UPDATE 9/4/24 by Editor MDB: I have added an excerpt from the latest newsletter from the Kamp campaign regarding the latest polling in Maricopa:
New polling from Noble Predictive Insights shows a deadlocked race for Maricopa County Sheriff. Both Tyler Kamp and his opponent are earning 35% support. Kamp has won over more Independents to date at 34% versus Sheridan’s 22%.
“The stakes for Maricopa County are high,” said campaign manager Sophie O’Keefe-Zelman, “Voters have to decide if they want to continue with the progress made by Sheriff Penzone and vote for Tyler Kamp or if they want to wind the clocks back to the Arpaio-Sheridan era.”
With the retirement of Paul Penzone from the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Department, Tyler Kamp emerged as the victor in the Democratic Primary last month to vie to succeed him in the November elections.
His opponent will be the fringe and discredited MAGA candidate from elections past, Jerry Sheridan.
An experienced law enforcement officer since he was 22 years old, he has committed to promoting public safety, upholding the law, holding people accountable, and restorative justice.
Mr. Kamp took the time to discuss his candidacy to become the next Maricopa County Sheriff and allegations made against him for harassment.
The questions and his responses are below.
Please tell the readers about yourself and why you want to become the Maricopa County Sheriff.
“I’ve always been a person who wants to help others serve a purpose greater than myself. It’s a big reason why I became a cop at age 22. It’s why I’ve served in eight different countries around the world for humanitarian organizations. It’s why I’ve taught youth at my local church for over 15 years. It’s also why I volunteer my personal time with foster care organizations and food pantries here locally. So, when we look at the position of sheriff, it’s a very powerful position. We all know the dangers of the sheriff who has put his political beliefs before the needs of the community, Joe Arpaio and we can’t allow that. That’s led to discrimination of people of color. It’s led to a federal lawsuit that has cost the county upwards of $300 million and it continues to grow. There’s definitely a need.”
“As I reflect back on my personal experiences and my professional life, I believe I can be a difference maker.”
“I have over two decades of experience with the Phoenix Police Department. Over half that time was spent investigating organized crime, criminal street gangs, and homicides. I have 10 years of public safety leadership experience. In 2021, I retired, and my family and I moved to West Africa, I worked for the largest anti-slavery organization in the world fighting human trafficking. Most recently I worked for Goodwill and some of the other local nonprofits. Their motto is ending poverty through the power of work. I believe I have unique experiences different than any other candidate. I have the crime-fighting experience. I have experience working overseas and diplomacy as well as just understanding the value of nonprofits and how they can play a vital role in solving our public safety issues. So, I believe I could be a Difference Maker and make a positive impact on the community.”
What are two or three main issues you will be running on in this Election Cycle?
I think the most important job of the sheriff is to provide protection. The best way I can do that is to ensure justice for everybody. I believe in three types of justice. We have to uphold the law. We have to hold people accountable. That allows us to be safer. That allows us to feel safer. But there’s more to it than that. We also have to provide what I call restorative justice. Once we do hold people accountable, we have to provide them with hope, and we can provide hope by providing educational opportunities like earning a high school diploma and vocational skills. There are so many jobs that are vacant out there in our community. We can do a better job equipping our inmates with the tools necessary to be successful. Once they exit that gives them hope and that restores them. The attempt here is to prevent recidivism. The third type of justice is what I call preventive justice and what I mean by that is I think it’s important we take more of a holistic approach to crime fighting. We can’t arrest our way out of crime. We know this doesn’t work. Oftentimes, people are committing crimes because of mental
illness or drug addictions. We need to try and treat the problems, not just the symptoms. That in turn does reduce crime.”
“The other major issue is staffing. We were at historical lows at the Sheriff’s Office. I believe I have some ways to increase staffing. One is to graduate from the court orders that Arpaio created years ago that we’re still paying on but that won’t happen anytime soon. We have to do something in the interim. We have to do a better job retaining our employees and so I want to create a walk-in employee Wellness Center. It’s a triage center for employees because they also deal with PTSD and sleep apnea. It’s a very very stressful job, working long hours, weekends, and nights. I’ve done it for a long time. I know how difficult it is. We have to, if we can, treat the mentally as well as physically. I think that will create a better culture and we can do a better job retaining our officers and our employees. This walk-in center will have a clinical practitioner who will be able to treat them as well. I also want to explore more of a robust job share program. There are many cops out there who are retired, and they retire early. I think they’re still willing to work. 10,15, 20 hours a week. I think we can create a job share program that can fill some of these gaps as well.”
How would you say you’re similar to Sheriff Paul Penzone or different?
“I think there’s a lot of similarities in my vision for public safety and my vision of it’s so important to connect with the community. If we don’t have the trust of the community, it’s really hard to get anything done. Not just engaging but we have to partner with the community. That’s so important. I also believe that some major similarities are I want to keep politics out of the Sheriff’s Office and that’s something that Sheriff Penzone did and that’s something I want to continue as well.”
