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Sheriff Young seeks to diversify his staff
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DEPUTY JASMINE ALI is the first woman to serve as deputy at the Grady County Sheriff’s Office.
For the first time in history, a woman has put on the uniform of Grady County Sheriff’s Deputy. Despite having a bachelor’s degree in marketing and merchandising, New Jersey native Jasmine Ali, 35, has many years experience working in law enforcement.
Her career started in 2006 when she moved to Cairo and was hired as a corrections officer at Autry State Prison in Pelham. Ali says after six months, she was offered a job at the Fulton County Sheriff’s Office in Atlanta where she worked in the jail for one-and-a-half years.
“They didn’t treat me any differently because I’m a woman. They had me work on floors with murderers and rapists. I walked in that room like I was 7 feet tall and 300 pounds of muscle,” she says.
Ali says she stayed with the sheriff’s office in Atlanta for nearly five years, but moved back to New Jersey after her mother, De’Borah Crichlow, developed health problems. Three years later, they moved back here.
Although Ali was raised in Ivington, N.J. by her mother and grandparents, she has deep roots in Grady County. Both her mother and grandparents, Lillian Norwood Everett and Melvin Everett, are Cairo natives, and all have now returned here.
When Ali arrived in July 2016, she met with Grady County Sheriff Harry Young who said he did not have a job opening but would help her find one. She started working at Pelham Police Department. When a part time position became available at the Grady S.O. in 2017, Ali was hired, and in March of this year, she was promoted to a full time opening. “To work in the city where I reside and where family is, is perfect,” she says.
Ali says one of her goals as a deputy is to serve as a role model for young people. “I want to be involved in the youth. There are so many youth that are misguided and don’t have anyone. I want them to look at me and say even though she’s a deputy sheriff, she’s human,” she says. “I want to be an example for my kids and other kids, especially little girls, so they see it’s not just men who rule the world.”
Ali is the mother of three, Destin Moore, 16, who will be a ninth grader at Brookwood School in Thomasville; Justice Washington,9, who will be a fifth grader at Eastside Elementary School; and Empress Washington, 8, a rising 3rd grader at Eastside.
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