Sheriff Candidates Differ on Many Issues

WAITSBURG - Tom Cooper says he wants to bring a sense of trust back to the Walla Walla Sheriff's office, which he feels has been lost in the last four years. That is why he is challenging Sheriff John Turner in his reelection bid this year.

"We need to gain back the trust of staff and gain back the trust of the county commissioners," Cooper said. He said that a series of disagreements between the Sheriff's Office and the commissioners has led to a situation where the commissioners are at odds with the sheriff unnecessarily.

Cooper also says that he will bring a management team to the Sheriff's office that has more local experience. "We need leadership that has a sense of rural law enforcement," he said. "People who have gained experience and been trained in Washington state and in Walla Walla." Cooper also says he will focus much more than the current sheriff has on promoting staff from within rather than bringing in outside administrators.

If elected, Cooper said that he will modify the current 12-hour shift system for patrol officers. "I feel it's a safety issue, no matter what the current sheriff says," he said. "It also creates a system where the rural areas are shortchanged," because often only three patrol officers are on duty in the entire county. "The staff is spread too thin," he said.

Cooper says that he wants to also expand the reserve deputy program at the Sheriff's Office. "This is a great way to find and develop career minded individuals in the local community who can be trained to become excellent patrol officers," he said.

Cooper is a native of Everett, Wash. who came to Walla Walla Community College in 1982 on a football scholarship. After being injured during his first practice, he sat out his first year as a red-shirt and then played two more seasons.

He completed an associate's degree in criminal justice at WWCC. In 1989 he joined the Walla Walla County Sheriff's office as a corrections officer in the county jail. He became a reserve deputy in 1993, and then was hired as a patrol officer in 1995.

"I met my wife here, and we have been here over 30 years now," Cooper said of Walla Walla. "It's been a great place to raise our family."

For 12 years, Cooper served as president of the Commissioned Deputy Sheriff's Association, which is the collective bargaining unit for Walla Walla County Sheriff's deputies. He stepped away from that position for a couple of years and then took the position again last year.

In 2012, Cooper sustained a knee injury while on duty. "I had surgery and then tried to come back too soon," he said. After reinjuring the knee later that year, Cooper said his doctors told him he needed to stay off patrol duty until it fully recovered."

Cooper worked light-duty office jobs until April 2013, when he went on temporary disability.

"The knee is almost there," he said earlier this week. Cooper said he's waiting for doctors to clear him, then he plans to return to duty.