NELSON SLAWTER, CHEROKEE COUNTY SHERIFF'S OFFICE CIVILIAN EMPLOYEE OF THE QUARTER

Nelson Slawter

Murphy, NC— The Cherokee County Sheriff’s Office would like to highlight the excellent work and superior contribution some of our civilian employees provide. The services of  non-law enforcement individuals is an invaluable asset not only to the Sheriff’s Office but to the community as a whole especially since the department is so small and resources are often limited. The Cherokee County Sheriff’s Office would like to recognize Nelson Slawter for the first quarter of 2011.

Nelson comes to Cherokee County with a wide variety of experience. Nelson retired from the Savannah Georgia police department after completing thirty years in law enforcement. Especially noteworthy is the ten years of experience processing, photographing and collecting evidence at crime scenes. Nelson has lifted latent prints at crime scenes and has successfully compared them to inked prints and has testified in court concerning those finger print comparisons

Nelson first became acquainted with the Cherokee County Sheriff’s Office in 2006. At that time Nelson volunteered his experience processing crime scenes and assisting automating and helping build the Sheriff’s Office Automatic Finger Print Identification System (AFIS) database.  To date Nelson has been extremely instrumental in cataloguing, comparing and entering approximately 11,000 fingerprint cards or about 250,000 individual finger prints.

Small law enforcement departments often face uphill battles especially in an economy that makes every penny count and decisions where to spend often difficult. Prior to Nelson’s arrival the Cherokee Sheriff’s Office did not have the ability to compare and identify prints. Without that ability an enormous amount of time was spent attempting to find a possible match to a suspect. With Nelson’s abilities a preliminary match can be made and then confirmed by the State Agency thus reducing some of the time identifying suspects.

Nelson is currently splitting his duties on a part time basis assisting with finger printing, crime scene processing and evidence handling as well as transport officer. It doesn’t take long to realize what a valuable asset Nelson Slawter is for a small rural agency such as the Cherokee County Sheriff’s Office. Hats off to you Nelson and a big thank you for your work in our community.