County News

Anyone with an outstanding warrant in southern Smith County may want to consider taking care of it before it becomes public knowledge. Precinct 3 Constable Dustin Rust and the Tri County Leader newspaper have teamed up to publish a new list of outstanding warrants every week.

“It’s the same principal as Crime Stoppers. A lot of people come in voluntarily when they see their name in the newspaper,” Constable Rust said.

Rust said anyone who takes the initiative to come to the Precinct offices and take care of their fines will not be arrested.

“We want the money. We don’t want to arrest people over unpaid traffic tickets,” Rust said. “But this helps us to collect fines that were otherwise going unpaid,” he said.

While some people have had fines that exceed $5,000, Constable Rust said the majority of people have smaller fines that amount from old traffic tickets; fines that may not seem like much individually, but add up to a lot of revenue for the County if they are all collected.

“We’re very happy to assist local law enforcement by publishing warrants and police beats. It’s a win-win situation: the agencies benefit from getting that information out there and our feedback suggests that readers enjoy this feature of the newspaper,” Tri County Editor Charlotte Smith said.

The success of the program has led the City of Whitehouse and City of Troup Police Departments to begin listing their warrants in the Tri County Leader as well.

To read this week’s warrants, click here and visit the Tri County Leader website.