Petition calls for Union County Sheriff’s deputy to resign following K-9 interaction

MONROE, N.C. (QUEEN CITY NEWS) — A new petition is circulating on social media calling on the Union County Sheriff’s Office to have one of its new deputies resign. This comes after the officer was caught in a viral video with a separate police department seen reportedly mishandling his K-9 partner.

Deputy Sheriff James Hampton joined the Union County Sheriff’s Office patrol division in July. He had previously resigned from his old position with Salisbury Police after getting caught up in that viral video.

Steven Cole is one of now over a thousand people who have signed a new petition calling for Hampton to resign.

“It really disgusted me,” Cole said. “We don’t have much of a voice anymore, and social media is a very powerful thing.”

He said he is passionate about raising awareness for this because he has rescues of his own.

“It really hurts my heart to see that,” Cole said. “I kind of see, you know, someone who would treat an innocent animal like that, how would they treat a person?”

Last week, Queen City News asked the Union County Sheriff’s Office about Hampton’s hire and received the following statement.

“We are not able to respond and/or provide a statement regarding the hiring of Mr. Hampton as any potential response would most definitely involve confidential personnel information, which, by law, we are not allowed to discuss publicly.” 

We asked again Tuesday about Hampton and this new petition. A spokesperson said there is nothing further to add to the previous statement.

After an investigation into Hampton’s interaction with Zuul, the Salisbury Police Department said Officer Hampton had been “Engaging in inappropriate discipline of Zuul,” and had “Acted in a manner entirely inconsistent with his K-9 training and had violated Police Department policy.”

No charges were filed.

“That’s an evil in the world that we don’t want to bring to light, and especially for someone in a public service, I think they should be held accountable, and they should be held to a higher standard,” Cole said.