Will voters choose an insider or outsider to become the next Pierce County Sheriff?

With Ed Troyer stepping down, there’s an open seat in the race for Pierce County Sheriff this fall. One candidate to succeed Troyer is a 35-year veteran of the same agency; the other is a former captain with 33 years at the Seattle Police Department.

Both candidates have emphasized an intention to restore accountability for petty crime to the county, which they say has deteriorated in recent years.

At a recent forum hosted by the League of Women Voters of Tacoma-Pierce County, both candidates for Pierce County Sheriff said the level of local theft is unacceptably high and they want to bring more vigorous enforcement.

Retired Seattle Police Captain Keith Swank said retailers have become overly resigned to these losses.

“We’re going to work with the box stores and say, “Listen — we don’t want you to let things walk out of your store, we want the security that’s here to try to help dissuade that from happening, and we want to work with you and partner with you to stop doing this,’” he said. “It’s criminal enterprises that are working these theft rings and we want to stop that.”

His challenger, Patti Jackson, is the patrol bureau chief and former head of corrections at the Sheriff’s Office. She said the wave of theft has been a “perfect storm” that started during the pandemic but needs renewed urgency.

“Then we suffered the staffing crisis and it just seems like we have settled at a status quo,” she said. “People are tired and they’re starting to react to that, and we need to be able to respond to what our public needs.”

Jackson noted that this period has coincided with booking restrictions that did not allow people to be jailed for theft cases.

“We will arrest people who are engaged in criminal activity,” Jackson said. “If we can’t hold them in the jail, we will at least get them accountable to the fact that we book them [and] we give them their fingerprints and photograph, which starts towards their criminal history.”

In a question about homelessness in Pierce County, the two candidates showed different emphases.

“We understand it’s not a crime to be homeless,” Jackson said. “But make no mistake: If you’re engaged in criminal activity, those are the things you’re going to be held accountable for.”

In other cases, Jackson said she’d seek partnerships with “subject matter experts” to provide social services.

Swank said his time in Seattle left him convinced that most homelessness is driven by addiction and mental health issues that won’t change without police intervention.

“It’s not compassionate to allow people to live in squalor on your streets,” he said. “So as your sheriff, we’re going to get them help by holding them accountable and giving them a choice: You go to treatment or you go to jail. And most of the time they’ll pick treatment.”

Both candidates have raised over $100,000. The Alliance for Gun Responsibility Victory Fund has also spent $4,400 on Jackson’s behalf.

In the six-candidate primary, Swank was the top vote-getter with 25.1% of the vote while Jackson trailed behind with 24.48% of votes — a margin of just 1,223 votes between them.

If elected, Swank has pledged to hire another internal candidate, Cyndie Fajardo, to serve as undersheriff. Fajardo came in third place in the Aug. 6 primary.