The Greenville County Sheriff’s Office, Greenville Police Department and nonprofit Upstate Warrior Solution signed a memorandum of understanding on Wednesday, May 19 to better assist at-risk veterans in Greenville.
Upstate Warrior Solution will assist authorities by providing referrals and resources on housing, employment, health care, education and other services to military-affiliated community members and first responders. In turn, law enforcement officers will connect veterans they meet with the nonprofit and its resources.
“This is the type of group that we in law enforcement love to partner with because they are trying to be a solution to a problem,” said Greenville Police Chief Howie Thompson. Thanks to groups like Upstate Warrior Solution, he said, police officers can better exercise intervention and prevention for veterans.
Thompson said about 40 veterans pass through Greenville’s detention centers each month. Law enforcement will start better tracking the veterans who do enter the criminal justice system through a new section on incident reports.
President of Upstate Warrior Solution and Marine veteran Charlie Hall said, “We have tried to really be proactive to find veterans where they are.”
He explained that many people assume veterans are only older adults who served in the Korean or Vietnam wars but the U.S. has been at war for decades in Afghanistan and Iraq. Hall said Upstate Warrior Solution has been working to have detention centers do more upstream prevention to stop behavior that would lead to an arrest.
Greenville County Sheriff Hobart Lewis said the partnership could also help current police officers. He said 30% of the department is veterans, so the resources from Upstate Warrior Solution will also be available to those in the department’s ranks.
“We want them to work here a lot of times,” Lewis said, referring to hiring veterans. “That mentality of wanting to serve, it just translates right over to wanting to serve your community.”
