BY MARK J. CRAWFORD
Telegraph Editor
Capt. Dalton Diggs of the Bradford County Sheriff’s Office is enthusiastic about recognizing this Black History Month how far the agency has come over the years.
Some might be under a different impression, he said, but they are just unaware of how many personnel are pulling double duty representing the agency and the minority community as examples of successful achievement.
Representation matters and had multiplied since the 1980s, Diggs said, and he gives a lot of credit to Sheriff Gordon Smith for seeing the value of a diverse department.
“The only color we see is green,” Diggs said, referring to their uniforms.
He said they know the importance of being role models, even showing up outside of work to be active and seen. Long before he was captain of operations, the Black community struggled not seeing itself represented in influential positions like law enforcement.
Believe it or not, Diggs said it does make a difference when these deputies approach a young Black person acting like a “knucklehead.” They can’t simply brush off the encounter claiming the officer cannot understand them or their situation. They are more likely to feel seen as well as see someone they can emulate.
One way in which Diggs has been personally involved in reaching out to troubled kids was through starting a local SWEAT program, which provided alternative punishments such as cleanup and maintenance projects that benefited the community while exposing those kids to adults who could mentor and coach them to do better. Oftentimes, they were standing in for absent parents and families who were not involved in their children’s education.
“We would put kids to work. We would give them the opportunity to speak, to see their side of the world, but then teach them other skills and little trades that they could give back to the community,” he said. This diverted them from the juvenile justice system, and most stayed out of it.
Diggs attributes his core values to his mother, who was a nurse, and his father, who worked at DuPont. They were hard workers who taught him to work hard and prove to himself that he could accomplish the task at hand. If you prove it to yourself, then you prove it to everyone else, he said.
Diggs has certainly proven it to the sheriff, who has placed him over operations, court services, the sex offender unit and animal control, among others. Plus, he is a SWAT team member.
The men and women of the sheriff’s office do more than make arrests, Diggs said. They show up wherever there is a need, whether its playing basketball in the neighborhood, volunteering for charities, and even stopping to help change a tire. And they take their leadership from the sheriff, he said.
“I don’t think he could have written a better motto than ‘We care.’”
