PIO Veronica Hill, Richland County Sheriff's Department, Columbia SC

Veronica Hill is a communications professional energized by creativity and collaboration. Veronica has a passion for developing mission-driven communication strategies and public information campaigns. With experience in the sectors of education, non-profit, and law enforcement, Veronica thrives on community and building connections. Veronica holds a bachelor’s degree in strategic communication from Wichita State University and a master’s in theology from Newman University. Veronica lives with her significant other and their two dogs in Columbia, South Carolina.

Veronica's LinkedIn

Transcript

Good afternoon. Today on the PIO podcast, we have deputy Veronica Hill from the Richland County Sheriff's department in South Carolina. Veronica, welcome to the show. Hi, thank you for having me. So grateful to be here. Yeah, I'm glad you could make it. I'm really glad you're here because, you guys, it's an interesting thing.

So when I started looking [00:02:00] into, I do a lot of research and I come across your apartment and I'm like, you've got a really big public affairs unit. We'll talk about that in a little bit. But. So, let's hear about your background 1st. How did you end up in the public affairs unit? So I am currently in our public information officer.

I'm also a certified law enforcement officer, which when I started being, um, a cop three, four years ago, um, I was like, I think that would be a good use of my skills, but I wanted to police first. Um, I was in Wichita, Kansas at the time and I loved it. I. Loved being a police officer. I would get to the end of a shift and I would be like, it's over.

I have to go home. Um, and so last year it's been about, I guess, fall of 21. My partner took a, a job here in the South Carolina area. I came, I did not know anything about law enforcement here. So I sat in a newsroom and worked for a little bit. That's a good use of my management skills. I was assignment desk manager.

And, [00:03:00] uh, so I worked with every law enforcement department. In the region. So it's a nine county region in this market. And so I, I knew every single one of those, um, chiefs, sheriffs, their PIOs and, you know, working with different ones. So it was a real, um, great moment, a little bit of fate, a little bit of luck, a little bit of, uh, divine intervention when the best department in this area called me and said, would you please come work for us and please can be a PIO, um, which are most of our PIOs here are sworn.

So, um, yeah. Thankfully, my certification, it came over for the most part. I didn't have to go to the academy. I did what's called special basic. I went and tested in various areas, the law, firearms, driving. And so I was able to become a certified law enforcement officer in South Carolina and work for just a really progressive law enforcement agency, a very active.

So it's It's really a great place to be a p I o because it's so [00:04:00] appreciated and celebrated the work we do. So it's, it's a real gift. Awesome. So how long have you actually been working in the public affairs unit? A year. So I'm, I'm at a year right now. All right. So you worked in somewhere in Kansas. What, what department did you work at in Kansas?

The Wichita Police Department. Wichita, Kansas, south Central area. So you worked there for a while. You came over here, worked as a, as a, as an assignment desk reporter. Is that what you were. An assignment as editor. So I, like, took all the incoming information. I assigned, uh, photographers and journalists. I led meetings.

So, um, you know, it, it was a lot of fun. Honestly, the same people who, uh, call news stations are the same kind of people that the police deal with from time to time. So it honestly was a lot of fun. And I think being a cop really helped me in news because I understood so much about it. Jurisdiction and the court process and, you know, things like that.

So it was a good, it was fun time. I just, you know, it was, uh, the job I took when I first came [00:05:00] here. So I was, I was, you know, I didn't, I knew I didn't want to work in news long term, but it was a really great starting point and, um, really just allowing me to meet so many law enforcement professionals and figure out what would be a good department to work in that that's really invaluable.

Okay, great. For our listeners. Can you tell us where Richland County is located? And I have a couple of follow up questions. Yeah, absolutely. So we are in, um, kind of the, we're about two hours from the coast in South Carolina, Richland County. Um, we house the state capital, Columbia. Um, so it's a very, you know, there's a lot of government agencies based out of here.

