Why weren’t alert messages sent to the public when Samuel Earl Rich — who allegedly shot a Shelbyville woman in the head, stole her boyfriend’s vehicle, and is being questioned in his shooting death — was supposedly on the run in southern Bedford County? 

Several Bedford County commissioners wanted answers at Tuesday’s meeting of the commission’s rules and legislative committee. A vehicle Rich was thought to have been driving was found abandoned Friday near Raus community. 

Sheriff Austin Swing said he and the Bedford County Sheriff’s Office called the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation to take the lead in the case early on after it became apparent jurisdictions in three counties were involved and that agency has wider resources. Swing said the TBI “controls each aspect” of investigations, including notifications to the public 

“I’d like a protocol in place and shared with the committee, maybe next month, just so I can answer some questions that have been asked of me,” said Commissioner Linda Yockey, who represents the area where Rich was being sought Friday. “I think we have a right to alert our citizens.” 

“The world’s changed, too,” Commissioner Bill Anderson said. “We do have to be careful on the alert, I get all that. However, if we could alert without getting super-detailed, this Facebook thing…I don’t look at Facebook but these nuts do and they Facebook this stuff everywhere and that can cause a panic. I don’t know how we can control it but if somehow we had a basic message it would be nice if we could alert storms and stuff without giving out too much.” 

Many Facebook posts Friday afternoon were from residents concerned about heavy law enforcement presence they were seeing near their homes and asking what was going on – and unable to get answers about fears their families were in danger. Should they have been alerted? Law enforcement officials says only to a point. 

Commissioner Mark Thomas, who is also county fire chief, expressed concerns that messages sent to the public during manhunts would also alert the person being sought and allow them to elude searchers. 

“So what have we done? We’ve alerted them,” Thomas said. 

“I imagine they already know they’re looking for them,” Anderson said. 

“It lets them know that my people say their doors are locked and their guns are loaded,” Yockey said. “It lets them know that the community is aware of them so perhaps that would stop them.” 

“Based on my experience, sending out information in this type of investigation does more to create a panic when you don’t know what you have, you don’t know what you’re working with and all you’re doing is feeding the rumor mill,” said Commissioner Brian Farris, a longtime sheriff’s deputy and former detective. “Sending out information creates more panic…you will wind up spending days going through tips that people call in” that end up not actually being the suspect. 

“The alert is a great thing, it truly is. But it is also very detrimental to an investigation – especially an investigation like this where it’s multi-jurisdictional. You’ve got multiple agencies trying to cipher out something in a very short period of time.” 

Chief Deputy Nikia Elliott said the county has sent out alerts about manhunts in the past, but chose not to in this instance. 

“We’re all for sending out an alert when we think people are in any danger or immediate risk,” Elliott said. “Just based on what we had then (Friday), we felt like it could cause more of a problem, and more of a risk, than what it would help. But I don’t want anybody to think that we would not send out a message if we thought there was any kind of immediate danger…Every decision that we make, there’s a lot of thought that goes into it as to the good vs. the harm that we’re going to do.” 

“I can honestly say when I left there, I didn’t think there was anybody around any more than there would be the other 364 days of the year that was going to do harm to anybody in that area,” Swing said. “We did what we needed to do out there and I feel like we did it very well.” 

Yockey asked if what she termed a “soft call” could be made, such as to a county commissioner in a specified area, who could spread factual information – as opposed to rumors – to people who could, in turn, call others and “spread the word.” 

“If the sheriff had called me, I would have called four people, who have a list of people, and it would have been done in 15 minutes,” Yockey said.