Aiken County Sheriff’s Office, and our crime rate was extremely low when I was a street deputy.

Aiken County was one of the safest counties in South Carolina at one time, and now the crime rate has exploded.

I have traveled from one end of the county to the other. The citizens have lost all confidence in the Sheriff’s Office.

It will take a strong leader who knows the county to begin to fix what has been broken for a long time.

It seems that almost daily there is some shooting across the county.

Fentanyl and meth are commonplace on the streets of Aiken County now, and every death from these drugs is a tragedy to the person who died and to their loved ones.

Aiken County has been my home for 35 years, and I care deeply about the citizens of this county and my neighbors.

I know I can make a great difference in this county, protecting the citizens and making the working lives of the deputies much better.

What do you think is Aiken County’s biggest law enforcement challenge, and what do you plan to do about it?

Aiken County’s greatest law-enforcement challenge is a growing crime rate.

There is an old saying, “The fish rots from the head down.”

If you have someone who is in charge that does not communicate with the citizens, and is not out in the street with his deputies finding out what is happening in the county, he cannot know what there is to fix.

Much of what needs to be changed is the attitude toward the citizens, and that the Sheriff’s Office works for the citizens and the citizens do not work for the Sheriff’s Office. I believe that basic premise has been lost over the years.

As far as drug enforcement, we need to get drug agents who have never been in Aiken County and start making buys and swearing out warrants, start raiding these drug houses that have opened up all across the county.

With the influx of new people coming into our county every day, the Sheriff’s Office must enlarge to adequately serve the people of Aiken County.

In Sarasota, Florida, they have instituted a program and have partnered with the Red Cross. They have reduced their homeless population from 1,100 to 104 in four years.

We can do the same in Aiken County and must partner with many of these organizations to assist and reduce our homeless population.

Training must be instituted once again, so the deputies know the law and what they tell people is accurate and constructive.

We also desperately need a traffic division. Stop signs, red lights and speed limits are now merely a suggestion.

With a traffic division, people won’t have to sit on the side of the road waiting for the highway patrol for one to two hours if they’re tied up with another fender bender somewhere else.

A deputy can write a 10-minute accident report and get the citizen off the side of the road, which makes it much safer. They will be much happier, and [it] frees up highway patrol to do what they do best.

We also must partner with other agencies and possibly the federal government to stop the gangs that have arisen in Aiken County. Intelligence, information and proactive enforcement are the keys to reducing or eliminating these gangs.

What will be your other priorities as sheriff?

I was in foster care when I was young, and a chance meeting with a police officer changed my life when he took the time to talk to me. He had such an impact in my life that I decided at that moment I was going to be a police officer, and I’ve done it for 45 years.

Every deputy on the street can have the same impact on people, if they would just take the time and communicate with the citizens.

The culture must change among the Sheriff’s Office [employees] to include community awareness.

Community outreach is vital in this day and age, so the youth know that the police are on their side and not someone to run from or to fight.

I absolutely believe in community policing where the officers know the area that they are working in, and they know the people.

I worked the Valley for several years, and I knew who the criminals were, and I knew who was most likely to be victimized. I would help them secure their homes and take precautions.

The sheriff also controls the jail that has been overcrowded from the beginning.

With the new population coming in every day it also brings in criminals, and we must do whatever we can to protect the citizens of Aiken County, either by building new jails or sending the inmates somewhere else, which unfortunately will cause overcrowding in the new place.

Cultural changes, economics and drugs have all contributed to a skyrocketing crime rate. Every one of these issues must be addressed effectively through dedicated and proactive law enforcement.