The Hinds County Sheriff's Department is refuting the version of events that claimed that "uniformed personnel" let three supporters of state Sen. Chris McDaniel (R-MS) into the Hinds County Courthouse Tuesday night.
Speaking to The Clarion-Ledger, Hinds County Sheriff's Department spokesman Othor Cain confirmed that during an election, off-duty deputies are hired to work security, however they do not work into the wee hours of the morning.
A sheriff's department spokesman refutes claims by the Chris McDaniel camp that three staffers were let into the courthouse by "uniformed personnel" sometime after it closed late election night.
"It's a fabrication that someone pointed them to a door. I think that's a total misrepresentation of fact," Cain said. "None of our guys let anybody in."
The incident is now under investigation by the sheriff's department, and they have requested courthouse security footage. Cain said that regardless of what the McDaniel campaign is saying, inconsistencies in statements given by Lane, Chambers and Brewster led to the opening of the investigation late Wednesday.
"It's important to note that Janis Lane's story and the other officials' stories continue to change through the investigation," he said. "They changed within five minutes, which caused us to be even more deliberate and determined to find out what was going on."
Given this latest revelation, it will be a curious thing to see how the McDaniel's campaign will respond. I'm sure they will come up with some teabagger cockemamy logic that will attempt to explain away the sheriff's office denial that they were involved. Perhaps they will send someone over to a nursing home to take pictures of the sheriff's
bedridden mother to explain things properly.
Update: Thank you to ColoTim for adding a link in the comments with an important update. Apparently the Hinds County Sheriff's Office conducted a thorough several-hour long investigation and has found no wrongdoing by the three people who happened to get themselves locked in the courthouse. The case has been closed.
"Based on our findings and subsequent conclusion, there is no reason to believe that the three individuals engaged in any criminal activity nor do we believe any laws were broken," the release said. "Our investigation revealed that the three individuals were able to enter the courthouse through a side-door marked for employees only. This door was either propped-open or was malfunctioning at the time of entry."
No mention of why these three originally said that they had been let in the courthouse by "uniformed personnel." No mention of whether they had viewed security tape footage to see what the hell they were doing in the building. No mention of the inconsistencies they found in their stories and what those inconsistencies were. So that certainly clears up any questions in my mind. How about yours?