LaRue Windham for Sheriff: Staffing, Retention, and Weekly Briefings

Peter Pappas: Cream sugar. Okay. No no black bitter for you. Okay. Okay. So what's the best cop show you think was ever made? wow. Well this goes back to the seventies. SWAT and SWAT and and with the one with Angie Dickinson. What was the Police Policewoman, yeah. Policewoman, you know, all those shows back then because I was a kid, I was a teenager. Yeah, yeah. but when you when later on in years when they got s started showing live T V And stuff, that gives folks a sense of what we went through or or go through on the streets, how we get treated, how we get talked to, you know, what we get thrown at us, you know, spit at us, whatever the case may be. Yeah, people trying to try their case on the side of the road instead of just taking the ticket and having to find another day. so last one, last quick one here. So best breakfast in Kermerlin County. Where am I taking you? Best breakfast. New York. New New York restaurant. Okay. Make sure you take cash by the way if you went visit New York. Exactly. I made that mistake one time. They have not evolved into the twenty first century. They're still back in the eighteenth, I think. But good breakfast. But they got pancakes the size of Cadillac hubcats. Yes, I know that. They definitely are a fable staple. So you walked into the sheriff's office in nineteen eighty eight and you left in two thousand eight as deputy operations commander. what did the job look like on your first day and compared to what it looked like on the last day that you left? When I walked in, I started off in the old jail that was still in the LEC. I was there for four months upstairs on the third and fourth floor. Okay. and I wasn't sure then that this is what I wanted to do. Mm-hmm. And I was working nights. And which we had scanners. Back then we had those, I think, seven hundred series, three hundred, whatever it's called, radios. And I was listening to one of the deputies that got in a foot chase. And you're listening to him, and he's got he's caught the guy. They're in a fight and a struggle. I'm sitting there thinking, my gosh, I would love to be out there in that. So excuse me. Then the next morning when I got off ship, I went down to see Major Dick Washburn. I Major. I want to go to B L E T. He looked at me, he said, Are you sure? I said, Yes, sir. And he called Steve Parlett, who was a sergeant, I believe, at the time, so put LaRue in B L E T. So that's where it started. Okay. Okay. So you were, I don't want to say just a jailer, but you were a I was a jailer, yeah. Okay, all right. Well, and I think it was I don't remember what show, it might have been with Mr. McDuffie or maybe with Mr. Morgan. we talked about that you can be a jailer and not a deputy, but a deputy can be a jailer. It doesn't go both ways, sort of. That's correct. A I didn't realize that. I a j a detention officer has a detention officer certification. Right. Where a deputy has a law enforcement certification, but they can carry both. Okay. But and even the detention officer can. But I'd never made that distinction. It was t this i it was twenty twenty six, it was new to me. They can't serve papers. There you go. Well, that's sad. They can't get involved with any of that civil discourse. Okay. Okay. With the shortage there. They they have to pull people from the LEC or from the courthouse or off the road to come in and serve papers. To go and serve papers. So your dad was chief deputy here and later assistant director of the S SBI. Did you get into this be because or in spite of? Of my dad? Yeah. Sometimes probably a little of both. It's kinda like I'll show you. Yeah. Okay. But no, he was a a great mentor. He never when I was working at the sheriff's office before he came, things would happen out on the streets. I was working narcotics and s a couple of instances happen, but I didn't I didn't go run into dad like people thought I did. And Finally probably anywhere from three to weeks to four weeks later, he would ask me about it and I said, How'd you know about that? Mm. He said, I know about everything. Because he's dad. Right. You know. And so I would tell him, you know, this is what this is what happened, this is what I witnessed, blah, blah, blah. And he'd say, Have you been called into IA? I said, Mm, matter of fact I have. He said, What'd you tell him? I said, The truth. He said, That's all you got to do. Yeah. That all you've got to do. Less you gotta remember if you just stick to that. So give me one person, a sergeant, a supervisor, really anybody who taught you something about leading people that you still use. Believe this or not, this was a sergeant of mine on the special response team. I was a lieutenant and he was I had two sergeants. And his name was Richard Warren's. Richard's deceased now. But Richard was in the National Guard, but I would watch him. He was patient. He he never lost his cool, especially with personnel. He talked to people. So I you know, I watched Richard, I said, you know, There's something to learn here from him, even though I'll rank him or I'm his supervisor, whatever the case may be. so I'll have to give Richard, rest easy, Richard, the accolades for what I feel like he taught me as far as being able to supervise personnel, no matter what the