County officials | Sheriff H. Wayne DeWitt

H. Wayne DeWitt

Sheriff's Office

H. Wayne DeWitt has served as a Law Enforcement Officer for the past 36 years, most of which has been here, in Berkeley County. He worked with each of the four previous Sheriffs before being elected himself to the Office in 1994, where he currently serves as the sheriff.

Sheriff DeWitt attended The Citadel in Charleston, South Carolina, and he is a graduate of The South Carolina Criminal Justice Academy and the National Sheriff's Institute. He is also a past President of The South Carolina Sheriff's Association; he presently serves on the South Carolina Law Enforcement Accreditation Council; is the Past President of the Berkeley County Fraternal Order of Police Lodge #19 and is a member of a number of other law enforcement and community organizations.

Sheriff DeWitt has led the Sheriff's Office to new heights. Under his watch the Sheriff's Office has achieved standards necessary to become a State Accredited Law Enforcement Agency and he is currently working towards becoming a Nationally Accredited Law Enforcement Agency. He has developed and equipped a Forensic Unit and Laboratory, to include an Automated Integrated Fingerprint System which accesses the FBI IAFIS fingerprint database, mobile crime scene vehicles and trailers, fuming chamber and forensic alternate light sources to name a few. He has established Patrol K-9 and Blood Hound teams, and a bomb dog. He implemented a Special Response Team to handle critical incidents as well as a School Affairs Unit comprised of seven deputies to maintain a presence in our schools. He expanded the Victim's Advocate Program, increased Patrol, Investigations, and Drug Enforcement capabilities and efforts through additional personnel and equipment. He has brought the Sheriff's Office into the 21st Century by computerizing the incident reporting process, implementing the use of Polygraph, and upgraded, at no cost to the county tax payers, to a state-of- the-art 800 radio communication system.

He has maximized capabilities and minimized tax burdens by obtaining grants to pay for much of the forensic and laboratory equipment, computers and bomb dog utilized by this agency and the implementation of one (1) of fourteen (14) COBRA (Chemical Ordinance Biological Radiological Weapons of Mass Destruction Response) Teams in the state. He strives daily to maintain the highest standards, to fairly apply the laws of the State of South Carolina, all County Ordinances, and the adherence to proper policies and procedures.