Troyer’s 2 a.m. fiasco is Exhibit A why Pierce County must stop electing sheriffs
Pierce County Sheriff Ed Troyer didn’t just damage his own reputation when he tailed a 24-year-old Black man driving through Troyer’s neighborhood for the oh-so-suspicious behavior of delivering newspapers, as first reported by the Seattle Times Friday.
His 2 a.m. confrontation and call for police backup didn’t just embarrass his department, already on the hot seat after the botched investigation of last year’s Manny Ellis homicide at the hands of Tacoma police.
Troyer’s foolhardy actions that night in late January, just two months after being sworn in as sheriff, also betrayed the trust of voters who gave him a 64-percent mandate last November.
And the 19-year sheriff’s office spokesman turned top county law enforcement officer has now become Exhibit A in the case against continuing to elect sheriffs in Pierce County.
Before last year’s election, faced with a weak field of candidates, we argued for a switch from an elected sheriff to a system with day-to-day oversight and appropriate checks and balances.
The sheriff should be appointed by the Pierce County executive and confirmed by the County Council.
We made the argument again in November, after King County voters wisely approved that change. And we’ll keep making it until the Pierce County Council comes out with a proposal to amend the county charter.
The council is set to meet in executive session Monday to discuss possible responses to the Troyer fiasco, even while they gather more information about what happened that night.
Council chair Derek Young has extra motivation to get to the bottom of it, since Troyer’s showdown with news carrier Sedrick Altheimer took place in the West Slope neighborhood, in Young’s district.
The range of legal options is limited, since the sheriff answers solely to voters and only they have the power to remove him. An independent investigation of the Jan. 27 incident could be on the table.
But advancing a charter amendment to voters is within the council’s scope of authority and should be top of mind, even though it would involve playing the long game; any change wouldn’t take effect until Troyer completes his current four-year term.
Young, D-Gig Harbor, told us Friday that he’s supported changing the system for some time, prior to last year’s election, as a means to access a deep, national pool of competent law enforcement leaders. The 2020 retirement of well-respected Sheriff Paul Pastor after two decades in office got people thinking about what would come next.
But calling a public vote on an appointed-vs.-elected sheriff would require a supermajority of five votes on the seven-member council, which is no sure thing.
“I didn’t think we’d have this conversation so soon,” Young said, noting that the unfolding Troyer controversy “may speed things up.”
One strong proponent of the change is new council member Ryan Mello, D-Tacoma. “I believe this is an administrative, professional position, no different than a chief of police, and not a political position,” Mello told us by email.
We see it the same way. Why should the Pierce County sheriff be elected when the chiefs of the Washington State Patrol and the Tacoma Police Department are appointed?
Other council members will take some convincing. Hans Zeiger, R-Puyallup, was circumspect when we reached him by email Friday. “I tend to favor elections where the citizens can hold public servants accountable directly,” said Zeiger, also new to the council this year. “But I’m open to further discussion on that.”
There’s no dispute among council members that having total faith in public safety leadership is of paramount importance. That was clearly shaken by news reports of Troyer’s late-night pursuit of a newspaper carrier.
In a statement Friday, Troyer pledged to uphold “policing that is transparent, accountable to its citizens, and administered free of racial bias,” while also maintaining that Altheimer verbally threatened him.
But Troyer’s story has been inconsistent — the Tacoma police report indicates that he said he wasn’t threatened — while excerpts from the sheriff’s 911 call, including references to Altheimer’s “homeless-looking car,” suggest prejudiced assumptions if not racial profiling.
And if Troyer suspected a prowler, why did he leave home in the middle of the night in his unmarked SUV like some kind of adrenaline-stoked neighborhood watch captain, rather than simply call the cops?
Given the tense encounter he provoked, and the mass police response his priority call prompted after he told a dispatcher that “someone just threatened to kill me,” it’s fortunate nobody was injured or killed that night.
Back in November, after King County voters approved an appointed sheriff, we asked Troyer to comment about the possibility of it happening in Pierce County.
“If you’re going to use me for an example you should at least wait until you see how it goes,” he replied by email.
Well, we sure didn’t have to wait long.
Every four years, Pierce County voters do their civic duty by electing a sheriff. Every four years, they determine who’s most capable of protecting and serving more than 900,000 residents across 1,806 square miles. Every four years, they decide whether a sheriff candidate is trustworthy, level-headed and a professional role model to 300-plus patrol deputies.
We wish that were a sufficient safeguard against unfit candidates pinning on a sheriff’s badge.
Unfortunately, it’s not.
This story was originally published March 20, 2021 at 9:48 AM.