Paulding County sheriff highlights ALERT school training, staffing and equipment upgrades

Sheriff Ashley Henson told the Board of Commissioners that Paulding County deputies spent fall break conducting Advanced Law Enforcement Rapid Response Training (ALERT) at Paulding County High School to practice integrated active-shooter response with other county first responders.

Henson said the on-site exercises let deputies learn building layouts and ‘‘proper building-clearing techniques,’’ and practice incident command and cross-agency coordination with Paulding County EMS and Paulding County Emergency Management Agency. "Bringing the fire department in is probably the biggest success to this because deputies are now getting a lot of tactical training for wound care, but it's never going to be as good as those EMTs, those paramedics, and those firefighters," Henson said.

The training was part of a broader presentation in which Henson, identifying herself as the sheriff, outlined personnel and program changes since taking office. She said the office has 320 employees (full- and part-time), 42 vacancies and has filled eight positions in 2025; the jail is operating with 252 inmates in a 631-bed capacity. Henson described an organizational restructure that added division commanders and assistant division commanders across units, and said several senior deputies returned to the SWAT team.

Henson also announced new and expanded units and personnel: a cold-case unit overseen by Captain Mike Hill that includes a part‑time retired FBI agent; an intelligence unit led by Jody Vaughn; a gang unit; and an expanded K‑9 program with Deputy Matthew Crook noted as certified with a new K‑9 partner. She named Billy Hurst as chief deputy and Clint Langford as chief administrator.

On equipment and grants, Henson said the sheriff's office was awarded a Bureau of Justice Assistance matching grant of $297,000 to buy body-worn cameras; the office will start vendor testing and selection next week. She also described a pending application for a Highway Enforcement of Aggressive Traffic (HEAT) grant to fund traffic enforcement positions and vehicles, and said the office recently purchased about 50 updated duty pistols within the current budget.

Henson credited partnerships—Northwest Georgia Drug Task Force and the district attorney’s office—with recent drug and firearms seizures she displayed in slides: figures cited included 1,948 grams of marijuana, 48.4 grams of fentanyl, $38,000 in marijuana-value figures, pills valued at $200 and 16 firearms. She said those seizures were the product of multiagency investigations and prosecutions.

The sheriff described community outreach and fundraising plans tied to National Police Week and the Peace Officers Memorial: the office is raising money to send staff and the family of Deputy Brandon Cunningham, who was killed in the line of duty in 2024, to ceremonies in Washington, D.C., and expects costs between $30,000 and $40,000. Donations will be collected through the Cops for Kids 501(c)(3) account, Henson said.

The meeting also included a public presentation of the commissioner's public safety award to Deputy Bobby Kitchens for de‑escalation and negotiation that, according to the sheriff's office account read into the record, resulted in the surrender of a murder suspect on Dec. 17, 2024. Sergeant Hank Crow wrote that Kitchens' actions "exemplify the high standards of law enforcement."