Um, but I would call that we were maybe in the north. Northwest part of the state where the Midlands is what they call this region. There's the upstate and the coast and where the Midlands Okay, so how big is your sheriff's department and what's the population that you guys? Service. Yeah, so we um as a county are the area population we serve is about I think 250, 000 and in our [00:06:00] department we have Um, just over 700 sworn employees.

So, um, people certified law enforcement in various levels. We have a very large reserve department. Um, we have about 80. So just over 80, 83 reserve deputies who are here on a volunteer basis, a lot of them are, you know, are different, uh, points in their like military career, or this is like a hobby, so to say, so, um, they volunteer with us and then we have 140, some non sworn positions, so administrative and, um, civilian positions.

And I'm assuming some of those for the sheriff's department maintain the. The correctional side of the system, and then the court system, um, we actually don't do anything with the jail. So there's a handful of counties in South Carolina where the jail is run through the county government. So there's essentially a different department under the county, but we do staff the courthouse here.

So, um, our. Our Richland County Courthouse does fall under us. Okay, a little different, a little [00:07:00] different than some of the other states. And that's interesting. Okay. So as I was saying earlier, when I was researching your department and, you know, looking at things, I'm going, they have a lot of public information officers and a lot of people in the public affairs office.

So how were you guys staffed? Explain that. Yeah, we have a full time. We have four sworn deputies who are PIO. We have right now we have, and one more, if you count our chief. So our, our deputy chief, um, we have a Lieutenant over our unit and then we have three deputies. So myself and two others than our Lieutenant are, um, really doing the day to day stuff.

And then we have one civilian physician who also assists with event coverage, content creation, and does a lot with our website. Um, and then we have. I think three. Yeah. Now we have three special projects deputies. Um, so they are people who work part time. They, um, have worked with us in other capacities who also contribute, you know, some, [00:08:00] um, one does a lot of writing for us and pitching to national publications, like police one and stuff like that.

Oh, wow. So very heavily staff. So you guys are really doing an awful lot then. With that volume of people. I mean, if you're, you're pitching the news to magazines and, uh, to professional service magazines, like police one, you're, you're definitely putting your agency out there on a regular basis. Yeah. And you know, I think, uh, attention begets attention.

So we're very fortunate because I do have some real sympathy. Sympathy and compassion and empathy for those who are a team of one. And, um, yeah, that would just, that would be very challenging in our agency. One, we're very large, so we are proactive in putting out, you know, public safety and like media releases about crimes.

We also have very large community policing element. We have, um, really great. community partnerships. We have an incredibly popular and active sheriff who believes in being out [00:09:00] in the community. So it is one person's job every week to follow him around to, uh, you know, he says here are the events I'm going to that I think would, you know, be beneficial for us to share.

So we, you know, mark our calendar to go to, you know, this community chamber, you know, uh, stop and buy a fourth grader's birthday party. We, you know, really try to make that a priority as well. And then we also, um, Do get a pretty big volume of requests for, um, TV shows. And so we're involved in on patrol live, um, earlier this year we had, we were the feature of a series on Netflix, missing dead or alive.

And then we get a lot of requests for kind of, um, Oh, one, one off episodes, I guess you would say on like podcasts and investigation discovery. We were on a show called high speed chase this year. I helped coordinate and then sometimes cases specific cases are of interest. So we, um, are on various podcasts or TV episodes for that too.

So how are you guys scheduling? If there's four of you, are you, uh, are you working? 8 hour shifts, you work in 10 hour shifts. How is [00:10:00] that? How is that layout? Uh, well, we're, uh, 8 to 5 and then sometimes 5 to 8. So we, uh, do have some flexibility based on just coverage of events. So we all start with business hours, but then multiple nights a week where, you know, here later and then.

The weekends, particularly Saturday mornings are a very busy time. So, um, and again, we have such a great team dynamic that it's like, Oh, you know, if you have an appointment come up or, Hey, I want to go to my kid's soccer game, we just switch around and support each other in that way. So that things get covered.