Please explain at least two reasons the voters should pick you over your opponent.
“I have a very diverse background. That’s because when I lived overseas in Africa, I developed a deep sense of empathy and that’s so important to my leadership style.
Empathy is a noun. But it’s also it’s an action and so it’s the ability to identify with another person’s situation or the way they feel and so, deep empathy allows me to understand how the employees are feeling and how the communities are feeling. I think that’s a great and a big reason why Sheriff Penzone created some of these advisory boards. The LGBTQ Advisory Board. The African American Advisory Board, um, uh that The Community Advisory Board. The Hispanic Advisory Board. This helps to identify, maybe some blind spots that I might have. I’m not one to say I know everything because I definitely don’t and I need to surround myself with people that can identify blind spots and I’m willing to listen and engage with them in those areas.”
“I think that’s the difference between me and my opponent (in both the Democratic and Republican parties.) My diplomatic experience overseas and a lifetime of experience building relationships with nonprofit groups and faith-based groups I’ve done my whole life and I will continue to do that because I know the value of that.”
“My opponent worked for the sheriff’s office for 34 years, which is great. Unfortunately, 24 of those years were working for Joe Arpaio and he never objected to his unconstitutional policies and practices. I think there’s some in our community that will have a hard time trusting him just because of that alone.”
“He was also put in charge to comply with this court order that has cost the taxpayers over $300 million. He’s failed to comply with it. I understand it’s difficult and complex but I think we need to get beyond that and we need we need a new face and a fresh voice I think to tackle this problem.”
Please describe your get-out-the-vote operation that would appeal to Democrats, Independents, and like-minded Republicans.
“I’ve been extremely humbled. I’ve attended over 200 meetings and events in person in the last five months and I’ve been extremely humbled by the amount of support from people from all walks of life. In one of my very first fundraisers, I had a gentleman who was who you describe maybe as on the far right and had a gentleman who you would describe as maybe on the far left at the same fundraiser. They had different types of questions for me. I believe I was able to answer the question satisfactorily for both. Afterwards, the two of them got into a small argument and I went and talked with both of them. By the time we were done, we were shaking hands in agreement on about 80 percent of what we were arguing about or what they were arguing about. And I thought this is what Democracy is about. This is what it should be about. It’s finding common ground with people from all walks of life. There are so many volunteers with text messaging, phone calls, canvasing, and digital marketing. That’s probably the best way we have tried to get my message out to the community but I think most importantly the human-to-human contact is the most important way to get my message out and to connect with people.”
Is there anything not covered in the first four questions you’d like the readers to know about you and your candidacy for Maricopa County Sheriff? Please Explain.
“One of the most important issues in this election are these court orders and it’s important that voters understand what I mean by that.”
“In 2013 a federal judge issued a court order that provided oversight for the Sheriff’s Office. Because of discrimination of people of color on the streets as well as inside the jails, specifically Spanish-speaking individuals in the jails. So, in 2013, my opponent was placed in charge of complying with this order. Obviously, Arpaio and Sheridan were there in leadership, but my opponent was put in charge to comply with this order. They failed to do so.”
“In 2016 the judge gave a second court order for failure to investigate internal employee
misconduct complaints. They continue not to investigate these complaints and so in 2022, a third court order was issued, because of the backlog of employee complaints and this is a major problem because it fractures trust in the community. It shows the community that we are not able to hold ourselves accountable. It also fractures trust within the organization because employees are unable to transfer or promote it at times because of these investigations that have not been properly conducted and so, as of right, now we have not been in full compliance with these court orders for even one single day.”
“So, per the court order, we have to be in what’s considered full compliance for three years in a row before we can graduate from it. So best case scenario. Let’s say tomorrow, we’re in full compliance. We’re three years out from graduating from the court order and that’s very important to understand and that’s something I’m committed to being intentional and making sure that we comply and graduate from that court order.”
Regarding ABC15 Reporting before the primary election:
“I am proud of my distinguished career at the Phoenix Police Department and my service to the community. As I have previously stated, I strongly deny the harassment allegations made against me. I have not, nor will I ever engage in harassment of any kind. The investigation was incomplete given it was reviewed by the Equal Opportunity Department (EOD) and referred to Pheonix PD where an internal investigation was never conducted. The review occurred after I had retired from the department and did not result in any post-disciplinary action. Furthermore, the complaint was not brought by the individual I was corresponding with mutually. I have apologized to my wife for engaging in mutual text exchanges that were not respectful to her or our family. We have addressed this matter privately. I have an impeccable record and numerous awards that speak to my proud career in law enforcement. The fact of the matter is all of this pales in comparison to the $300 million Jerry Sheridan’s maleficence has cost Maricopa County taxpayers, his contempt of court, lying under oath, withholding evidence, and his unconstitutional raids on Latino communities. We can’t afford an Arpaio 2.0 and that’s why I’m in this race.”
Please click here to find out more about Tyler Kamp and his candidacy for Maricopa Sheriff.
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