DA William Kendall: Proactive in law enforcement efforts

HOUSTON COUNTY, Ga. — Before William Kendall was sworn into office on Monday, June 13, he had already been working as Houston County acting district attorney since September 1, 2021. During the reception held in his honor on Tuesday, he revealed that he plans to hone in on “proactive law enforcement efforts,” and that he has already been working with local law enforcement agencies to curve crime rates.

For several months now, the district attorney’s office has been making way through a calendar of 31 trial weeks — an undertaking in comparison to a typical year containing 20 to 22 trial weeks. Previously, the district attorney explained that they began to work through several cases that waited to go to trial due to courts being closed as a result of COVID-19.

According to Kendall, the DA’s office will continue to move forward in their effort.

“We are getting close to the halfway point,” Kendall said. “It’s been a long haul. It’s been a marathon. We know that we have just as much work ahead of us for the rest of the year, but we have made it through some very serious cases.”

Since taking on the role as acting district attorney, Kendall has worked to rebuild the office, hiring a multitude of staff to fill positions that had previously been emptied during the district attorney’s term. With several new and returning employees now on board, the office is fully staffed.

Looking towards the future, Kendall told The Journal he is playing an active role in curtailing crime in Houston County and has now for several months.

“We’ve had a gang task force that was put together and sponsored by me as a DA since February,” Kendall explained. “We are actively seeking to prosecute gang members in Houston County. I believe, and the statistics would show, that a lot of the juvenile crimes related to guns, a lot of our underlying drug issues and thefts, are related to criminal gun activity.

“The days of it being a Blood or a Crip that is committing gang crimes — those are over. What we see is a lot of hybrid gangs, a lot of younger generation folks that are literally named after an apartment complex or a street name, something like that. They are hybrid gangs, and we’re going after them. We’re seeking intelligence, we’re putting together cases and we have a few people sitting in jail on criminal gang charges.”

This gang task force is comprised of 157 local, state and federal law enforcement agents, including gang liaisons from the Department of Justice and the Department of Corrections. Kendall told The Journal that he expects good things to come from this joining of forces.

In addition to his task force, Kendall has said in the past that he plans to get ahead of crime by working with students currently attending school. Speaking with Kendall during the reception, he confirmed that this is still a task he plans to move forward with.

“The idea is to get out there in the schools and talk about consequences and actions,” Kendall said. “If you’re 17 in Georgia, you might still be a senior in high school, but you’ll be charged as an adult. If you’re under 17, there are offenses where you can be charged as an adult as well. It’s good to educate the public and let them know that there are people in government that care about them. I hope that as soon as the school year ramps back up, we’ll already have our plan in place, and we’ll get to go out and execute it.”

Governor Brian Kemp swore in Kendall on Monday.

He is a Marine Veteran and a former criminal investigator as a member of law enforcement. Previous to his role as the county’s District Attorney, he served as an Assistant District Attorney in the Cordele and Houston Judicial Circuits.

Kendall will keep his seat until 2024, at which time he will have to run in a special election.

Finally, according to Kendall, the goal has not changed.

“I think we carry on with the mission, serving the people of Houston County,” Kendall said. “We’re going to keep doing our job, we’re going to worry about the cases we have now, we’re going to worry about our cold cases and we’re going to look into the future of proactive law enforcement. The mission is, and will continue to be, to serve the citizens of Houston County.”

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