Pat Withrow, Escalon
Q:A:Why are you the best candidate for the seat?
The current sheriff has been in office for 12 years and is currently under investigation for 10,000 missing or misplaced pieces of evidence and personally taking guns from the evidence room. The Board of Supervisors has stripped him of the Coroner’s Division due to extreme mismanagement and questionable behavior, and is about to lose the Lathrop contract due to fiscal mismanagement. I have 28 years of onthe-job experience at the San Joaquin County Sheriff’s Department. I am a man of integrity, honor and moral character. The men and women of the Sheriff ’s Department believe I am the man to correct these problems and get our department back on track.
(Editor’s note: A San Joaquin County Civil Grand Jury issued a report stating that it could not substantiate that any property was missing from the Sheriff’s Office property room. Also, the San Joaquin County District Attorney investigated allegations that Moore inappropriately obtained guns and concluded that “... we have found no violations of California criminal statutes.”)
Q:What issues set you apart from your opponent?
A:I am in favor of separating the Coroner’s Division from the Sheriff’s Department and forming an independent Medical Examiner’s Office. I am pro-concealed weapon permit. I believe we should secure our current jail facility and not build a new one. We should provide inmates with skills training while in custody in an attempt to reduce recidivism. I believe we should have more than four school resource officers for our county. I believe that routine patrol should be fully staffed at the 124 fully-funded positions to protect the people of San Joaquin County. I believe a full audit of the sheriff ’s budget and evidence room should be conducted by an outside agency.
Q:If elected, what do you hope to accomplish during your first 90 days in office?
A:I will restore full staffing to routine patrol and conduct a full, independent audit of our evidence room and budget. I will assist in the formation of the Independent Medical Examiner’s Office, and I will begin the process of securing our jail, which has seen 337 escapes over the past 12 years.
(Editor’s note: The vast majority of escapees have escaped from the Honor Farm, a low-security facility intended for minor offenders.) Your thoughts on: Separation of sheriff/coroner roles
I was in favor of forming the Independent Medical Examiner’s Office and was the first to call for the separation, due to mismanagement and questionable behavior by our current sheriff.
Police/prison reforms
I believe we need to engage with our community to educate our citizens as to their rights, and police procedures. Although we will aggressively enforce all laws of the State of California and our nation, we as law enforcement need to learn from our citizens which tactics or behaviors intimidate or offend good, law-abiding citizens. We need to engage in police training that includes implicit bias training, to ensure all citizens are treated fairly. We need to institute training programs in custody to give those who victimize our citizens an opportunity to change their behavior.
Sanctuary policies
I am sworn to enforce all laws of the State of California and the nation. We will aggressively pursue anyone who commits violent felonies against the citizens of San Joaquin County, including undocumented foreign nationals. We will cooperate with federal immigration officers to ensure convicted, violent undocumented foreign nationals are deported from our country. However, we do not have the man-power, resources or desire to go after good, law-abiding people who may be undocumented in our community. The San Joaquin County Sheriff’s Department is the tip of the spear when it comes to protecting the people of San Joaquin County. We will leave all other federal immigration issues to the experts at the Department of Homeland Security, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Rehabilitation programs
I will implement apprentice and training programs at our jail. These programs will assist those who are incarcerated and wish to turn their lives around. Inmates can learn a skill or trade that will assist them in gaining employment, providing for their families, and becoming productive members of our society.
Reducing property crimes
The Sheriff ’s Department currently has funding for 124 positions on routine patrol. Our current staffing is 67 officers on routine patrol. To fight property crimes in San Joaquin County, we must go back to good, old fashioned law enforcement, where all beats are covered with fullstaffing. By doing this, we will become proactive, as opposed to reactive; we will stop criminals before they victimize our citizens.
Transparency/public relations
As stated before, we will engage with the public and the media to ensure transparent communication when it comes to police behavior and procedures. We will deploy body cameras on our officers, and in vehicle-mounted cameras in our patrol cars. As administrative sergeant in Lathrop, I installed cameras in our vehicles 15 years ago. To this day, the current sheriff has not installed cameras in his vehicles or on his officers. I will continue my effort, as I did in Lathrop, to hold my officers and the public accountable to the truth.
Overcrowding
In the past 12 years, our jail’s population levels have not been controlled by the current sheriff. They are controlled by the Superior Court of San Joaquin County. The current sheriff has never attempted to regain control of his own jail. He uses the Superior Court as protection from criticism and liability when released inmates victimize our citizens. I will regain control of our jail population and ensure that we have adequate bed space for all those who choose to victimize our citizens.
Securing evidence
As discovered in the Coroner’s Division, many divisions of the Sheriff ’s Department, under the current sheriff, are dysfunctional and in disarray. I will request that the Department of Justice conduct an independent audit of our evidence room. Although the current sheriff has said that there is no problem with our evidence room, his budget request says otherwise, as do the photos, interdepartmental memos, and evidence room contractors who blew the whistle on the current dysfunction in the evidence room. The current budget calls for over $500,000 of taxpayers’ money to fix a room that he says has no problem.
Crime prevention
As stated previously, staffing routine patrol, increasing the number of school resource officers, and engaging with our community and fellow law-enforcement departments will prevent crime. Taking these steps will result in a substantial impact on the ability of criminals to victimize our citizens, and will stop those who may have been inclined to choose a life of crime from going down that path in the first place. Having been endorsed by all major law enforcement agencies in our county, including the Lodi Police Officer’s Association, I share their concern at the lack of collaboration and cooperation by the current Sheriff.
Dealing with people with mental illnesses
Engaging with mentally ill citizens is one of the most difficult tasks that law enforcement undertakes today. In my 17-plus years on the street, I have encountered numerous situations in which mental health issues were involved. Our current sheriff does not have this same experience to draw from when educating officers or allocating resources to deal with this issue. We must improve our training and partner with experts in this field to ensure that all officers are able to recognize the signs of mental illness, and use appropriate tactics to ensure both the citizen’s and officer’s safety during the encounter.