Thurston County Sheriff Derek Sanders has been a busy man over the course of the last several months and gave the Nisqually Valley News several updates on what has been occupying his time, including Initiative 2113, additions to Thurston County Sheriff’s Office (TCSO) staffing and the introduction of a dedicated cold case unit.
Sanders plans on hosting another series of town hall events later this year in every district in Thurston County, including one in Yelm.
“We look forward to seeing you,” Sanders said. “If you guys have questions, those town halls are really cool because they’re not scripted. I talk for 10 to 15 minutes, then take whatever questions come from the crowd. Last year was a huge hit, a huge success.”
Initiative 2113
Initiative 2113, which sought to restore police pursuits in the state, officially came into effect on June 6 to allow for law enforcement to initiate pursuits based on reasonable suspicion instead of probable cause. The new initiative has been in effect for under two months, but Sanders is generally pleased.
“There were some articles ran about us chasing some street bikes and them crashing, but I don’t know. I guess you’re just not going to get empathy from me,” Sanders said. “At any point in time, these individuals can pull over and surrender. Even during the pursuit, they can pull over and say, ‘I don’t want to do this.”
He added that TCSO deputies have done a good job of using their discretion, as they don’t pursue everything but will when the time, place and circumstances allow for it.
“Pursuits have gone up a little bit, but the number of cars fleeing has certainly completely fallen off. We can pursue now, so, of course, the number of cars that we can engage in a pursuit will go up,” Sanders said. “When we couldn’t pursue, we were having four or five cars a night that we were not pursuing. We maybe have one car a day that’s fleeing from us. In that sense alone, you’ve significantly decreased the number of reckless vehicles fleeing law enforcement.”
Sanders said the benefits of I-2113 aren’t something that TCSO can immediately judge.
“The reality is that it’s going to take just as long to fix this problem as it was alive. It was a problem for three years, so in three years, I’ll be interested to look back at the data,” Sanders said. “Right now, I can tell you that I think deputies are happy to be able to do their work again. I think morale increased because it is demoralizing having people run from you all day.”
TCSO staffing
Sanders said that TCSO currently has just one vacancy on staff right now, and described that as being “huge” for the department.
“Now, we have a ton of people in training, but it’s a good step forward,” Sanders said. “It’s all I drink, eat, sleep and think about — how we’re going to rebuild [the department]. I don’t see how we can expect to deliver even a halfway decent product to the community when our staff can’t get a day off. You’re just not going to get what you want out of that. We’ve always been an overtime-based agency, always operating on fumes and always operating at the brink of failure. That’s not good business for how you really want a police department or really any high-stress first responder agency to respond.”
Sanders believes TCSO’s staffing situation will continue to trend upward, adding that, on Aug. 1, the department is beginning an 18-month process of onboarding 27 new positions in addition to the current staff. This is due to the new public safety tax, which has greatly benefited TCSO, Sanders said.
“It’s not going to fix every problem in the world, but it’s going to fix all of the problems we pitched to voters — about deputies going to 911 calls by themselves every day, about deputies not being able to get time off, about being an overtime-based agency, the fatigue, the burnout, the retention issues, and just deputies being able to have backup and the ability to do their jobs more safely,” Sanders said. “I foresee this going upward, heavily.”
Dedicated cold case unit
TCSO announced via Facebook on June 6 that the department has officially created a dedicated cold case and missing persons unit. Sanders told the Nisqually Valley News that a lack of attention to cold cases was “plaguing Thurston County,” adding it was an issue that came up during his campaign for sheriff.
“We’ve got quite a few prolific cold cases. It’s always been a staffing issue, a funding issue,” Sanders said. “I don’t have anyone to dedicate to that, but because we have new positions on the horizon, we were able to get that in and running four months early. It’s in anticipation of these new deputies coming.
“We’ve got a seasoned detective in that unit now, and we have one volunteer who is a retired police officer with a lot of investigative experience,” the Sheriff added. “The goal is to keep growing that unit. We’ll have one detective and a number of volunteers that are retired law enforcement.”
Sanders said that solving cold cases is based on having the available resources and staffing to do investigative work. He added that finding volunteers and having the capability to fund testing is another big factor in solving cases.
“With cold cases, the thing we look at first and foremost is, is there one that’s close to being solved? Not all cold cases are equal in their investigation right now,” Sanders said. “We have cold cases that we’ve dumped tons of resources into and they haven’t gotten anywhere. We also have cold cases that we haven’t dumped many resources into, but there’s a lead. My direction for the unit is to follow all leads. I’ll pay for you to go anywhere in the country, we’ll talk about out of the country. Wherever we need to send you to follow up on leads.”
He added that not one cold case takes priority over another; investigations are based on the leads TCSO has on each.