situation may be. Mm-hmm. You know, you do you treat people the way they want to be treated. And this is a little different law enforcement, you know, 'cause a lot of things are at stake. But The way I I'll leave by example, I feel like. And I learned it from him or part of that from him. I learned a lot from my dad too. Okay. Just listening to him on the phone at the house, people calling, you know, 'cause there's you know, all over the state. A little bit so called maybe osmosis works a little bit for for training. you can kind of absorb things. So we're gonna move now to more current things on April first. I think it was April. It was sometime in April when you were here last. Yep. you sat right there and you told us you had changes in mind for the sheriff's office, but you didn't want to put out there yet. And you said if we had you back in two or three months, voila, you would. So it's been six months now and early voting is open. So what are your changes in mind for the office? well some of the changes in mind is Well, it's a lot of things have happened since then. One is I have sent everybody a letter. I've sent Actually a couple of letters. Send them to the enforcement people, the detention people, the ones I could get their name, the civilian workers. Let them know your your jobs are safe. Okay they never had that happen before, especially when you got a change of command coming. but everybody should know when the changing of the guard takes place, that that guard is gonna bring other guards with So you're not gonna lose your job. Well nobody is, but you may not be in the same position, but you won't lose any money, you won't lose any tenure and none of that stuff. So once again, coming in as a new sheriff, I have to bring in folks that are gonna protect me, my interest. and I think the the majority of the ones that are there now in a command staff would do that, but I don't know that. Okay. That makes sense. The biggest thing and I and I know I've said this probably a thousand times with you, I keep and I keep going back to it, is I want folks to understand that you're not gonna work for me, you're gonna work with me. We're gonna do this as a collaborative team and we're gonna make this work. We're gonna have a law enforcement agency that people want to come to work here. People don't just dri ride by and stick their nose up to us. I've asked many folks in the neighborhoods or out here in the county, When's the last time you seen a deputy? we still got them? You know, I and and and they're that's disheartening to hear that. It is, it really is. It's embarrassing to hear it. and I said, Are you serious? I said, Yeah, I can't tell you the last time I saw one. I said, Well, what do you think of the sheriff's office? I said, Well, I I can't form an opinion because I don't see anybody t to be able to form that opinion. Once again, that's another embarrassing statement that's made to me, or answer, if you will. So with that, it's gonna be tough for me and my staff that's coming. If they'll take the positions to start the rebuilding process. And that's gonna start as soon as we leave the courthouse after the swearing in and get all the rest of the troops sworn in. That's that is the number one priority. And that brings me to the next. So your website does say the career plan that sets deputies' pay and promotions hasn't been rewritten since nineteen eighty. And you take the commissioner's a costed career ladder. but then and I'm combining two here, The county did put a new salary structure in this year's budget. Your opponent told us he'd keep parts of Sheriff Morgan's pay plan and fix pay compression. So do you keep it, change it, or start up? To be honest with you, I'm not sure exactly what Morgan's done. I know what he's tried to do is to bring that pay plan up. One is where it's it's it's lucrative for say Peter Pappas to come look looking for a job, says, you know, Cumberland County looks pretty good. The biggest problem is are the benefits. Once you finish thirty years, you don't get insurance anymore. Like, you know, we did back in the day. Something has got to be brought back. To keep these folks. We've got to retain good people. If not, they're gonna do just like everybody else. What's the starting salary for a deputy these days? I'm and I hate to say this, but I'm really not sure. Okay. 'Cause it's it's changed. Is it thirty, forty three? No, it's it's close it might be a little over fifty. Okay. Somewhere between I would say fifty six excuse me, forty six and fifty two. I don't know, following some of my favorite TikToks, I don't think I would do it for seventy or eighty thousand, but God bless them if they will. in April you said patrol platoons were running with four or five empty slots on them out of ten. your opponent told us the office is about twenty percent below full staffing. your own site says Cumberland County, quote, cannot keep the deputies it trains. So where do the new deputies come from? How do you keep them? Once again, we've got to figure out retention. We can go out and and recruit all day long. But are we recruiting the best or we just recruiting somebody who wants a job? You know. I want somebody that wants to be a law enforcement officer, not somebody that's just wants to get a uniform and wear the you