I am a 9-1-1 dispatcher and, therefore, a member of the Sheriff’s Office. I am also a citizen of San Juan County. I have as much at stake in the leadership of our Sheriff’s Department as anyone else. I also have a unique perspective from within that office.

I take issue with one sentence of Deputy Asher’s letter in response to the letter written by the undersheriff and three deputies: “With the recently demonstrated inability to deal effectively with a single teenage serial burglar, it is no longer enough to say that we can do better.”

This is quite obviously a reference to Colton Harris-Moore, who managed to elude local, state, and federal law enforcement across the United States for two years on his destructive, self-indulgent crime spree. Implicit in using that sentence as a reason to vote for him as sheriff is the idea that he would have caught Mr. Harris-Moore had he been in charge. This flies in the face of the evidence, given the nationwide failure to apprehend this “single teen-age serial burglar.”

I believe it is disingenuous of Deputy Asher to lay this failure at the feet of the San Juan County Sheriff’s Office. It panders to public frustration and popular misconceptions the public already share about law enforcement.

It is only one sentence, but?

Michael S. McElrath
9-1-1 dispatcher
San Juan County Sheriff’s Office