(Sheriff Jones of Butler County, OH, as depicted by DCclothesline.com. Opinions expressed in this piece do not necessarily represent those of Socotra House LLC or independent content contributors).

Sheriff Richard K. Jones is a Boomer from Butler County, Ohio. Some of us have been attempting to retrieve some of our Ohio heritage, something that has plagued us since attending arch rival schools other states. The matter normally only comes up toward the end of the football season, so this was a little unusual. The National Sheriff’s Association just had their annual meeting here in the DC area, and given the proximity, FBI Chief Christopher Wray stopped by to provide the Sheriffs his guidance on what may be coming to our nation.

A little background is in order. Richard Jones is known as “Jonesy” to his friends. His Boomer status is derived from his birth at the beginning of the Eisenhower Administration back in the early 1950s. He grew up in Butler County in the Buckeye state, a pleasant rural district southwest of Dayton. After graduating from high school there in Hamilton, he was subject to the military draft where he served from 1973 to 1975 in a combat engineer unit. He took to the discipline and was discharged as a Spec 4 after his two years of obligated service.

Returning home, Rick joined the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Corrections as a Corrections Officer and he rapidly rose through the ranks to become an Education Specialist and Training Officer, responsible for education and training of 400 fellow officers. By the mid 1980s, he had advanced to the rank of Senior Captain. In his portfolio was responsibility prison security audits and as Warden’s representative for inmate appeals as a Major. In 1993, his broad law enforcement experience led to his being hired as Chief Deputy of the Butler County Sheriff’s Office. He ran for Sheriff and won in 2004, and has served there as senior county cop for twenty years.

Most of Jonesy’s contemporaries who attended the Washington conference went home and dug into their in-baskets. Jonesy did something different. He was alarmed at the substance of the remarks made at the podium, and published the substance of some of the more provocative ones.

Sheriff Jones in the Jail

This week he went public with what Director of the FBI Christopher Wray had to say. Jonesy prefaced his notes with the admonition that his law enforcement unit is recognized in the Constitution, unlike the FBI. Butler County is going to be “all hands on deck” in response to the crisis that is coming. Jonesy says we are fools if we don’t listen to the sort of chatter he heard from other Sheriffs from across the country. Not to mention the senior voices in DC.

Jonesy said the FBI director warned about some specific things, with the general chatter in the background about the attack on Israel from Gaza and the struggle that continues there. Given the eight million illegal migrants who have entered the U.S. recently we could be facing another 9/11-style attack, More likely, it may be something we are not expecting and for which we are not prepared.

What is the basis for that claim? According to Director Wray, terror threats are at an unprecedented level. He says there are more than in the weeks leading up to the ISIS attacks on New York City. The number has intensified with the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the Hamas attack that killed 1,200 Israelis.

Other nations have observed the situation. The FBI claims Chinese hackers are ready to “wreak havoc” on critical infrastructure right here. Those vulnerabilities include water treatment plants, electrical grids, oil and natural gas pipelines and transportation systems. Our national arsenal is much depleted after pumping weapons into the war in Ukraine. The consensus is that the “targets that count” in a coming struggle may not be against purely military sites. In fact, it could include an emphasis on cyber vulnerabilities.

Director Wray says there has been insufficient concentration on a unifying cyber threat that could affect us all. He says China’s cyber hacking force outnumbers his Bureau’s cyber analytic force by a factor of fifty. That could enable discrete attacks on virtually all parts of a complex interlocked economy. We appreciate Sherif Jones for including us on some of the information streams of concern to Law Enforcement. We think we should be concerned as well.

In the middle of an election season, it is not surprising that this major issue has been kept to the law enforcement sidelines while other matters of concern are center stage. Secretary Blinken notified his Department of State was not using the proper pronouns. Seriously. In the midst of at least two major kinetic conflicts with the potential to lurch into a third- or a fourth- SECSTATE reiterated his support for International Pronouns Day coming up in October of this year. Right before the election.

You must forgive us if we forward a mild request to have people like Sheriff Jones between us and those who would do us harm. Secretary Blinken has got the pronouns covered.

Copyright 2024 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com