TNT Ed Board endorsement: Our pick for Pierce County Sheriff | Opinion

Perhaps the biggest decision Pierce County voters will face this election season is one The News Tribune Editorial Board has long argued they have no business making.

We might as well get that out of the way first.

The fact that the Pierce County Sheriff — a position tasked with overseeing the second largest sheriff’s agency in the state and hundreds of employees — is chosen by a popular vote of the people every four years strikes us as bonkers.

At the risk of sounding flippant?

We might even suggest the last four years prove it.

Still, we don’t write the rules, we just play by them — and starting with the August primary, voters in every nook and corner of Pierce County will have their say.

Thanks in large part to current Pierce County Sheriff Ed Troyer’s decision not to seek re-election this fall, there will be a new sheriff in town in 2025, come hell or high water.

In 2020, presented with a remarkably uninspiring field of candidates vying to replace longtime sheriff Paul Pastor, the TNT Ed Board was so underwhelmed we abstained from making an endorsement in protest.

Thankfully, this year we didn’t have the same problem.

Patti Jackson, Pierce County’s long-time chief of corrections, gets the TNT Ed Board’s endorsement nod.

In our view, Jackson, who currently serves as acting patrol bureau chief and has spent more than three decades in law enforcement, stands the best chance of leading the Pierce County Sheriff’s Department where it so clearly needs to go — light years into the future, and fast.

No law enforcement agency in the nation is perfect, and the Pierce County Sheriff’s Department — which has faced staffing shortages like all the rest in recent years and created headaches of its own making — is no exception.

If elected, Jackson won’t just be expected to improve morale and restore the department culture created under Pastor; she’ll be faced with a daunting list of long-standing, systemic failings to address.

For starters, there’s the department’s history of disproportionately using force against people of color.

Perhaps just as challenging?

Whoever is elected Pierce County’s next top cop — whether it’s Jackson or one of the other five candidates joining her on the primary ballot — will be responsible for rebuilding people’s fractured trust after four years of the us-versus-them division that has defined Troyer’s tenure.

It won’t be easy.

Cyndie Fajardo, a lieutenant with the Pierce County Sheriff’s Department who also has more than three decades of experience in law enforcement, is making her second run for sheriff in 2024.

Similar to last time around, Fajardo impressed the TNT Ed Board at times with her candor and thoughtful responses to difficult questions. But the scrutiny she’s faced in recent years over her leadership of the department’s Special Investigations Unit continues to cloud her candidacy in our mind, whether it’s justified or not.

Craig Gocha, a local kid who grew up dreaming of being a cop, has accomplished what he set out to do. Over an 11-year career in law enforcement, the former 15-year-old member of the Puyallup Police Explorers has worked for three departments — including in his hometown.

We admire Gocha’s enthusiasm and desire to improve an agency with obvious flaws, but he told the TNT Ed Board he’s been involved in five officer-involved shootings during what amounts to a relatively short career.

While Gocha was officially cleared of wrongdoing in all of the shootings, local law enforcement experts we consulted on the subject suggested that’s a lot, any way you slice it.

In our mind, it’s a pattern that raises a red flag on Gocha’s candidacy that’s impossible to ignore.

Keith Swank, a former Seattle police officer and member of the U.S. Army from Puyallup, is also on the ballot. So is Darrin Harris, whose experience in law enforcement was largely notched working for the Detroit Police Department.

Swank’s biggest claim to fame, besides being a frequent candidate for public office in recent years, was his role as a supervisor in a 2010 South Lake Union robbery investigation in which a Seattle PD gang detective threatened to beat the “Mexican piss” out of a prone Latino man.

Harris mounted an unsuccessful campaign for Pierce County Sheriff in 2020.

This year, the answers Harris provided the TNT Ed Board during the candidate endorsement interview about the intersection of race and policing left us troubled.

Mike Csapo, the final candidate in the race, did not respond to the TNT Ed Board’s invitation to participate in this year’s endorsement process.

Jackson, meanwhile, entered this year’s sheriff’s race boasting the endorsement of just about every elected leader and high-profile law enforcement official you can name — which only adds to her credentials.

As strange as it sounds, however, the vast support Jackson has garnered from the Pierce County establishment, as impressive as it is, might be the one thing that gives us pause.

The status quo isn’t good enough. That much we’re certain of. To earn distinction in the position, Pierce County’s next sheriff will have to go much further.

Jackson earned our endorsement this year for one big reason.

We’re hoping the respect and experience she’s accumulated over the decades — in the department and communities across Pierce County — puts her in the best position to do what needs to be done.

The News Tribune Editorial Board is: Matt Driscoll, opinion editor; Stephanie Pedersen, TNT president and editor; Jim Walton, community representative; Amanda Figueroa, community representative; Justin Evans, community representative; J. Manny Santiago, community representative; Bart Hayes, community representative.

This story was originally published July 21, 2024 at 5:00 AM.