A Messy Race for Sheriff

Only three months ago, King County Sheriff Sue Rahr, who took office as an appointed sheriff last January, looked like a shoo-in to permanently fill the post of former Sheriff Dave Reichert, elected to Congress last fall. Little-known outside law- enforcement circles, Rahr had been Reichert's chief of operations since 2000, and influential officials were endorsing her and contributing money to her campaign. Former U.S. Sen. Slade Gorton gave $100, and so did King County Prosecuting Attorney Norm Maleng.

Then came summer, and now Rahr has a mess on her hands—and so do her two opponents.

As a result of controversy surrounding a King County Sheriff's Office detective gone wrong and her failure to win the endorsement of a key law-enforcement union, Rahr's name is now known publicly and in unfavorable terms. She also faces serious dissension among KCSO deputies—dissension so strong that it has led some patrol cops to casually engage in depolicing. It's not something deputies will agree to be quoted about—they'd like a hassle-free future no matter which candidate is elected by voters in November. KCSO is the state's third-largest police agency, with a $110 million budget and 700 sworn personnel who patrol unincorporated King County and 13 suburbs in the county, including SeaTac, Sammamish, and Shoreline.

Rahr is challenged in the Sept. 20 primary by veteran KCSO Sgt. Jim Fuda, who has baggage of his own, and Seattle Police Lt. Greg Schmidt, whose past includes a domestic violence acquittal. The top two will be on the Nov. 8 ballot.

In July, the first of Rahr's problems cropped up in the form of an endorsement vote by the King County Police Officers Guild that represents the department's deputies and detectives. The vote is an important barometer of how patrol cops feel about department leadership.

That month, Fuda, a 32-year veteran of the department and its chief hostage negotiator, won the guild's endorsement.

KCSO sources say that few expected Rahr to win the endorsement. She and her backers in the department recognize that average cops are disappointed with Rahr. But many within KCSO were surprised by Fuda's margin of victory in votes cast by union members. Fuda won the vote 259 to 169. Schmidt got six votes.

KCSO deputies interviewed in recent weeks describe it as a no-confidence vote and a reflection of flagging morale among patrol cops.

Why are deputies unhappy with the sheriff, who has only been in office since the New Year? The causes have to do with the department's recent history.

The way the troops explain it, Rahr had been de facto sheriff during much of 2003 and 2004, when Reichert began to focus less on being Sheriff Dave and more on being Political Candidate Reichert. In 2003, influential Republicans saw Reichert as a potential star, either for a run at governor or Congress the following year. Deputies say Reichert began to run the department in ways to make himself politically appealing to voters, especially when it came to taking a lot of credit for bringing Green River killer Gary Ridgway to justice.

Reichert was famously the first detective to work the Green River case back in 1982, when prostitutes who worked the SeaTac area either disappeared or were found dead. Eventually, more than four dozen prostitutes turned up missing. The case was a deep psychic wound in King County.

Reichert became sheriff in 1997, when the case was unsolved and Ridgway was among a number of possible suspects. The case had languished for years. At Reichert's behest, KCSO detectives began working the case anew. In 2001, Ridgway was identified as the killer by DNA evidence and was arrested. In 2003, he confessed to killing 48 women in a deal designed to spare him the death penalty. Ridgway led detectives to the graves of many of the women's bodies.

Suddenly, local and national media turned Reichert into the hero who had solved the case. Reichert did nothing to dissuade them.

KCSO veterans cringed. In their minds, the case was a team effort with KCSO Dets. Tom Jensen, Randy Mullinax, Sue Peters, Jon Mattsen, and the late Jim Doyon playing leading roles. They weren't getting public credit for solving one of the largest serial-murder cases in U.S. history. Meanwhile, Reichert and his political handlers used the case to burnish Reichert's public image. Reichert wrote a book about running Ridgway to ground. Published in 2004, Chasing the Devil showed up in prominent store displays featuring Reichert's mug throughout King County.

Cops hate criminals. But they hate politicians almost as much.

In the fall of 2003, as Ridgway was marched off to life in prison, an incident occurred that drove a deeper wedge through KCSO patrol ranks. KCSO Dets. George Alvarez and Jim Keller allegedly beat and pepper-sprayed an uncooperative informant and then allegedly threatened to throw him into the Green River. A Des Moines police officer reported the incident to superiors.

The two detectives are popular in KCSO, reputedly paragons of old-school rough-and-tough policing.

Reichert ordered that the two be arrested and jailed, a decision that Rahr, then No. 2 in the department, endorsed. Among deputies, the move was viewed as another attempt to make Reichert a tough-seeming public official, even though KCSO cops hadn't faced anything approaching that level of discipline for past transgressions.