And then we're also able to have a good work life balance. Oh, that sounds like a really good way to do things. And then, and then not anybody stuck at nights permanently either. So that's kind of nice as well. I'm assuming that you like have a rotating on call schedule for. Things that go on. Yeah, absolutely.

So each week a different PIO is what we call on call. And then another PIO is the day person. We call it day on call. So the day person is handling, um, [00:11:00] community events or sheriff appearances or, um, interviews like that are scheduled during the day. And then the on call person is, uh, Exactly what you think in terms of the media calls that person we have, we do a fall call forwarding service.

So, um, we have one on call phone number and each week it goes to a different deputies phone. So if I'm on call that week, I'm getting the calls, um, which also helps with internal notifications. So the way, if there's a critical incident or, you know, a high profile incident, that's the phone that gets the call.

So you're kind of managing those, um, current events, those breaking news moments. And so that's a one week at a time. They're both one week at a time. So you switch. And now also, um, I think it's important is Everybody's kind of cross trained so everyone can do everything so we don't, you know, we didn't just hire a PIO and we didn't just hire social media content creator or digital communications person, it's everyone has to know how to do everything so that we can have that level of, [00:12:00] you know, teamwork and cross, you know, Hey, you can fill in here.

Okay. Yep. Everyone can write a release. Everyone can run a camera. You know, everyone knows how to live stream, so everyone has those skills. Then you answer one of my upcoming questions. Cool. So what are their social media plans? Well, I should say what social media platforms you guys currently run. So we are on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter slash X, and then we did get on threads this year and we also have a TikTok, a YouTube and a LinkedIn.

Oh, so your state is not one of those states that has banned TikTok yet? No, which, you know, kind of surprises me. I think maybe at the state level, they wouldn't let state employees have TikToks on like state devices, but we're a county government, so it hasn't made its way down here yet. Okay, great. That's awesome.

So you've already said that because you're a large unit, everybody's cross trained, which is, is great. And, and you guys cover each other. That's awesome. That that's a great way of having a good staff in place. So let me jump to the next question. There have [00:13:00] been a lot of recent swatting threats made to schools across the country.

Have you guys investigated any of those types of incidents? You know, it's so unfortunate that that is part of the school experience now. It feels like when I was in school that, that I went to school without fear. And I, I really, you know, my heart hurts for students who have to sometimes regularly either encounter those kind of circulating rumors or really call in threats.

So like almost every other agency we have had to respond to. We've had to vet threat calls. We've had to vet, you know, threats made on Instagram lives and things like that, as well as, you know, actual hoaxes, hoax calls, like being called in. Um, we, you know, have a lot of layers of vetting. So I think we've only had really one big response where, um, someone called in a school shooting and we had a response of like one minute and had half the County there.

Um, which one. Inspired a lot of confidence. Like, I mean, I think people are like, Oh, if we're in a tough [00:14:00] situation, the cops will be there. But like this, the volume of that response, um, you know, I think inspired a lot of faith in the community. And we're like, thankfully, thankfully, this was fake. Um, so in other cases, um, it seems like, you know, it's either.

Someone is coming forward and saying they found a threat on social media or someone saying, Oh, I, you know, there's some kind of threat in the school. So, you know, luckily we have policies in place to, to vet those. And, um, we have great relationships with other community, uh, you know, law enforcement agencies in the school districts.

We have almost a hundred school resource officers. We're in almost all the schools in our district. Um, yeah, we have more SROs. Yeah. We have more SROs than some agencies have officers. Like, I mean, there's a lot of small agencies around here. So I think that is valuable because it allows, you know, there should be a lot of proactivity there in terms of relationship building and accessibility.

Um, and again, the sheriff here, our, our agency leader is out and [00:15:00] about. He is connected. He is involved. So, uh, I think that really, we have strong partnerships in that, in that way. So yeah, it, I just, it's unfortunate that that's the reality. It's yeah, that is true. How are you guys, how have you guys messaged for that?

