NASHVILLE, N.C. – It was a late night operation. Nash County deputies managed to raid the house of suspected drug dealers without disturbing a sleeping 6-year-old girl.
Sheriff’s deputies carefully removed the still sleeping child from the home after finding drugs there and placed the youngster safely in her grandmother’s car. Those in the house were arrested on drug charges.
The ordeal got new Nash County Sheriff Keith Stone reflective. He thinks about the lives saved that will never be known, things difficult to quantify.
“The child never knew we were in the house,” Stone said. “That’s the type stuff I want to bring to this office … I told my guys, ‘You did a good job; you didn’t wake up the baby.’ That’s what I want to be about — the compassion and diligence, bringing the two together, getting the child in a safe environment. The kids who grow up today who are supposed to be taken care of but instead grow up in this environment … it’s gut wrenching.”
From the age of 4, Stone remembers taking the first steps toward his more than three-decade law enforcement career that would take him from overseeing prisoners in rural Robeson County to the N.C. Highway Patrol and now the top law enforcer in Nash County.
