Sheriff’s Burglary Response Unacceptable

Dear Editor,

On May 9, 2012, a daytime burglary occurred at our home. Walla Walla County sheriff's deputies arrived at our home. A preliminary report was generated. Information was taken from two of our neighbors.

Five days later my wife Kathy and I identified the pickup used in the burglary and notified the police.

The driver of the pickup was a known gang member/major drug dealer driving on a revoked license. We then attended a Sheriff's Roundtable and furnished the sheriff names, addresses, phone numbers of all we suspected were involved in our burglary, including people living in Walla Walla, Kennewick, Hermiston and Zilla.

We suspected it was a burglary ring and hoped at this point he would pass this on to his staff. We lost over $30,000 worth of personal belongings.

On Sept. 26, 2012, we were notified by the Benton County Sheriff's Office of a large amount of stolen property but nothing was ours.

We were questioned about our incident. We informed the deputies our findings were given to our sheriff and they were shocked that their office had not been contacted by the sheriff.

On April 10, 2014, we met with Sheriff John Turner at his request to go over our burglary. He began by saying, "This is one of the largest burglaries Walla Walla Walla County has ever had." He then stated he would like our support for re-election. That didn't go over well!

Kathy lost it at this point. During our 43 minutes he spent 22 minutes aggrandizing on his accomplishments.

Finally, he admitted his office had dropped the case! He blamed two officers, saying these two officers weren't doing their jobs so he fired one (Tom Cooper) and demoted the other (Barry Blackman).

He repeated this four times while we were there.

We had contacted Sgt. Cooper, who showed interest and energy toward solving our crime. He assisted us many times during "our" investigation.

But, due to the sheriff's restraints placed on some officers, Tom was unable to work our file. If the same investigative energy displayed by Tom had been implemented from the start, the crime would likely have been solved and suspects held accountable.

Barry Blackman had never been given our information.

Is John Turner the type of sheriff you want protecting the citizens of Walla Walla County?

We are definitely voting for Tom Cooper and we hope all our friends, customers and all who would want justice would do the same. Mike Harvey Walla Walla