Former Guilford County Sheriff’s Department Executive Administrative Assistant Catherine Netter spoke with the Rhino Times about her resignation.
Netter said on Monday, July 15, just hours after her resignation was effective, that she’d been planning to leave the department for some time, and she added that it was very unfortunate that it was happening now – at a time when she’s in the news for a recent Facebook Post in which she explained her belief that the game of Eight-ball is a racist game.
She said the fact that the two things happened one after another gives the mistaken impression that her departure is related to the commotion over her Eight-ball comments, but she said that, in reality, she was making the move now because of an excellent opportunity she had to help run a very good and important program: the Sherri Denese Jackson Foundation established by Portia Shipman.
That foundation was launched in 2008 in Greensboro to help victims of domestic abuse and to increase public awareness of the problem.
“It’s a great opportunity for me,” Netter said, adding that the organization does tremendous work and that it will be a very rewarding experience.
Netter said that, the first time she worked for the Guilford County Sheriff’s Department under former Sheriff BJ Barnes, she was fired unjustly and that left a bad taste in her mouth. She added that, after that experience, she was reluctant to go back to work for the office again – though she did in December when new Sheriff Danny Rogers was elected.
“I didn’t want to go back to the agency that had been through that type of storm,” she said of Barnes’ Sheriff Department.
Though Netter said she was reluctant to return after what she’d gone through, she did accept Rogers’ offer and returned – but even then she knew that she wanted to do something at some point rather than be in that department as she had been for much of her life.
She said she was interested in helping right the ship after Barnes’ long tenure as sheriff. She said Barnes was very good at slanting public perception and said that, though his office had discriminatory hiring and promotion practices for years, Barnes and a complicit media helped cover up those practices.
Barnes has denied that there was any racism in his department’s hiring practices. He also points out that all lawsuits to that effect brought against his department were unsuccessful.
Netter said her plans were to take the job under Rogers and help get that department on track.
“I felt like my goal was to stay until we the budget passed,” she said.
That happened in late June.
“We didn’t get everything we were asking for but we got some things,” she said of that budget that was approved by the Guilford County Board of Commissioners.
Netter did say that it is true that Rogers did not like the fact that she spoke to the Rhino Times on the issue of why Eight-ball is a racist game. She said the reason she spoke with the Rhino Times in the first place about her Facebook post expressing that opinion was to question why a Facebook posting on Eight-ball was “big, front page news” when there were so many other truly important things going on in the world.
So, Ms Netters contention is her leaving was planned and voluntary. Not believable and does a dis-service to Roger’s. People who leave voluntarily are not escorted from the building by two high ranking officers and Internal Affairs. More of her fantasy world. Again, I reiterate, NONE of her racial accusations were ever found to be true by ANY tribunal.
So, we are to believe that her same day as the eight ball mess departure was all part of her master plan to move to better things…
Geez. Speaking of trying to slant public opinion. Thank goodness she helped right the ship. What are they at, 100 vacancies and historically low moral.
The only thing indicated by this interview is that the SDJ foundation is in for major negative changes. Good luck donors.
Apparently Ms Netter believes the hogwash spewing forth from her lips. She didn’t help right any ship, she tried her best to sink it. The Guilford County Sheriffs Office was a good place to work; now with the shortages she caused, both directly and indirectly, it’s one of the most dangerous departments to work for.
The circumstances of her departure are unimportant. The good news is she is gone! Enough said.
The former sheriff fired her for cause. Yet here she is, spinning a very dubious story about her “resignation” in an attempt to cover up her race baiting .
She’s a perfect little angel of a citizen, I’m sure.