Clayton County Sheriff Victor Hill is acting like a little punk.

And the sad part is, he's deluded enough to think that his repeated temper tantrums will get him a seat at the big people's table, which he so desperately wants.

JAY BOOKMAN MY OPINION • E-mail Bookman Recent columns: Fourth of July's about freedom that is earned  Familiar Georgia may melt away  Slowly, green shoots of optimism appear  Inciting fears in hard times dangerous  Georgia Senate endorses radical idea  'Socialist' charge has lost its power to sting  Legislature, we've got your number

It shouldn't, and it won't.

To the contrary, Hill's antics have made him a regionwide laughingstock and cemented the image of Clayton County government as a place where insanity reigns. With his misbehavior, Hill has also added fuel to the argument for letting urban counties abolish the elective office of sheriff.

As sheriff, Hill has one major responsibility: running the Clayton County jail. But as a man whose ambitions exceed his competence, Hill dreams about larger things. Even though Clayton County has a separate professional police force trained, hired and paid to conduct law enforcement, Hill wants to use his jail deputies — employees hired, trained and paid to handle county prisoners — to investigate crimes and perform other law enforcement duties.

Legally, he's entitled to do that. The office of county sheriff is embedded in the state constitution, and efforts to allow counties to abolish the elective office have been stymied by the powerful sheriffs lobby at the Legislature. As a result, in Clayton, Fulton and other counties, the sheriff's position has become an antique loaded gun, sitting out in the open where fools and knaves can grab it and do real damage.

In Hill's case, he wants to use the sheriff's office — an elective post — to take over all law enforcement duties in the county. So last week he issued an order that barred Clayton County police officers from interviewing inmates held in the Clayton County jail. If a Clayton police detective had arrested a murder suspect, for example, Hill's order would prevent that detective from trying to interrogate that suspect in jail.

Hill also barred other forms of cooperation, such as providing mug shots of inmates to Clayton police. It was a remarkably stupid and probably illegal policy, and he has since been forced to rescind it.

Initially, though, Hill refused to explain the policy to the public or the press. That was nothing new. It seems that in the past, members of the press have failed to shower Hill with the adulation and respect he so clearly deserves, so he has "punished" the media by refusing to speak with them.

Apparently, he didn't like the questions the press asked about his decision to fire 27 county employees, most of them white, on his first day in office. He didn't like being queried about why he posted snipers on rooftops of the jail the day those employees were fired. He didn't like the publicity when the county had to pay those workers $6.5 million for illegal dismissal, a figure that didn't include legal fees. And he didn't like it much when the state Ethics Commission fined him $2,000 for using county funds for his political campaign.

This time around, it eventually became clear that Hill is trying to launch an anti-burglary task force with his deputies, another effort that duplicates the work of Clayton police.

He barred Clayton police from the jail as leverage to get burglary-related documents from the police department, documents the police say he could have had for the asking.

That is not the act of a man serious about public service or protecting public safety. That is not the act of a man who understands that deputy sheriffs work for the people, not for him.

Most of all, that is not the act of a man who should be given additional power.

In fact, here's a prediction: Unless Hill is turned out of office by Clayton voters — his first four-year term is up this year — his career in public service will almost certainly end in disaster.

The trend lines seem pretty clear, especially given his insistence that it's a good idea to have two sets of people with guns and badges on the street, competing for arrests and publicity.

The only question is how big the disaster will be, and how many others he'll take down with him.

• Jay Bookman is deputy editorial page editor. His column runs Monday and Thursday.