The Jasper County Sheriff’s Department recently raised over $15,300 during a drug-seized property auction held in mid-November. Over 100 different lots were entered at the auction, and every item sold, according to Jasper County Sheriff Randy Johnson.
The auction was held at the “Goat Barn” in Bay Springs on November 14 and featured a large assortment of items, including vehicles, multiple kinds of tools and power tools, and electronics. The property, awarded by the Courts to the Sheriff’s Department, was directly or indirectly related to drugs, weapons, or money stemming from those activities.
Funds generated from the auction, according to Johnson, will be used to help purchase equipment for his department.
“What we made at the auction went into a drug seizure fund. We can use those funds to purchase equipment at no cost to the county,” he explained. “Anything we get off of drug seizure goes into the drug seizure fund, which I can buy equipment with. I can’t pay overtime or things like that, but I can buy radios, uniforms, or things like that we need. We had a lot of stuff that had accumulated in the last four years of being in office, and we just needed to get it out of the way.
“I was extremely pleased (with the auction). I’d never done one before, so I didn’t know what to expect out of it, but everything sold. We had a good crowd, and everything went great.”
Johnson also mentioned one of his reserve deputies, Jack Armstrong, is an auctioneer and was the auctioneer during the seized property auction.
“He did a great job running the auction,” he said.