Instead, the two cars are sitting quietly, fenced in and tucked behind the volunteer fire department's station house. They have been gathering dust since Aug. 8, when the town's last police officer resigned, leaving Tye with no active local law enforcement for a full month. But residents don't seem overly concerned. When we moved here, there weren't any police officers. Tye is a town where folks can tell you where the mayor lives, what kind of truck he drives and where he works on the weekends.
Neighbors know each other, residents say, and that keeps the town safe.
They say they have the Taylor County sheriff's deputies to watch over them. And for now at least, that's enough. The town has lost all its police officers before. And as before, the city trudges steadily on searching for replacements. Tye's city council created a three-man police department in the late 1970s.