Rockingham County Sheriff Sam Page wanted to keep politics out of a news conference he held Wednesday morning announcing the arrest of a former sheriff’s deputy accused of sexual assault.
He bristled when he couldn’t. It might have been impossible. Page is, after all, running in a Republican primary to unseat one of the most powerful state legislators, Senate leader Phil Berger, in what has already become a high-profile, claws-bared political slugfest.
“You’re being political,” Page said, responding to a reporter’s question about negative campaign ads against him. “I’m being professional, ma’am. I’m the sheriff of Rockingham County. I’m a 43-year veteran of law-enforcement, and I’m here today to tell you what’s happened and what we’re doing to protect our citizens and our inmates.”
The previous day, Page had fired Christopher Lee Garrison, 32, after Garrison was accused of sexually assaulting a 21-year-old female inmate at a local hospital. Another sheriff’s deputy had reported the incident to Page and other sheriff’s officials at 7:30 a.m. Tuesday. Page said he immediately suspended Garrison and called in the State Bureau of Investigation to look into the alleged assault.
By the end of business Tuesday, Garrison, who had been with the sheriff’s office since August 2021, had lost his job and been charged with felony sexual activity by a parent or custodian. He is in the Rockingham County Jail on a $200,000 bond. Garrison’s attorney, Jason E. Ross, declined to comment.
Garrison’s arrest this week—and the press conference—underscored how Page’s leadership of his agency, particularly the jail, has become a key issue for his political campaign. A newly formed political action group called NC True Conservatives has been running a series of cartoonish ads attacking Page, calling him “Shady Sam.” One of those ads focuses on numerous scandals that have plagued Page’s administration. Berger has also gone after Page for his operation of the jail.
There is plenty of fodder. State officials say 13 inmates have died since 2021. State jail regulators with the N.C. Department of Health and Human Services have concluded that Rockingham County detention officers failed to sufficiently observe 11 inmates who died between 2021 and 2024, resulting in a federal wrongful-death lawsuit, the News & Record reported.
Those problems persisted. During a March 3 inspection, state officials found, among other things, that detention officers failed to comply with supervision requirements. Page submitted a plan of corrective action that the state accepted, but state officials found deficiencies again during an August 27 inspection, according to a September letter state officials sent Page. (The inspection report was not immediately available.)
The sheer number of inmate deaths within a short time cost the jail its liability insurance coverage from Travelers Insurance. The insurance company said the county failed to notify it of inmate deaths and other issues at the jail. Chris Elliott, the county’s risk manager, also has complained that the sheriff’s office didn’t notify him or other county officials about problems at the jail.
Among those problems include the fact that Page fired Capt. Shane Bullins, who oversaw the jail, after he faced multiple sexual battery and assault charges. (Bullins pleaded guilty to six counts of assault on a female in November 2024 and received 18 months of supervised probation.) Bullins and Page were among nine defendants named in a federal lawsuit brought by the mother of Kyle Kepley, an inmate who killed himself in his cell on May 3, 2022.
Elliott also complained that the sheriff’s office didn’t notify county officials and the insurance company about a deputy who had been fired for sexual harassment. A third deputy was fired for having sex with an inmate, an incident the insurance company only found out about through its own investigation, the News & Observer reported.
The county eventually got new liability insurance coverage from Kinsale and Indian Harbor Insurance, WGHP/Fox 8 reported. That new coverage came at a cost. The premiums more than doubled to $351,906.29, from $161,054. The deductible became 20 times more costly, jumping from $10,000 an incident to $200,000 an incident.
“Right now, we sit with what I would say is the top five highest deductibles in the history of North Carolina,” Elliott told the Rockingham County Board of Commissioners at a November 3 meeting. “And in my talks with our insurance companies, they don’t want to come within 10 feet of us right now until the (sheriff’s) administration is done. That’s a hard burden to bear.”
Berger weighed in on Garrison’s arrest in a statement Thursday: “Another tragic consequence because Sam Page fails to do his job,” he said.
Page did not immediately respond to a request for a comment on Berger’s jab at him. But he has denied any allegation that his office was besieged by corruption or incompetence. What Garrison allegedly did was an aberration, he said on Wednesday.
“As sheriff of Rockingham County, serving faithfully for the past 27 years, I was totally shocked and appalled by the serious and inexcusable actions of this deputy,” he said. “Rest assured, we do not and will not tolerate these types of abuse of any inmate in our care, custody, and control.”