Here’s background information on the people running for sheriff, including the insiders
In the first open Pierce County Sheriff race for nearly two decades, four candidates are asking voters to put them in charge of the state’s second-largest sheriff’s department.
Two candidates work for the Sheriff’s Department. The Pierce County Council chairman and a police sergeant on a nearby military base also are vying for the job.
The News Tribune requested arrest records and internal investigations — both founded and unfounded — and reviewed court records for all four candidates.
The top two vote-getters in Tuesday’s primary election will advance to the November ballot.
The candidates
Lt. Cyndie Fajardo has spent 32 years of her 36-year career in law enforcement with the department. She was the president of the Pierce County Deputy Sheriff’s Independent Guild from 2006 to 2015. Fajardo was in charge of the special investigations unit, which is now under investigation for violating department protocol.
Detective Ed Troyer is the spokesperson for the Pierce County Sheriff’s Department and has been with the department for his entire 35-year career.
Doug Richardson, who retired from the Army after 32 years with the rank of brigadier general, was a Lakewood City Council member for the town’s first 17 years. He left Lakewood as mayor in 2012 to represent Lakewood, DuPont, Steilacoom, Parkland, Joint Base Lewis-McChord and Anderson and Ketron islands in Pierce County Council’s District 6 seat. His second and final term expires this year.
Darin Harris is also an Army veteran who now works as a federal police sergeant at Naval Air Station Whidbey Island. He does not have any public office experience.
Cynthia Fajardo
Fajardo recently was subject of a Sheriff’s Department “criticism report” and has a letter of reprimand in her file from some 2003. Both pertain to conduct of people she supervised within the Sheriff’s Department.
The 2003 letter of reprimand was a result of sustained allegations that she failed to fully and properly supervise personnel under her command as supervisor of the Lakewood Special Operations Unit from 1999 to 2000.
Three of her subordinates were fired due to their conduct, according to the report.
Stories in The News Tribune archives show Sheriff Paul Pastor fired three investigators from the Lakewood detachment for drinking on duty, possibly falsifying public documents and accounting poorly for nearly $60,000 used in their cases.
“Serious allegations attended the conduct of several members of the unit when Sgt. Fajardo was in charge,” according to the letter of reprimand.
The letter also states that it was never alleged that Fajardo, then a sergeant, engaged in the same kinds of violations.
On July 30 of this year, Fajardo spoke with The News Tribune about her internal reports.
She said there was no directive or policy manual to guide her when she took over Lakewood SOU, and she was under the impression that the city of Lakewood was reviewing the accounts.
“It was not a matter of misconduct but rather accounting,” she said.
More recently, the department booked a person into Pierce County Jail in February 2020 without the intent to charge that person with the crime they were being held for, according to the criticism report obtained by The News Tribune through a public records request. Fajardo was listed as “involved personnel” in the case.
The report is part of an open investigation after a complaint was made against Fajardo regarding the incident.
The criticism report also said allegations linked to Fajardo include unsatisfactory job performance, truthfulness/false statement/false swearing/false reporting, and abuse of power.
Ten members of the unit released a statement to The News Tribune as part of its coverage of that case.
“SIU asked the prosecutor’s office not to charge the case. The investigative reports were ‘locked’ and inaccessible to the prosecutor’s office, historically a common practice where SIU wants to use a suspect,” the unit said. “However, in this instance, the prosecutor’s office believed SIU was locking down the information to force the prosecutor’s office not to charge the case.”
Fajardo told The News Tribune she could not speak publicly about the latest allegation because she had yet to be interviewed by the Prosecutor’s Office. She did say that “in drug investigations, we know we don’t charge certain people to climb the fish ladder.”
Asked if she believed there were similarities between the criticism she faced leading the Special Investigations Unit and the Lakewood Special Operations Unit, she said, “It’s two separate things. The only similarity is that policies and procedures regarding those units need to be reviewed at least on a biannual basis.”
Fajardo went on to say that staff should get more in-person training. She said she has been a long-time advocate for new hires to get month-long training for positions, because she feels that there was “no directive” when she took charge of the Lakewood detachment in 1999. She also wants continuously updated policy manuals.
In 2006, Fajardo sued the Sheriff’s Department on grounds of gender discrimination. She and the department settled out of court.
In her complaint, she claimed that she had been repeatedly passed over for promotions by deputies with “less experience, education and a lower civil service examination score.” The department denied the allegations in court documents.
Fajardo has no reported arrest record in Pierce County.
Ed Troyer
The public information officer for the Pierce County Sheriff’s Office has been investigated internally six times during his career. One complaint was sustained against him, one was sustained in his favor and four were found to be unfounded or he was exonerated.
Troyer told The News Tribune he feels that his record is not as bad as some others.
“I have no use-of-force complaints against me after 35 years, which is pretty impressive,” he said.
The most serious complaint included a letter from Pastor to Troyer in 2015 after the spokesman drove his department-owned vehicle to a pub and drank a beer. Troyer’s wife drove him home after, the report says.
The sheriff told Troyer that while the complaint was unfounded, he holds Troyer to a higher standard as the spokesperson for the department.
“In many ways, as Public Information Officer for the Department, you are more visible than other employees even when you are off duty and out of uniform,” Pastor said to Troyer. “I want to counsel you that you must be aware of appearances of violations as well as actual violations.”
Troyer told The News Tribune that he agreed with Pastor.
“That was after an investigation that I requested,” he said of the letter. “It was unfounded, and he thinks we need to be held to a higher standard, and he was right.”
In 2008, he received a “sustained” positive finding when he converted an ambulance into a “Santa Sleigh.” The command staff commended him for his efforts.
In 2011, there was a sustained finding that Troyer’s vehicle was 26,000 miles overdue for service.
In 2013, a woman complained to the department that Troyer’s comments to the media contradicted an ongoing investigation and were misleading regarding her missing granddaughter. Pastor said in the report that “this was thoroughly pursued. I find it clearly unfounded.”
In 2015, Troyer was exonerated by Pastor after a citizen complained of a response he made on social media. After the citizen posted on Troyer’s personal Facebook page saying that the department’s deputies should go to jail, Troyer responded by saying he would pass along the citizen’s information to ‘friends,’ the internal report said.
Exoneration in an internal affairs matter means an incident occurred but was not subject to discipline.
In 2018, a complaint was made over an endorsement Troyer made in the Voters Pamphlet in favor of Mark Lindquist for Pierce County Prosecuting Attorney.
“I believe this is wrong and allows Det. Troyer the ability to use his recognition as the spokesman for the department for political purposes,” the complaint said.
At the time, the Sheriff’s Department policy on political activity said, “Employees may not represent the Pierce County Sheriff’s Department or identify themselves in any way that could reasonably be perceived as representing the Pierce County Sheriff’s Department.”
The complaint was deemed unfounded by Pastor and Internal Affairs staff.
Troyer has no records of arrests or court cases in Pierce County.
Doug Richardson
There were no Pierce County internal investigations against Richardson since he’s been on the County Council.
He was named as a defendant in two lawsuits against the Lakewood City Council in 2000 and 2003. Both were dismissed without trial.
Darin Harris
Naval Air Station Whidbey Island, where Harris works, is under the federal government’s jurisdiction. The public records request made on June 22 to the Department of Defense about records on Harris has not been filled.
He has no records of arrests or court cases in Pierce County.
Stacia Glenn contributed to this report.
This story was originally published August 1, 2020 at 9:00 AM.
