Former Clark County sheriff’s Deputy Don Slagle, who was disciplined 16 times in his 26 years with the county, wants to be sheriff of Smith County, Tenn.
Slagle returned to his hometown of Carthage, Tenn., after retiring in 2006.
Slagle, 56, is one of five candidates challenging incumbent Smith County Sheriff Ronald Lankford in the Aug. 5 election.
Slagle retired here on his 53rd birthday, the minimum retirement age, Clark County Undersheriff Joe Dunegan said.
Slagle said Thursday that he was happily retired when he was approached about running for sheriff to bring professionalism to the office. The department has 25 deputies, some of whom have never trained at a police academy, and isn’t connected to Smith County’s 911 dispatch center, which handles only fire and medical calls.
His opponents include a minister and a contractor; the current sheriff previously worked as a barber.
Slagle’s Web site includes endorsement letters from Ron Eppersen, a retired commander from the Clark County Sheriff’s Office, and Dave King, a commander with the Vancouver Police Department. Eppersen wrote that Slagle “displayed leadership potential” as a deputy, while King praised Slagle as a leader who “demonstrates respect for his co-workers, as well as the citizens he comes in contact with. He has a strong sense of stewardship for the funds and responsibilities entrusted to him.”
Smith County has approximately 23,000 residents, Slagle said. Cartharge, the county seat, is approximately 50 miles northeast of Nashville.
On Slagle’s website, http://donslagle4smithcountysheriff.com, he writes that if elected, he’ll run a more professional office, with written policy standards and better-trained deputies.
In 2005, Slagle was featured in The Columbian as part of a series, “Policing Force,” that examined how often law enforcement officers are disciplined for using excessive force and what agencies do with repeat offenders. In 2004, Slagle shot a woman in the leg while checking a home for trespassers (he’d been aiming for the woman’s dog; Sheriff Garry Lucas later cleared him of any wrongdoing).
By 2005, Slagle had been disciplined 16 times and the subject of more than three dozen internal affairs investigations.
He was disciplined for incidents including repeatedly bashing a man’s face into a car and choking a black teenager with a headlock at the 1999 Clark County Fair after berating the teenager in a “racially offensive manner,” according to an internal affairs investigation.
The county paid $12,000 to the teenager, part of $76,000 the county spent on claims and medical bills involving people (not counting the woman he shot) who’d had interactions with Slagle.
The woman had her medical bills covered and received a settlement. In all, the county paid $350,000 in that case.
In a May 1990 disciplinary letter, then-Sheriff Frank Kanekoa rebuked Slagle for “hot-headedness” and other problems and warned that any future similar violations would lead to termination.
Kanekoa retired that year and Lucas was elected.
On his website, Slagle wrote that if elected he will “enforce the law courteously and appropriately without fear or favor, malice or ill-will, never employing unnecessary force or violence, and never accepting gratuities. I recognize the badge of my office as a symbol of public faith, and I accept it as a public trust to be held so long as I am true to the ethics of police service.”
Slagle explained his number of complaints by saying he was an active deputy with a high number of arrests. He also spent years as an entry man for the SWAT team.
“I made 200-plus door entries and never fired a shot,” he said. Active deputies are naturally going to get more complaints than deputies who prefer office work, he said. He said he learned in Clark County how a sheriff’s office should be run.
“If nothing else from Clark County, I took professionalism,” Slagle said. “And we all grow up.”
