We don’t know Justin Pearson personally. We only know what we’ve seen of him publicly, and it seems like every time we see him, he is doing something that leaves us shaking our heads. But nothing we have seen bothered us more than the way he acted during that incident with a Tennessee Highway Patrol trooper.
During our time in law enforcement, we’ve learned that you can tell a lot about somebody by how they act when they are angry and things aren’t going their way. That is when judgment, self-control and character really show.
The Capitol confrontation showed us something troubling
That day at the Capitol, troopers were clearing demonstrators from the building after a disruption during the legislative session. The video shows Pearson yelling and cussing at the troopers. "He got right up in the face
of one trooper who was doing his job, called him “boy” and then called him a “stupid [expletive].”
We watched that and thought, is this really how a man who wants to represent Tennessee in the United States Congress thinks he should act?
Being angry doesn’t give you a free pass to act any way you want. That trooper had a job to do. Getting in his face, cussing him and calling him names showed a level of disrespect for law enforcement that we have a hard time getting past.
Respect and self-control matter in public office
Pearson may have been angry that day. Well, watching him treat that trooper that way made us angry too. In fact, angry doesn’t begin to describe how we felt watching that scene. Because to us, that disrespect wasn’t just aimed at one trooper. It was disrespectful to every man and woman who puts on a badge, straps on a vest and goes to work every day not knowing what they may face before they get home. They deserve better than that, especially from somebody asking the people of Tennessee to send him to Congress.
It also showed us something about judgment, self-control and character. Those things matter in any job, but they matter a whole lot when somebody is asking the people to trust him with a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives.
What bothered us was watching a grown man act in a way we would tell a teenager not to act. If one of our kids or grandkids behaved that way, we wouldn’t tell them how proud we were that they stood their ground. We would tell them to calm down, get themselves together and act like they were raised better than that.
Maybe that sounds old-fashioned, but we’re fine with that. Grown adults ought to act like grown adults, especially when they are asking us to send them to Washington to represent us.
We don’t care how good somebody is at making speeches. We don’t care how many people follow them online or how loud people cheer for them. We want to know what kind of judgment they have when things get tough. We want to know whether they can control themselves when they get mad. And we want to know how they treat people when they think those people are standing in their way.
That tells us a whole lot more about somebody than a campaign speech ever will.
Congress requires judgment, restraint and responsibility
Serving in Congress is serious business. You are speaking for the people back home and making decisions about laws, taxes, spending, crime and national security. If you want that kind of responsibility, you ought to show that you can handle yourself when things don’t go your way.
That incident told us plenty. We saw disrespect for a law enforcement officer doing his job. We saw poor judgment. We saw a lack of self-control. And in our opinion, we saw a serious problem with character.
As far as we’re concerned, Pearson showed us enough that day. In our book, conduct like that should disqualify somebody from representing the people of Tennessee in the U.S. House of Representatives.
Bobby Riles has served as Fayette County sheriff since 2006. Johnny Alexander has served as Hardin County sheriff since 2018. Jimmy Oliver has served as Marshall County sheriff since 2026. Guy Buck has served as McNairy County sheriff since 2010. Shane Fisher has served as Wayne County sheriff since 2018. Each serves a county in Tennessee’s 9th Congressional District.
This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Why these TN-09 sheriffs oppose Justin Pearson for Congress | Opinion