In those events when they've happened, are you putting it out on social? Are you putting it out on a Nixle platform or, or some other alert platform that you may have? For, for us, we're, we're social driven and then traditional media driven. So in those cases last year, we did come out on both and say, this is not a joke.

And in, in our area, I, I think this is a good thing. We can hold those people accountable. So even if they are minors, we will investigate and we will prosecute. So, um, our sheriff will get, you know, get in front of a camera and say, you're not going home with mom and daddy. He'll say like, yeah, you're, you're going to go to jail.

Like it, you should be held accountable for disrupting. School and, you know, in that way, I mean, it's essentially terrorizing those school communities. [00:16:00] So our messaging is it's not a joke and we will investigate. All right, so jumping to the next question that I sent you is, um, there have been an increase in concerns about the posting of missing persons, particularly juvenile images.

On social media, and how does the sheriff's office handle that? And as a follow up, once the juvenile is located, how do you support social media? Or I should say, how do you update it? You know, we, um, of course, um, we, of course, take those cases, um, seriously on a case by case basis. So we do have a regular, um, web page that features like missing, um, Like juveniles in terms of runaways, but if there's ever an element to it where the investigator feels this needs some more attention There's there's either a criminal element or we're having a health crisis and mental health crisis This this person needs to be found.

So we will use social media and traditional media and we post a picture Say, you know, this is who we're looking for. We're concerned for their well being um, and then [00:17:00] Thankfully, it honestly, in my time here, we've always found them. So we are, have been able to go back and say, thank you for sharing this post.

Um, you know, this young lady has been found safe, you know, we appreciate your help. So I think that's a good community partnership as well as I think our, our, at least our social bases are really receptive to that. So, um, but we do try to, you know, be conscientious about like, would. Extra attention, help the situation, how we utilize, you know, the drone and the dogs and these other, you know, we have also a program called project lifesaver.

So it's really geared toward, um, Oh, maybe folks who are artistic, non verbal dementia, prone to walking away, prone to not being able to get in touch with. Um, that's another tool we have that they have, um. tracking device, like a, um, a, a tool that they use that we're able to find them. Um, so there are a lot of things in place, resources we can use before we get to that.

So we [00:18:00] kind of put that as like, okay, well, if we need an immediate response and we need a big, you know, a lot of eyes looking for this young person, that's when we utilize social media. Understanding this, right? So you guys have a, use your website, you're posting images of missing persons on your website.

And then only in certain situations, are you posting things on social, you know, when they're high profile, so you're limiting the amount that you're actually putting out there. Okay. And I would assume that if they're found their, their image comes off of the website. If they're located. Yes, absolutely. We have to update that every day, every day.

So it comes down and. Okay. All right. Well, that may, that's an easier way of doing it in some cases. I mean, pointing people back to the page. Certainly reduces the amount of, uh, images that you put up about juveniles. And since it's, it becomes problematic to delete social media posts sometimes, um, [00:19:00] that might make it easier.

And I don't know what your legislation like is in South Carolina, you know, but most jurisdictions now it's almost impossible. To delete social media posts from a government agency. Yeah. And certainly if it's not covered by law, it's not a good practice. So we just try to go and update it rather than remove, or in the case, if we do have to remove, which, which we haven't on social media, you know, like this photo has been removed for this reason, or, you know, something like that.

Since the death of George Floyd, law enforcement agencies across the country have turned towards a critical incident briefing video. How does your sheriff's office handle incidents such as either an OIS or? Even something as tragic as what happened to George Floyd. Yeah. I think it's so important to make sure that corrective information is made available in a timely way, right?

We, we can't wait until we have every bit of information to release and we can't be [00:20:00] so obsessed with getting the information out. We don't have, you know, a thoughtful message, but you know, it's certainly in instances that are, are high profile, whether that's officer involved shootings or incidents that.

You know, maybe don't even involve us earlier this year. You know, we, um, had a case where a store owner is accused of, um, shooting a 14 year old and he died. And so it's like, we. That was, that was the case that got us some national attention, our area some national attention, some layers to it. And so, you know, we really, we worked with the coroner to, um, have that news conference together, but, um, more towards your point about the critical incident video, um, I think our department, we work directly with those involved in the situation and we give them the opportunity, you know, the most sensitivity in terms of what happened and we give them the first rights to the video.

