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6 GROUNDCOVER NEWS AUGUST PRIMARY Who will be the new sheriff in town? JIM CLARK Groundcover vendor No. 139 County Sheriff’s Departments are charged with the same things police officers are — investigating crimes and arresting criminals. Little regard is given by law enforcement for the circumstances under which crimes are committed or the state-of-life the “criminals” are in. Law is blind. So it doesn’t care if your parents abused you and now you perpetuate crimes of abuse. It doesn’t care if you fell to peer pressure and now are addicted to something. Law doesn’t care if you have mental illness or are simply a person built to live outside of norms. The point of the law does not seem to be to protect and serve as much as it is to arrest and punish. Washtenaw County is about to elect a new sheriff. This means almost nothing to abolitionists and anti-capitalists; however, it is worth paying attention to who will be holding this position of power. As a young activist, I was told that I could work within the system to change it from the inside. I have tried this and have seen others try it. It rarely works. Real change is not going to come from within this system; it will only come from complete deconstruction of the system. However, there is some sentiment within the ranks of law enforcement towards abolition. I interviewed each candidate to learn where they stand on abolition, reallocating public funds to mental health care, and on community-led actions to solve homelessness. Here are the takes from the candidates: What Interested You in Police Work? Alyshia Dyer: “I grew up extremely low-income in Ypsilanti, raised by a single parent, and had a lot of childhood trauma. I ran away from home a lot and at one point was falsely arrested and treated badly by the police. These experiences motivated me to get into law enforcement to be a more compassionate officer who really cared about people in our community. I also wanted to change things in law enforcement that I knew were harming people I cared about.” After completing her bachelor’s degree at Eastern Michigan University, Dyer earned advanced degrees from Gerald R. Ford School of Policy and the School of Social Work at the University of Michigan. She served as a road patrol deputy and a marine deputy at the Washtenaw County Sheriff’s office for nearly a decade. Derrick Jackson: “Originally I was JULY 26, 2024 Alyshia Dyer: Ypsilanti native who wants to end over-policing. just interested in systems work, like doing things in my neighborhood that could make the lives of people who were living in the community better. I left direct service social work because every day I would help a young person but there was always another family coming back who needed more help.” Jackson took on a job at the County Clerk's office where he met Jerry Clayton, Washtenaw County Sheriff. As Jackson tells the story, “I went into work at the Clerk's office where I met this guy [Jerry Clayton] who had this crazy idea about doing social work through a police agency. Honestly that's what pulled me into it. I didn't grow up wanting to be a police officer. It was literally this idea of doing social work and police work together.” Ken Magee: “I was a young and rambunctious person who had a good family but was running the neighborhood being mischievous, always pushing the envelope. I was never a bully. Instead, I stuck up for the kids who were getting bullied. In high school, my mentors encouraged me to channel my rambunctiousness into police work.” Two of Magee's mentors were Keith Hafner and Ed Sells, owners of Keith Hafner’s Karate in downtown Ann Arbor. There he met FBI agents. “This led to exploring a career in police work,” Ken recalled. “Numerous cops have the same story as me.” Magee graduated first in his police academy and was class president. Being very competitive, his chief challenger is always himself. He excels in all he does — martial arts, police work and writing. Magee has written four books about University of Michigan football. His law enforcement tenure includes involvement with the Drug Enforcement Administration and, as Magee puts it, “facing down some of the most dangerous criminals on the planet.” Derrick Jackson: Bringing social work to police work by restoring communities. On Abolition Dyer: “I’m never going to call myself an abolitionist because it’s hypocritical to do that and run for a position like sheriff. I will say I have read about this extensively, and what it means to me is recognizing that many of our systems were originally designed around harmful practices. Sheriffs, for example, historically were born out of slave patrols in the South and helped promote mass incarceration. Present-day, we try to push back on these roots, but there are still realities in the design of law enforcement that cause harm, even when the people working inside the system don’t intentionally mean to cause harm. I believe in reducing harm in this space as sheriff so that we are working towards new strategies to create safer communities. We also have to be more honest from a police administration standpoint about how over-policing has contributed to violence. I know so many young people who got zero support until they got into trouble. Then the support was very punitive. It didn’t help. “Abolitionists I know and have talked to, at the end of the day, believe in a Ken Magee: Former DEA agent who "thinks outside the badge." better world where everyday people aren’t being extorted, oppressed and harmed by systems that are supposed to protect us. Some of the principles, including investing more upstream and investing more in solutions for safety, hit home for me as someone who grew up in an area where opportunity is defined by zip code. My goal as sheriff is to make sure we are responding adequately to calls for service but also doing so in the least harmful way possible and ensuring we are doing our part to invest in root-cause solutions to better public safety. We need more deflection and diversion, and we need more restorative justice to offer healing for when victims of crime want to go a different route.” Jackson: “I think …” He paused and then started again. “Listen, we're all trying to work towards abolition. How do we actually get there? It would be great if we didn't have deaths or homicides or serious assaults, right? There's a lot of social ills out there. And I think as a social worker, I have these ideals of what we would be like as a society if kids weren't picking up guns and see SHERIFF next page 

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