LITTLE ROCK-The new Hot Spring County sheriff said he'll likely ask Arkansas State Police to investigate what he calls the trashing of the department's Malvern office during the previous administration.
Sheriff Mike Cash said Monday that the office was a mess when he visited it a couple weeks ago, and it's worse now. Cash took office Sunday after defeating former sheriff's deputy Woody Perry in November,.
"There's a strong smell of urine and just trash," Cash said. "I mean there's just stuff thrown everywhere. There's holes in the wall where they've thrown knives. We found a knife sticking in a wall when we got here. We found where they shot a BB gun into a door across the hall."
Former Sheriff Ed Hollingsworth denied the allegations, saying Cash would've thought the office was "beautiful" if he'd seen its condition when he took over four years ago. Hollingsworth said the sheriff's office was built above an old hospital and morgue, and that the basement was flooded for at least six years.
"It is dry now," he said. "Once that stuff seeps into the walls, there's nothing you can do."
Cash said the office vehicles were also left in bad condition, saying "there was a cloud of dust" and that the brakes were too worn out. While he doesn't think the former sheriff was behind all the damage, he said it was Hollingsworth's responsibility to prevent it.
"It's destruction of public property, criminal mischief or whatever you would call it," Cash said. "We'll probably ask the state police to look at it."