And like we let them, um, view any video they want to see in that incident. But as far as, you know, when these cases become of interest to the public, into the media, [00:21:00] um, we're also trying to be proactive about that as well. And, um, so. While in South Carolina, body camera is not covered under FOIA. Um, so in most cases it takes a court order or a subpoena to get body camera.

We, our sheriff elects to release it. Um, um, and you know, like in a, and I. You know, we don't do quite the level of, um, critical incident briefing. We, we released the body camera. And I think that's a, we want to show we were not, you know, giving unnecessary context to this, that the public really feels what they released the video.

And I saw what happened myself and I made a decision based on that. And I think that's been very well received, um, in our community, their ability to see unedited body camera. Of an incident, um, and review it and make those determinations themselves. And also upon request, you know, they can, we can also in conjunction release 911 call and the historical data related to an [00:22:00] incident or any other, you know, Simon Sinek would say being transparent is not releasing every single detail.

It's giving context to the decisions that we do make. So I think it's a both and situation. So, um, to help the public navigate. But, you know, the public, they're, they're dialed in. So if you don't get your side or your, um, your ducks in a row to be able to share with them, the wrong message will go first and it's much harder to correct than it is to be proactive.

It's important to be fast and accurate and as timely as you can. Um, to, to an exception. I mean, sometimes if you're too fast. You can, it can backfire on you, but very important to to get that information out as quickly as you can, because the, the community will turn on you quickly and you'll get that.

There's always that person that the media interviews that. Something saw something, but they have [00:23:00] nothing else to back it up. And that is a person that gets on TV. It's true. It's true. Veronica, what surprised you when you first became on the PIO? You know, I think an element I've been surprised by is how much, uh, education is involved, uh, and that, you know, we don't deal with the media.

We work with the media. So in our market, the average reporter is like under the two year mark. It's a very young market in terms of reporters. So for a general assignment reporter, you know, they, I think the world expects them to be like many experts in education and finance and technology and law enforcement.

And that's just, that's so, uh, unreasonable and unattainable. So, um, you know, having to offer a level of education and assistance in navigating some of the systems, like, you know, I've. I have encountered a reporter who didn't know what FOIA was in the last year. I've encountered, you know, I've had to explain multiple times about, like, jurisdiction.

Like, we can only [00:24:00] investigate crimes in our county. You know, we actually can't go investigate, you know, uh, things that are not in our jurisdiction or we're not invited to. So, I think I was surprised by that. How much time I spend explaining just the basic principles or functions of law enforcement and investigation.

Yeah, no, I believe me in my previous department. Yeah, we're I think the market was like in the low 90s and it was definitely an education for most of the reporters who were either 1st year on a job or. You know, maybe second assignment from, uh, from the first year on the job. So yeah, definitely a lot of education that went along there.

What do you enjoy most about being the PIO? I love the variety of our work, um, but it's just, you know, we never do the same thing two days in a row. Um, and so I get to stretch so many creative skills in terms of, I, you know, I, of course, new [00:25:00] photography before I got here, but I've just been Been so proud of how I've grown as an event photographer this year and I love writing and it's a good use of that And you know, there's just never a shortage of content around here I've never had to search for a story to tell I mean from actual like incidents happen And how are we responding to public safety things to our very big community policing?

kind of priority so we have Pardon me. Um, we have so many great stories of our deputies helping in the community like a couple of weeks ago. Um, I call it the RCSD lawn care unit, but our code enforcement who goes and serves in terms of like overgrown yards or people who aren't in code when it comes to, uh, environmental things.

And, you know, they, the lieutenant in charge, she has such a great story. She's a two time cancer survivor. And she met a woman who couldn't maintain her yard because she was going to medical appointments herself. So what did they do? They did, you know, they took care of her yard maintenance for her. [00:26:00] And I was like, you know, that, and she doesn't do it for the likes.

