A House Divided: Chelan County Sheriff's Sworn Officer Surveys, Part III
"The image of the agency is tarnished by the behavior of its members and the community suffers for it," one deputy wrote
In Part I of this series, we covered the first part of an internal sworn employee survey from the Chelan County Sheriff’s Office in 2020. The survey revealed a deeply-divided department and has been cited by Deputy Mike Morrison as one of the reasons he decided to challenge the incumbent, Brian Burnett, in the current race for Chelan County Sheriff.
In the survey, one deputy wrote: “The God Squad has a firm grip on what direction this department is going.”
The “God Squad” he was referring to is a group of administrators and middle-management sycophants who attend Chelan County Sheriff Brian Burnett’s church of choice – Grace City Church in Wenatchee, Wa.
Other deputies agreed with that assessment in the anonymous survey filled out by 37 CCSO officers.
“This department has turned into a hostile working environment for anyone who doesn’t drink the cool-aid or go to Grace City Church. The PUD was sued because of this,” another deputy wrote.
You can read Part I, which covers the first 10 pages of the survey, in its entirety here.
Part II covers pages 10 through 16, and similar themes emerge.
Prompt eight on page 15 reads: “The agency’s process for promotions is clearly defined and fair.” Fifty-one percent of the officers disagreed.
“No. My best guess if you are personally liked, share the same passions or religious beliefs then you are a good choice. If you do not share the same personal interest you would not be a good choice for promotion,” one deputy wrote.
You can read Part II here.
Part III: The Rest of the Story
Rather than pick up on page 17 and attempt to compress, contextualize and then craft a cohesive narrative from here on out, I’m just going to highlight questions 19, 20, and 23, as well as a few of the responses to them.
Then, at the bottom of this piece, I’ll link to the entire survey and leave it up to you to make up your own mind about the situation at CCSO.
Question 19: “If you could change 2 things about CCSO, what would it be?”
Here are a few of the responses to that.
“The overall culture of us vs them (the public).”
“We would be issued Wranglers.”
“Hostile Work environment/bullying. I have witnessed bullying in front of Supervisor and watched Supervisor do nothing about it. The Supervisors at CCSO are going to deter people from applying to this department.”
“Stop promoting people who do not have the interest of the public/peers in mind.”
“The administration recognizing how their chosen few are really seen by the rest of the department.”
“Retaliation by administration.”
“Less micro aggressions and division.”
“Stop focusing on STATS. Focus on good community policing, good police work, and keeping communities safe.”
“Realign our ‘true’ goals toward serving our community as professionals and set our overinflated ego’s aside.”
“and cowboy hats”
“Buy cars that accelerate.”
“Do something with this paperwork.”
“The Sheriff’s Office main function should be Law Enforcement (Patrol). We have so many ancillary functions that take from Patrol that it is left at a minimum. It appears SWAT is provided with a large amount of money for training and equipment. SWAT has changed its tactics over the recent years and has moved to a more non-aggressive approach. The amount of money spent training SWAT could be better spent on new equipment for SAR or HARRT or Marine Patrol. These 3 specialties are used much more than SWAT but get hardly any funding for new equipment.”
“Stats should not be a goal or a performance standard.”
“The image of the agency is tarnished by the behavior of its members and the community suffers for it. We can’t even fix problems internally and treat each other with respect, how can act to fix the problems in the community.”
“Nobody would mess with cops in wranglers and cowboy hats.”
Question 20: “How would you describe the leadership in this organization?”
Here are a few of those responses:
“Still learning. With the amount of money spent on civil litigation for and civil claims from employees I would hope they will use some training money and send themselves to internal investigation training. I’m shocked the County Commision has not required that of the administration.”
“Fragmented. There are clearly several “camps” within the leadership cadre.”
“Weak.”
“Great.”
“Inconsistent.”
“Disconnected.”
“Overall I would say the leadership is strong.”
“Fractured. Some of the leaders are great, others make life at work very difficult.”
“Selective and elitist.”
Prompt 23: “Please tell us about any issues that have not been addressed in this survey that you would like to see addressed.”
Here are two of those responses:
“Unwillingness of the administration to admit they are wrong. To be able to say, promoting you was a mistake. How (redacted) treats people is unacceptable. Yet rather than address this issue, you make him a supervisor and potentially a training sergeant. I would not allow (redacted) to train my dog. I have no idea how he has convinced the admin that he is such a good trainer but he is not.”
Here’s that full response from page 37 of 39.
Another deputy brought up one of the issues front and center in this Sheriff’s race.
“CCSO has been sued by two different employees over the last few years because of the Admins decisions. I do understand I am not authorized to view the material, but I have witnessed some of their claims have been valid. Such as hostile work environment. Other departments are not being sued at the rate CCSO is currently and maybe there should be some changes on current behavior at CCSO. I know Sheriff Burnett is the best choice for this department, but at times he is not driving the ship. I worry about the direction this department will go when he steps down,” another deputy wrote.
