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Worked for the county for: 12 years
Resides in: Lake Monticello in Fluvanna County
Job title: Lieutenant in the Albemarle County Sheriff’s office. Responsibilities include overseeing the daily operation of state-mandated tasks—the courts, transports, and civil process divisions of the office. Sprouse makes daily trips to the jail to transport inmates and is on a first-name basis with many of them. “I treat them like anybody else and try not to be judgmental.” Especially, he says, “because there are so many people who have never been convicted of anything spending time in jail awaiting trial.”
Best of times: “When I am able to help somebody. To me, if you’re doing a good job as a cop you not only keep bad people off the street but you often keep good people from going to jail.”
Worst of times: “There was a 9-year-old girl who was accidentally shot in the head by her 11-year-old brother and I basically had to cradle her while I waited for the squad to come; she was dying in my arms. It really struck a chord with me because one of my daughters was the same age.”
Strangest moment on the job: “One time we had an inmate who tried to smuggle a set of barber shears up his rectum. We were tipped off by another inmate and sure enough, we found them wrapped in plastic about three inches long apiece.”
If he were a superhero, he’d be: “Lieutenant Underdog, because Underdog always helped out the less fortunate and I guess I would have a super dog urine spray too.”
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