Welcome to the 1950s!

The First Sheriff’s Candidate Forum was held on February 26, 2024. This was a public forum at which the two candidates for Deschutes County Sheriff: Captain William Bailey and Sergeant Kent Vander Kamp answered questions presented to them by a moderator.

As we were reviewing the video of the event, we were astounded by the answer Bailey gave regarding female deputies at the Sheriff’s Office.

We now turn to time marker 21:44 from the event video where the moderator questioned Bailey about female representation at the Deschutes County Sheriff’s Office. We think the exchange is, quite frankly, eye-opening.

MODERATOR: “How many women are in supervisory positions at Deschutes County Sheriff… So how many women are there in DCSO with either the rank of lieutenant or sergeant? Do you know…? And I won’t hold you to the answer… I’m just curious”

BAILEY: “Sworn, there’s one sergeant that’s a female”

<Gasps from the audience>

MODERATOR: “uhhh…. okay…”

VANDER KAMP: “…and one non-sworn that’s also a supervisor. So two total”

MODERATOR: “Two… Hey we’re rocking two out of… Ah ok sorry… [addressing Bailey] What have you already done to address recruitment and retention of all, but especially female sworn staff in patrol?”

BAILEY: “Well when I was a patrol sergeant we didn’t have any female deputy sheriffs at that moment, and so I think we are at six now, and so we have come a long way in hiring and recruiting female deputy sheriffs, and I’ve actually sat down and spent time talking to female deputy sheriffs about what it is like to be a female deputy sheriff, and most the time it comes down to raising the family, having kids and the challenge of shift work that deputy sheriffs have to perform.

We have to be available 24 hours a day, and then raising a family. Having a family. So we have had a number of female deputies who have transitioned into parole and probation jobs or other Monday through Friday type eight to five jobs because it is more stable for their children, its more stable for childcare, its more stable for just the familial relationships.

My opponent and I have probably missed… dozens of family events in our careers and that stable schedule… there are many days when we are supposed to get off at six and we get off at nine or get home at ten and so having a stable schedule is important for a family structure…”

First off Bailey is entirely wrong when he says there were no female deputies on staff when he was a sergeant.

In fact, at the time he was promoted from sergeant to Lieutenant in July 2020, there were at least seven female patrol deputies on staff: Laura Conard, Megan Lymath, Kiersten Ochsner, Katie (Fowlds) Warren, Allie Lamb, Nautique Simpson and Ruby Alesia.

That said, Bailey’s response to the question is very telling. It reeks of the “Good Ol’ Boy” culture that has pervaded the Sheriff’s Office for far too many years. In fact on October 23 2023, we wrote about this very subject in our article “No Girls Allowed”

The culture Bailey espouses is one in which women are to be at home taking care of the kids and where, unlike their male counterparts, they are seen as unable or unwilling to handle the rigors of shift work due to the requirements of family life.

Just think for a moment how the female patrol deputies at the Sheriff’s Office, who have committed to a career in law enforcement and who work the same shifts and hours as their male colleagues must feel when they hear their captain publicly trivializing their abilities and capabilities.

It appears to us that Bailey’s attitude and outlook towards female staff is straight out of the 1950s. It is a generational attitude within the Sheriff’s Office and one that is embraced by his mentor Sheriff Shane Nelson. It has resulted in just a single female supervisor, a sergeant, working in the corrections division. This in an agency with well over 100 deputies.

To put it plainly it is outdated, odious and unethical and has no place in today’s workplace.

Worse yet, it is a misogynistic culture that denigrates, mistreats and ousts well qualified and motivated women like deputy Crystal Jansen whose ordeal we wrote about extensively in “Crystal Jansen v Shane Nelson”.

Such women are hounded, harassed and ultimately run out of the Sheriff’s Office for simply being female or daring to have career aspirations. In the case of Crystal Jansen it resulted in a federal lawsuit that was settled out of court at a cost of over $525,000 not including attorneys fees.

To be clear we are not at all advocating for equality of outcome for women at the Sheriff’s Office, but we are sure in heck advocating for equality in OPPORTUNITY. The latter is unfortunately glaringly absent.

But Jansen is just of one of many documented cases of women who have over the past decade been harassed, used, or discriminated against by the Sheriff’s Office leadership. The list of leaders at the Sheriff’s Office engaging in such behavior is long and includes:

• Captain Eric Utter: Inappropriate sexual relations with a subordinate employee. Resigned
• Captain Mike Espinoza: Inappropriate sexual relations with a subordinate employee. Resigned
• Captain Scott Beard: Inappropriate sexual relations with a subordinate employee. Embezzlement. Sentenced to five years in federal prison.
• Lieutenant Michael Biondi: Inappropriate sexual relations with a 911 dispatch employee. Demoted from sergeant to deputy. Retired in 2022 at the rank of lieutenant and as one of the highest paid employees in Deschutes County with a salary of over $233,000. Currently on contract with the Sheriff’s Office performing background checks.
• Captain Paul Garrison: Complaints of sexual harassment and discrimination by two female subordinates, Julie Lovrien and Denise Senner. Their complaints were highlighted in sworn declarations made by the women in Crystal Jansen’s federal lawsuit (linked at the bottom of this article). According to the two, their complaints were never investigated by Sheriff Nelson as required by policy. Despite the complaints against him, Paul Garrison was promoted from Lieutenant to Captain by Sheriff Nelson.
• Sergeant Deke DeMars: Inappropriate sexual relations with an immediate subordinate, Deputy Allie Lamb. Investigated for sexual assault. Resigned.

Finally and most recently, acting Detective Sergeant Ron Brown who would sexually harass a female deputy while on duty, in uniform and at an active DUII investigation. He would receive a simple letter of reprimand for his reprehensible behavior and be promoted to acting detective sergeant a short while later.

Soon afterwards Brown would be indicted on multiple counts of criminal misconduct involving pornography and lewd behavior against a vulnerable female victim. He was convicted on two counts of criminal misconduct and sentenced to 10 days in jail. We wrote about Ron Brown in “Ron Brown: A Case of Negligent Retention?”

Given the intense scrutiny the Sheriff’s Office leadership currently finds itself under, we would not at all be surprised to see a rush to promote or hire one or more female supervisors. In our opinion this would be nothing more than a transparent effort to paper over the underlying issues.

Most importantly, it would not address the source of the problem which ultimately requires a fundamental cultural shift at the very highest levels of the agency. It is unfortunately a shift which we think captain William Bailey is ill equipped and unlikely willing to preside over as evidenced by his very own words.

REFERENCES

All the documents linked below are well worth your time reading as they will give you true insight into how females have and are treated at the Sheriff’s Office

• “Crystal Jansen v. Shane Nelson”
• “Ron Brown: A Case of Negligent Retention?”
• “No Girls Allowed”
• Julie Lovrien Sworn Declaration
• Denise Senner Sworn Declaration