Top cop seeks Congress beat
As Dave Reichert, King County sheriff and congressional candidate, drove to work recently, a lone person blew past him in the car-pool lane.
With a few minutes to spare, Reichert pulled the man over and gave him a ticket.
After seven years as the county's top cop, Reichert relishes the street-level police work that characterized much of his 32-year career in the Sheriff's Office.
Reichert is using his crime-fighting accomplishments as a launching pad for Congress this year in the suburban 8th District, which covers parts of east and south King County and east Pierce County.
His work tracking serial killer Gary Ridgway and his response to incidents like the 1999 World Trade Organization riots in Seattle have made him a celebrity. Domestic security is the centerpiece of his campaign, an obvious fit for someone with his credentials.
While his three Republican opponents have trumpeted various political achievements and long histories with the GOP, Reichert has embraced a different image. "People are looking for the not-a-politician kind of a person. Just an average Joe Blow," he said.
Yet, his tenure as sheriff offers a window into his political abilities and his achievements at the helm of a $100 million-a-year operation. He expanded the office at a time other parts of county government shrank. Once a shy and reluctant public speaker, he has proved adept at raising the department's profile.
His administration has critics, however. He tangled with the Metropolitan King County Council and his handling of a racially charged shooting by an off-duty deputy has drawn the ire of a leader of the African-American community.
Considered being a pastor
Reichert traces his law-enforcement roots to his childhood in a blue-collar Renton neighborhood and a fractious family life.
As the eldest of seven children, he took on the role of protector. When fights between his mother and father grew too heated, the kids sometimes hid in a closet where Reichert would comfort them. Outside the house, he learned to fight to defend himself and his siblings.
"He's always been the leader of the family ever since we were kids," said his brother, Tom Reichert. "Even at the youngest age, I can remember him taking charge."
Raised in the conservative Missouri Synod of the Lutheran Church, Reichert in high school considered becoming a pastor like his grandfather.
His religious faith is evident in campaign appearances, and it informs some of his positions on social issues: He is opposed to gay marriage and to abortion, except in cases of rape, incest or when the woman's health is at stake.
"All glory and honor to God. I am his servant, and so are all of you, and that's why we will win," Reichert told the audience at his campaign kickoff.
After graduating with an associate's degree in social work from Concordia College in Portland, the high-school football quarterback with modest academic achievements opted to strap on a gun and join the King County department.
Twenty-five years later, King County Executive Ron Sims, a Democrat, chose Reichert to lead the department. "Dave kept popping up as one of the candidates that other people respected and admired," Sims recalled recently. "I don't regret at all my appointment of Dave as sheriff."
Office in transition
Reichert inherited an office in transition. More cities were forming, raising the possibility the sheriff would be left policing only more remote, rural parts of the county.
He responded by aggressively pursuing contracts with fledgling cities to continue providing police service, becoming the de-facto police department for places like Sammamish and Newcastle. Last year, more than a quarter of the department's revenue came from such contracts.
He avoided turning the department into a partisan political operation, say people from both parties. He was courted by Republicans last year to run for governor, but he avoided openly joining the party until he entered the congressional race.
As sheriff, it was his police work that garnered the most attention.
He became the public face of the 2001 capture of Ridgway, the Green River killer. As a homicide detective, Reichert had spent from 1982 to 1990 as lead detective in the investigation of the deaths of dozens of women. As sheriff, he was the department's spokesman on the arrest and a central figure of news coverage, television shows and documentaries.
King County Prosecuting Attorney Norm Maleng, a Reichert adviser, said the case illustrates a devotion that would serve him well in Congress.
"It was the extraordinary commitment and never giving it up. I think that says something about a man," Maleng said.
Chasing looters at WTO
Reichert also made news during the WTO riots, which proved a disaster for Seattle police. The sheriff publicly questioned police preparation for the event, and at one point leaped from executive Sims' car and chased looters, a scene captured by television cameras.
Reichert's law-enforcement achievements have won awards and endorsements. The National Sheriffs' Association recently named him sheriff of the year. The Law Enforcement Administrators of Washington, a political group made up mostly of sheriffs and police chiefs, endorsed him, as has the King County Police Officers Guild, the union for King County deputies.
But the Washington State Patrol Troopers Association and the Washington Council of Police and Sheriffs endorsed state Sen. Luke Esser, a Reichert opponent in the primary. Reichert's other primary opponents for the seat being vacated by Republican Jennifer Dunn are Bellevue City Councilman Conrad Lee and former U.S. Prosecutor Diane Tebelius.
Reichert's response to police incidents has drawn criticism from black community leaders.
After an off-duty sheriff's deputy shot and killed a black man parked in a truck in the deputy's neighborhood in 2002, Reichert quickly suggested that the man belonged to a motorcycle gang and might have been on an all-night partying binge. Reichert apologized about the comments after a meeting with black leaders.
The shooting triggered demonstrations that shut down Interstate 5. Carl Mack, president of the Seattle NAACP, decried the decision not to discipline the deputy, after an inquest jury cleared the deputy in the shooting. "He's a lying politician as far as I'm concerned. He had an opportunity to do the right thing. He had an officer who did something wrong," Mack said.
Reichert said the deputy faced a potential life-and-death situation because the man pointed a gun at him and pulled the trigger.
Reichert has worked to bridge racial divides since the shooting, including a two-day summit in late 2002 about race relations and police. "I think the time will come soon where Carl and I will have to sit down and mend fences," he said.
Budget battles
As the county wrestled with budget problems in recent years, Reichert butted heads with the County Council and Sims over potential cuts to his department.
In the most recent showdown, over a last-minute request for money to offset costs from the Ridgway investigation, Reichert suggested that county leaders had put politics ahead of crime-fighting. "For twenty years, there were some county officials who believed that these girls and young women did not deserve justice," he wrote in a letter to County Councilman Larry Phillips, a Democrat.
The letter drew an indignant response from Phillips, now the council chairman, who called Reichert's claims "insulting." The council didn't approve the additional money.
Phillips and Reichert also have sparred over whether the sheriff has kept his own financial house in order. The county in 2003 paid $7 million to settle a lawsuit by Sheriff's Office employees over delays in overtime pay.
Reichert placed part of the blame on a failed upgrade of a countywide financial and payroll system. Phillips and Sims disputed that. Overtime problems had plagued the Sheriff's Office for years, they said.
Sims calls Reichert a strong and "wily" advocate for his department's interests. But he said he wonders whether Reichert has the stomach for congressional politics. "Politics is rough and tumble, and partisan politics is very rough and tumble, and I don't know how he would respond in that," he said.
Asked whether he was tough enough for Congress, Reichert pointed to the back cover of the recent book about his work on the Green River case.
It shows him in a short-sleeve shirt, his biceps bulging and a slightly menacing look on his face.
"What do you think?" he asked.
Warren Cornwall: 206-464-2311 or wcornwall@seattletimes.com
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