Former Surry County deputy sheriff Bill Brinkman continues to talk about his experiences working on the Michael Vick investigation.

The question is whether anyone will listen.

For now, Brinkman has drawn interest only locally.  After a published report revealed Brinkman’s belief that he was fired due to his decision to push the Vick matter over the apparent objections of prosecutor Gerald Poindexter, Brinkman shared more details with Patrick Terpstra of WVEC-TV.

Brinkman told Terpstra that neither Poindexter nor Sheriff Harold Brown wanted the matter to be pursued.  “I brought light to Surry County, and they don’t care for that,” Brinkman said.  “They don’t want outside intrusions.”

After Poindexter refused to permit a search warrant to be executed on the property, Brinkman lobbied for federal involvement.  He told federal agents,  “I think we are going to see the case go away.”

The handling of the case was an issue in the 2007 campaigns of both Poindexter and Brown, who both won re-election in November.

“While I was on site for three days, Mr. Poindexter and the sheriff came on site and saw the physical evidence in place, but yet, during the election process they’re saying they never saw nothing, that they never got nothing.  Well, I’m here to say they saw it in place,” said Brinkman.  “They saw the blood spatters, the training apparatuses.  They saw the areas of the dogs being kept in.”

Though most people believe that the local judge holds the bulk of the power in the criminal justice system, the judge can only deal with the things that come before the court.  The prosecutor has the real power, since the prosecutor has broad discretion to decide who will be prosecuted.  And who won’t.

We’re more convinced than ever that Poindexter never would have pushed the issue if the feds hadn’t gotten involved.  And the feds might not have gotten involved if Brinkman hadn’t pushed the issue.

Now, Brinkman is out of a job.  And no one outside of the Surry County area seems to care.

Hopefully, someone eventually will.  Hopefully, Poindexter’s behavior will be properly scrutinized.

Hopefully, in the end, another prosecutor will make a more meaningful effort to obtain an indictment against Vick for the most heinous of actions to which he’s already admitted — taking an active role in the killing of dogs deemed not good enough to die fighting.