KENNEWICK — One month after union members voted to have their boss removed from his elected office, a petition to recall Benton County Sheriff Jerry Hatcher has been filed.
The recall effort accuses Hatcher of committing illegal acts, performing the duties of his office in an improper manner and violating his oath. That includes intimidating witnesses and public servants, and tampering with physical evidence.
A former lieutenant who demoted himself in February is the force behind the petition, which alleges 26 violations of Washington state law and the sheriff’s oath of office.
“Sheriff Hatcher has demonstrated a pattern of willful misconduct by … discrediting and disgracing the Benton County Sheriff’s Office and degrading the public’s trust,” wrote Sgt. Jason Erickson.
The 55-page “request for adjudication to petition for recall” was submitted electronically Friday evening to Benton County Auditor Brenda Chilton and Prosecutor Andy Miller.
A copy of the petition — which totals 317 pages with attachments and exhibits — was provided to the Tri-City Herald.Erickson submitted the petition as a member of the Benton County Deputy Sheriff’s Guild, a law enforcement officer and a resident of Benton County.
He is expected to follow up the email with a printed copy for the auditor’s office on Monday, according to union lawyer Alan Harvey.
Once officially filed by Chilton’s office, prosecutors will use the recall petition to prepare a neutral ballot synopsis of 200 words or less based on alleged charges, as required by state law.
Hatcher and Erickson then will go before a Superior Court judge at a hearing to address the proposed ballot synopsis. The judge can approve the recall petition, allow only some of the charges to proceed or toss all of the charges.
If approved, signatures are needed to qualify for a special election ballot. Erickson would have up to 180 days to collect valid signatures from a number of voters equal to 25 percent of the votes cast in Hatcher’s last election.
In this case, signatures from nearly 14,000 Benton County voters would be needed.
Embattled sheriff
Hatcher has been sheriff since May 2017 when he was picked to take over the position following the resignation of Steve Keane.
He won a November 2017 election to serve the last year of Keane’s term, then ran unopposed in 2018 for a four-year-term.
As an elected official, Hatcher can only be removed from office in a county election. He also can step down voluntarily before his term is up at the end of 2022.
Hatcher has vowed to fight any recall effort, saying every American citizen is given the right to due process.
When he first learned of the union’s unanimous recall vote in late June, the sheriff described it as “nothing more than an organized labor’s attempt to take over the sheriff’s office management and try to diminish accountability by a sheriff’s office.”
He also told the Herald then that with the recall up to the voters, and not the labor guild, he believes voters “will speak loud and clear about this.”
Hatcher’s legal and administrative troubles started last fall after his estranged wife filed for a civil protection order in the couple’s divorce case. She alleged she is a victim of domestic violence and threats, and says Hatcher choked her in 2017 during a fight about his extramarital affair.
As a result of that order, the sheriff was forced to surrender to police his firearms, including his service pistol, and any concealed weapons permits.
He briefly was charged with felony witness tampering and assault, but the charges were dismissed when Spokane County prosecutors said Washington State Patrol detectives needed more time to investigate.
The four unions representing sheriff’s office employees first called for their embattled leader to resign in October, instead of dragging the employees, the reputation of the office and the community through the court process.
That same month, the corrections department was removed from the sheriff’s office. The jail is now run by the county commissioners.
No confidence vote
The Benton County Deputy Sheriff’s Guild in early February issued a “no confidence” vote in Hatcher, calling him a tyrant who is “unprofessional and dehumanizing” in his treatment of employees.
They followed that in June with the announcement that 90 percent of the guild membership voted unanimously to have Hatcher removed from office.
The guild — consisting of patrol deputies, detectives, corporals, sergeants, lieutenants and now commanders — cited an independent investigator’s findings that Hatcher retaliated against a whistleblower and two witnesses, engaged in anti-union activity and threatened employees who failed to support him.
Hatcher has said he was “exonerated” of the criminal charges involving his wife, though prosecutors can re-file if the investigation wraps up or additional evidence comes to light.
