LEALMAN - The sheriff's race took a nasty turn Wednesday night during a candidates forum sponsored by the Lealman Community Association.

Democratic challenger Randall Jones and Republican incumbent Jim Coats had only five minutes each to talk but found time to hurl angry insults at each other. Coats got so hot during the exchange that one audience member later questioned the wisdom of angering someone who carries a gun.

Jones started the fracas when he accused Coats of indulging in threats earlier this year when he warned Pinellas County commissioners that if Coats had to cut his budget by 10 percent the streets would be "littered with human carnage" and "innocent citizens, including children, will be caught up in a deadly crossfire."

Accused Coats of irresponsibly using "reckless" words. Coats, he said, did not act with integrity. Voters, Jones said, do not need Coats' style of ethics and integrity any longer.

Coats hotly denied Jones' claims, saying his opponent was "misinformed, uninformed" and "misleading the public" about what was said. The misrepresentations are unethical and lack integrity, he said.

Jones responded by inviting the 60 or so audience members to go to the Pinellas County website and listen to a recording of that meeting to see what Coats actually said.

Coats then attacked Jones' qualifications and competency to do the job. Jones, an 18-year veteran of the Pinellas County Sheriff's office who resigned to run, has only the bare qualifications to be a police officer, Coats said. Jones has no college education and failed to pass the sergeant's exam.

That statement enraged an audience member who stood up and said, "I'm tired of you" saying people who have only high school degrees are incapable of performing higher-level jobs. Many people who have no college degrees have done great things the woman said before she stalked out of the room.

-- Anne Lindberg, Times Staff Writer