After Butts County Sheriff Gary Long’s comments on social media regarding the transfer of a convicted cop killer from a maximum to medium security prison and the inmate taunting the officer’s family using a cellphone Governor Brian Kemp has returned the inmate to maximum security, Long said he will work with state lawmakers next year to mandate that those convicted of murdering law enforcement officers order are serving their full time in maximum security.
In 2001, Jeffrey McGee pleaded guilty to malicious murder and other charges in the 1999 shooting death of Villa Rica Police Captain Robbie Bishop and was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Bishop was well known in Georgia law enforcement as a drug interdiction officer who set state records on interstate drug seizures. He was killed while sitting in his patrol car during a traffic stop on I-20 about 18 miles east of the Alabama line on January 20, 1999. McGee’s name appeared in Bishop’s Book of Quotes as the last warning note written that day. McGee fled to Canada, but was captured near Toronto in February 1999 and extradited to Georgia for trial.
Long, who knew Bishop and learned of his drug interdiction methods, said he was contacted by Bishop’s family, who told him McGee had been transferred from a maximum-security state prison. to a medium-security prison and began posting photos of him behind bars and taunting. The bishop’s family.
Long voiced his concerns in a Feb. 18 social media post that was shared hundreds of times and caught the attention of Kemp, who addressed the situation and sent McGee back to a maximum-security prison on Last weekend.
Long posted a statement from Kemp’s office on the Butts County Sheriff’s Office Facebook page:
“Governor Kemp and his family do not take lightly the sacrifice our men and women in law enforcement and their families make when they pledge to serve their fellow citizens. In this case, when our office was made aware of the concerns, we reached out to the Department of Corrections to ensure the situation was handled appropriately, it was, and the inmate has now been moved as you have noted.
Long thanked Kemp, Commissioner Timothy Ward of the Georgia Department of Corrections, Jasper County Sheriff Donnie Pope, State Senator Burt Jones of Jackson, State Representative Clint Crowe of Jackson, and State Representative Rick Williams of Milledgeville for their involvement and help in correcting the problem.
Long added that he plans to work with Crowe next year to introduce legislation dealing with situations like this.
“Next year, I intend to work with State Rep. Clint Crowe and introduce legislation, which will be called the Bishop’s Law, and would make it mandatory for anyone who murders a law enforcement officer. order in the line of duty and is sentenced to anything short of death, that they have to serve their sentence every day in a high-density prison,” Long said, who also thanked everyone who shared his original post.
“I believe the power is in the numbers,” he said. “Thank you again, Governor Brian Kemp, for your leadership and quick response and once again for showing you care about the people of this state.”
