Sheriff Berry Says His Purchases from Dana Safety Supply Were From Personal, Not County, Funds

Neither Oconee County nor the Sheriff’s Office has made any purchases in the last five years from Dana Safety Supply, with which Sheriff Scott Berry disagreed publicly earlier this year because of the company’s decision not to sell some of its products to the general public.

The Sheriff said during that disagreement that he had made recent purchases from Dana Safety Supply, and he told me on Monday that those purchases had all been with personal, not county, funds.

Berry made public his disagreement with Dana in a series of interviews with journalists early this year. Included was a nearly six-minute-long interview on Jan. 4 with Melissa Francis, anchor of Fox Business Money on the Fox cable channel.

Berry told Francis that as long as the Dana Safety Supply policy restricting sales to the general public was in place “I’m not going to spend our money to go in there and buy a thing.”

Berry said he has bought four Smith and Wesson revolvers from Dana Safety Supply during the last five years out of his personal funds.

For more on this story, go to Oconee County Observations.