The Smyth County Sheriff’s Office’s support of National Guard and Military Reserve members has caught the attention of a U.S. Department of Defense program.
The CBS 6 Problem Solvers wanted to ask the head of the Virginia State Police how Austin Edwards got hired as a trooper considering he was not even allowed to carry a weapon.
Jasmine Franks | Community Newspapers of Southwest Virginia
On a Friday morning in late November, Sgt. Josh Taylor and other Marion Police officers and Smyth County deputies responded to a report of a suicidal woman holding a knife to her chest.
Officers tried unsuccessfully to de-escalate the situation and negotiate with the woman to drop her weapon, but the woman became violent and the officers had to use a stun gun to subdue and disarm her, according to police accounts.
The woman was detained on an emergency custody order, also known as an ECO, and taken to the Smyth County Community Hospital, where she was evaluated by a crisis worker and determined to need treatment in a psychiatric facility. A magistrate issued a temporary detention order, or TDO, and then the only thing left was to locate an open bed in a psychiatric facility. And wait.