Ray Marlowe looks ahead to leading Bladen County Sheriff’s Office after election upset
BLADEN COUNTY, NC (WWAY) — Bladen County is slated to get a new sheriff, following the results of Tuesday’s election.
Unaffiliated candidate Ray Marlowe leads with 47.62% of the vote compared to incumbent Republican Jim McVicker who has 35.38% of the vote.
WWAY spoke with Marlowe by phone about his unaffiliated status, allegations of a dirty campaign, and what he plans to prioritize as sheriff.
“When I started this journey a while back I made up my mind that I was going to go unaffiliated, because I didn’t feel that the position of sheriff should be divided by party lines,” Marlowe said. “I thought that the sheriff’s position should be for the citizens of Bladen County and that meant every one of them.”
The day after the election, current Bladen County Sheriff Jim McVicker accused Marlowe’s campaign of using fair tactics.
Marlowe sees things differently.
“I just focused on my campaign and doing what I knew was right and keeping it nice and clean,” Marlowe said. He added, “I did not personally attack or condemn anything towards Jim. The public and social media attacked him, but that was all brought on by himself.”
Marlowe spent more than a decade with the Bladen County Sheriff’s Office serving as a patrol deputy, corporal and criminal investigator.
In 2006, he was shot in the line of duty during a drug raid in Dublin.
Marlowe said his priorities as sheriff will be to improve morale in the department and to fully staff school resource officers.
“Right now we are understaffed on the school resource officer positions and that is going to be one of my first things to get in order,” Marlowe said.
He also wants to increase staffing for road patrols.
“We are short several positions on the road right now, and I would like to get all of the squads back up to full staff, which is 4 per squad right now, and my goal is additionally 6 uniformed patrol deputies per squad,” Marlowe explained.
The results from Tuesday’s election have not yet been finalized.
According to the North Carolina Sheriff’s Association, sheriffs newly elected in November are scheduled by law to take office on the first Monday in December after the election.
