
Episode #160
Kenny Blackwell: His Plan To Fight Drugs, Human Trafficking & Jail Overcrowding
Wake County has about 1.2 million people and, by his count, two street-level drug investigators. When he retired from the sheriff's office in 2018, there were ten to twelve. Kenneth "Kenny" Blackwell is the Republican candidate for Wake County Sheriff, and he joins John Amanchukwu in studio to make his case. His background: Wake County Sheriff's Office, the U.S. Marshals Fugitive Task Force, and State Capitol Police. Saved at Beulah Baptist Church in 1976. Married 38 years to Deborah, who passed a little over six years ago — and he's candid about the depression that followed, and about remarrying four years ago. On drugs, his assessment is blunt: fentanyl is the number one problem, and with two investigators covering a county this size, long-term investigations are impossible. The DEA lists I-40 among the top corridors in the country for drug transport, and it runs straight through Wake County. His line: it's almost like we're supporting drugs in the community by not having the manpower. John's response is harder — that's negligence. Then the issue nobody is talking about. According to Blackwell, District Attorney Lorrin Freeman's office tries between ten and fifteen human trafficking cases a year in Wake County. There is no dedicated human trafficking unit at the sheriff's office. And it isn't only sex trafficking. He walks through what he calls slave labor — someone who crossed the border owing five thousand dollars to the coyote who brought them, now working it off in a nail salon or a restaurant, with family still back home as leverage. He describes a recent Raleigh arrest at a local hotel. His day-one plan: expand the drug unit, stand up a human trafficking task force, get the officers trained and equipped, and bring in the federal partners who already have programs for it. Then eight minutes on 2020 that are worth the runtime. Blackwell was with State Capitol Police during the Raleigh riots. He describes watching downtown burn from a rooftop and being told to stand down while the statue came down. John asks what he'd have done instead, and his answer is logistics rather than rhetoric: call DOT, put the big trucks in the intersections, and evacuate the people living above the storefronts. He names the CVS specifically — it's a pharmacy, and the people in that neighborhood get their medication there. His conclusion: protect the lives, protect the property, and tell people to go home. On why nobody wants the job. A Wake County deputy starts around $55,000. Municipal departments nearby pay more, and he describes working a jail with 50 to 70 inmates alone on twelve-hour shifts. His recruiting plan involves going to retiring military and corrections staff directly rather than waiting for applications. And the most human stretch of the interview is about what the work costs. What he calls mind blocks from God, and why he can work a death notification and not carry it home. Why the home has to be right before the shift starts. The difference between fear and anticipation. A colleague killed serving a murder warrant — the anniversary fell on the day of this taping. A woman shot by her own father in front of her children at three in the morning. And the men he's seen with no remorse at all, where you can feel the hair stand up on your neck. Plus his answer on a former sheriff's support, the difference between supporting a candidate and endorsing one, and what he says he was told about why. Shop & Support ⚡️ Website: → https://iknowgod.us/ Merch → https://www.iknowgodmerch.com/ ▶️ Stay on YouTube Subscribe for more truth and bold commentary: / @revwutruth Follow Me on Social Media Instagram ➤ / revwutruth X (Twitter) ➤ https://x.com/REVWUTRUTH