After more than 14,000 rounds of county-owned ammunition and two county-owned guns were found at his former Kennewick home — a cache that the guild called “extraordinary” and “somewhat mind-boggling” — Hatcher asked Franklin County Sheriff Jim Raymond to conduct an administrative review of the Benton County Sheriff’s Office.
Hatcher said that involved looking into any alleged policy violations in his office, including of his domestic violence policy and guns and ammunition policies.
The petition by Erickson said it was that administrative review, and a county-ordered independent investigation done by a Portland law firm, that were the tipping point in proceeding with the recall effort.
The allegations against Hatcher include statements from his top managers: Commanders Jon Law and Steve Caughey; now-retired Commander Tom Croskrey; Lt. Erik Magnuson; and Erickson, who self-demoted from lieutenant to sergeant on Feb. 14.
The petition also references Lee Cantu, who retired as detective in February after 30 years in law enforcement, and Detective Todd Carlson.
Administrative review
The employees and former employees allege that Hatcher called for the administrative review by Franklin County under the pretext of finding out who had been talking to his wife, Monica Hatcher, throughout the divorce case.
Sheriff Hatcher, in his request letter to Sheriff Raymond, said he wanted them to look at “compliance with our standard operating procedures, department policies, standard practices, and compliance with Washington state law.”
However several supervisors, in being notified about the administrative review investigation, were served with 27 to 37 separate potential violations of department policy and identified as both a suspect and a witness.
They were told to cooperate with investigators and answer questions relating to their “conduct and/or job performance,” or they could be subject to disciplinary action including dismissal.
Erickson said when he met with Hatcher on Feb. 14 about his self-demotion, the sheriff said he also had initiated a criminal investigation.
Erickson said he believed the 14 cases of county-owned ammunition found at Hatcher’s former home was evidence of a crime.
Hatcher alone had six cases of .223-caliber ammunition, which is equivalent to what the entire road deputy staff would be assigned for one year, the petition states.
Yet, that ammo was never accessible to deputies, either when Hatcher lived in the Kennewick home or after he moved out.
Hatcher told his supervisors at least twice this spring to redistribute the 14 cases of ammunition back into use, even though they were considered evidence in an investigation, the petition said.
In response to the allegations, Hatcher reportedly informed his supervisors that he too could “whistleblow,” and brought up a 2017 hunting trip in which county ammunition was reportedly used for personal purposes.
He allegedly never raised the issue three years ago of it being inappropriate activity or wrongdoing, which led the employees to believe now that he was retaliating against them with potential violations for participating in the independent investigation.
Erickson said he was the last to be interviewed on April 8 as part of the administrative review, and knows that Franklin County handed over that report to Hatcher more than two months ago.
He said he has made public records requests for that report and evidence that a criminal investigation was done by any agency, and has yet to get any response.
Investigative document ‘backdated’
Erickson also claims that while Hatcher’s letter to Sheriff Raymond was dated Feb. 14, metadata shows the email was not created until Feb. 21.
He alleges that Hatcher had it backdated to coincide with when he told Erickson and Croskrey it had been done, meaning the sheriff would have provided false or misleading information on the initial date and falsified the government document.
In a May 7 meeting with Commanders Law and Caughey, Hatcher said he wanted to talk about staffing issues but proceeded to ask about their roles as witnesses in the two separate investigations.
He said several times that he planned to hire an undersheriff soon and was going to make changes in the command staff. The meeting reportedly last 6 1/2 hours.
“Sheriff Hatcher stated he was sick and tired of people blaming him for everything that has happened over the last 6-8 months,” according to the recall petition.
In talking about how the commanders should have responded to investigators, “Hatcher told them they should have said they didn’t know if having the ammunition was a crime.”
He said people have been calling him a thief, and asked Law and Caughey if they had, adding that he was “going to know” if they were not telling him the truth, the petition states.
Last Thursday, it was announced on the Benton County Sheriff’s Office Facebook page that Hatcher had promoted John Clary to undersheriff and Jon Schwarder to lieutenant.
