Will the Deschutes County Sheriff's Office Be Relieved of Its "Culture of Corruption" This Time Around?

After the years of Black Lives Matter protests and a focus on police accountability that we’ve experienced recently, the Deschutes County Sheriff’s Office has faced what we could characterize as less than its fair share of scrutiny. Perhaps that’s because its reputation of corruption and unfair retaliation has been largely targeted toward employees, rather than the general public. In any case, with Sheriff Shane Nelson’s recent announcement that he would not seek re-election, here’s hoping that the employees of the DCSO — and the public they serve – get a fresh start when a new sheriff comes to town.

Despite relatively little public outcry, the missteps at the DCSO have been fairly well reported. In a damning story from 2021, OPB’s Johnathan Levinson outlined how, at the time of that reporting, Deschutes County had paid some $3.5 million to settle or defend claims against Nelson and the office. When that story came out, sheriff’s department employees had filed at least 25 claims against Nelson or the office since Nelson was first appointed sheriff in 2015.

One of the former employees to win a settlement against Nelson was Eric Kozowski, who ran against Nelson for sheriff in 2016. Prior to the election, Kozowski had received “consistently positive” employee reviews, he told OPB. Following the election, he faced 19 internal investigations for minor policy violations. A jury awarded Kozowski over $1 million.

But that’s not the only expensive lawsuit afoot. In 2022, a 28-year veteran of the DCSO, Deron McMaster, filed a lawsuit against the county, alleging retaliation and civil rights violations. McMaster claims that Nelson withheld evidence about a domestic violence case involving another deputy — something McMaster claims that Nelson and Nelson’s wife, also a former police officer, knew about. McMaster was accused of failing to report the abuse, but he claims Nelson knew about it and tried to cover it up.

These lawsuits — far from the only cases of alleged corruption or unfair retaliation among DCSO employees — are costing the taxpayers of Deschutes County money. What’s more, they don’t even include the amount of money paid to the internal investigators who are tasked with looking into these cases on behalf of the Sheriff’s Office.

For many years, the person to assume the role of Deschutes County Sheriff has come from within. Nelson was appointed to the role and then won subsequent elections. A current DCSO employee, William Bailey, now plans to run. While there’s some merit to seeing someone from within get elected to lead an agency they ostensibly know well, there’s also the danger that the “status quo” will be maintained. As the next sheriff’s election comes around in 2024, the public should be keen to understand the roles of a sheriff and how, with the example of Nelson to look to, a change of culture is sorely needed.

If you’re not that interested in hearing about the internal gripes at the sheriff’s office, perhaps the fact that those issues are costing you money will be a better motivator.

This article appears in Source Weekly July 20, 2023.