Editor:
Twenty years ago I began prosecuting in Southampton and 10 years ago I joined the Commonwealth’s attorney’s office in Isle of Wight. I have worked with Tommy Potter in all of his local law enforcement career. I have worked with some great detectives and I am bone cold deadly serious when I say that Tommy is the best that I have ever known.
He works hard. He is smart and well trained and he is one of the most honorable men that I have known. Tommy has old-fashioned integrity. I have seen him work with victims in the most horrific of cases. I have seen the gentle, compassionate way that he works with child victims. I have seen him push to find every bit of scientific evidence in a case that can possibly be found. I have seen him build a team of investigators that share his work ethic and professionalism. Without his masterful coordination of the investigation of the murder of Jean Marie Smith I fear that that case would have gone on unsolved.
I am rarely drawn to comment on political matters, but it struck me that I might very well be the only person who has prosecuted cases that Tommy Potter has been the lead officer on during the entire stretch of his career in local law enforcement. I have watched him as he progressed from being a hardworking, detailed oriented patrolman to being the nationally known investigator that he now is.
As much as I would hate to see him leave his current position, I know that he is the kind of sheriff that Southampton and the City of Franklin deserve.

Yours truly,
Steve Edwards

Smithfield