You know, she does it like this is the right thing to do. And so it just feels like every other week, there's a story. Yeah. Yeah. And I'm just, I'm proud to be a part of that. I'm proud to be a part of that because I can think of another instance where there was a car crash this month. And, um, one of our deputies, um, pulled over to help in this car crash.

It wasn't, he was not a, uh, he works in youth services and this was like car crash when he was just out driving, you know, of course stops to help. And, um, there were, I think they were twins or there were two young kids, like. car seat aged kids, um, who were in it and luckily they weren't uninjured, but the car seats were destroyed.

Well, we have a great partnership with a local Walmart and you know, this deputy was able to secure the donation of two new car seats for this family. And so it's just like, you'd like, Those stories and it's like I feel really fortunate to be a part of that and then it's just It's fun to do the day to day stuff so I can you know work on a story about that one day I can be on the scene of a [00:27:00] barricaded suspect the next day I can be it, you know, I could be at the dare graduation the next day Where our deputies are speaking to the fifth grade.

That's awesome. So, how are you guys? Yeah, and so I think yeah, go ahead. I cut you off. Go ahead That's just love it. You know, it's so fun to be a part of awesome. How do you guys handle internal messaging? You know, uh, there's kind of some systems we have in place, uh, outside of our office, I found that our office is really, as far as internal things, we are event focused, um, cause we have what we call the disseminating.

Announcements, feedback, um, here's how we're changing processes and things. So, um, and that system is like, has kind of existed separately than PIO. So people look to us for what is the community involvement we will have in an event. Um, we do have people who are often, [00:28:00] you know, little mini internal ambassadors and sharing stuff with us.

But, um, I would say our, um, internal communications is pretty centralized through a, an advisory council. All right. So to follow up with this, so we can close this out is what's one question you'd wish that I'd asked, uh, and how would you have answered it? You know, I just, I think we got to cover such a great depth.

Um, so nothing comes to mind in terms of, you know, what, uh, what else I have to share, but yeah, I really appreciate the opportunity to be asked at all. Okay, cool. Uh, rapid fire questions then. So you're ready for these? Yeah. Pancakes or waffles? Chocolate or vanilla? Chocolate. Adult drink of choice? Dr. Pepper.

What makes you laugh? Oh, I have two dogs at home, uh, that are personality. So I have, they, they bring me a smile every single day. Do you have a hobby? I love getting out and supporting like local festivals. So anytime there's like a, you know, we have a soda city market. That's every [00:29:00] Saturday morning. This weekend is the Greek festival at our local Greek Orthodox church.

I love getting out and going to those types of things. Excellent. Who would you choose if you had the ability to sit down and have coffee with any historical figures? Mother Teresa. I think, you know, she, whose life was so simple and had such a big impact. She has a quote that I'll never forget. If you want to change the world, go home and love your family.

And that's like to say the biggest impact we have is with the people directly around us. And so I, I carry that into my PIO work of like the most important message is the one I send to the person beside me. It's the one I send to my colleagues and it's the one I send here locally. Excellent. What key points would you like the listeners to take away from today's interview?

I hope they had an opportunity to hear from a different perspective. We need all kinds of folks doing this work, um, whether that's, you know, in law enforcement or, you know, government, you know, these different arenas. We need good people sharing important messages. Anything you'd like to add? Thank you [00:30:00] for having me.

I found such value and in your network in this podcast and you know, Really dialing in honestly on LinkedIn has been a great eye opener for me of what other communication professionals are doing So, um, yeah, I really enjoy this podcast and happy to be a part of it How could people best reach out to you if they'd like to connect or follow up with anything they heard?

Well, I, uh, would love to connect on LinkedIn. That's, uh, probably the best social media place to find me. So I would love to connect with people on LinkedIn. And we'll add all that into the show notes. Veronica, thank you very much for being on the show. Thank you so much. That's all for this week. We hope you enjoyed this episode.