know, all the bells and whistles that go with it and stuff. I want somebody who wants to do the job and then get the accolades that go with the job, which is, you know, pay and s and okay and and blah blah blah. But that percentage at that time, and I have not been able to get my hands on a Okay, I can't even think what the word I'm trying to use. But anyway, the roster, call roster, where I was getting those figures about the there was two platoons were five short out of ten and two platoons were four short out of ten. You know, that's eighteen people. Well, and that's the shift is the the differential there is fifty percent or missing, whereas your opponent is stating twenty. I think so to be fair, you can find certain platoons that are on patrol that might be half short. But overall the whole department is twenty. It was listed you know, right there in front of you. Yeah, yeah. For for all to see. and the jail's even worse, or the detention center's even worse. The detention center is working at such a critical state that it's completely dangerous for anybody to go to work in there. keep in mind I I've worked I've worked in the prisons and I've worked in jails or been around detention. If we had a full staff, d detainees or or prisoners, whatever you'd like to refer to as, would think twice about doing something stupid. But when it gets to a certain point, that's when they allow the detention officers or correction officers to do their job. At any time, they could say, All right, y'all sit down, we're gonna take over. Right, right. And they could. Well it it turns into sincerely the inmates running the asylum. Exactly what I'm about to say. Look, you're prom you've promised regular public meetings on or briefings on seizures, drug seizures, charges, and what's not working. So how often would you consider having public briefings and I mean would you hold one in a bad month? I see that's something I look forward to doing. what I've what I have started telling folks Or kind of figuring out what I want to do. I'd like to do something weekly. because it's never been done. back and I ha I hate even I'll just say a former sheriff, he never would put it out. Wouldn't put it to the press, wouldn't put it to the commission, wouldn't put it to anybody. What my IC is, when I say ICE, that's the interstate criminal enforcement team, not what you generally think of when you say ice. What they may have seized, the forfeitures they may have gotten and so forth, wouldn't put it out. Did commissioners take money away from us? Or they're not, because we're gonna use that money for certain things. But I want to do something either weekly or every two weeks. Come in here in your setup and let's let's do a watch sheriff. I love you, yes, sir. Well, I and I will be honest, mist when Mr. Morgan took the appointment, I saw him at a event shortly after and I congratulated him. And you know, I didn't know him by name, but I knew him by order 'cause he comes in the came in the restaurant a lot. So like but I said, look, we don't need Grady Judd, but I want to see my sheriff more visible. It's called transparency. Well, I don't know if it's transparency really. Transparency to me applies to when your officers screw up that we want to see as much as we can when we can see it. I know there's legal things around well sort of thing. But Visibility. There's there's various definitions of transparency. Once again, like you said, screw up. Put out there, so this is what we've got, this is what I'm gonna tell you. And when I tell you more, I'll tell you more. I'm not gonna keep nothing from you. Yeah. You know. You look at my cards or my signs, the professionalism and transparency. To me, the transparency is when I come in in here with Peter Pappas and say, Look, this is what we've done this week, this is what's happened. Now we've also got somebody out in the county that's breaking in cars, breaking in houses. This is a description. We got it might be a drawing. Hold it up. Say this is somebody we're looking for. We're looking for a blue, Dodge, Dart, 1973. You know, if you see it, by all means call 911 ASAP. Do not approach. Right, right. You know, I want that out here. I would appreciate that more. So you know, I I look, we elect a sheriff. I did not elect a PIO. Exactly. Public information officer. And unfortunately I felt that former Sheriff Wright lived by that. I don't remember seeing him at press conferences and to me it was simply cowardly. And I wish I hope he sees that. So let's get now to Am I allowed to agree with that? you can certainly. I mean look, I've heard he's a nice man, but as far as his visibility, you know, look, I wanna see my sheriff when some dipshit goes around and shoots somebody or threatens somebody or jumps on a school bus. Have you seen that recently? The parents jumping on the you know, that's is that a felony or misdemeanor if I'm not a felony now. So I mean that's serious. I need to see my sheriff saying, look, we're gonna put a stop to this. Once they jump on that, that is considered that when it's considered kidnapping 'cause now I have kept them from movement, from going anywhere. Just like if somebody come in this room. Mm-hmm. With or without a gun, close the door and says, Y'all not going anywhere. We have just been kidnapped. Right. Yeah, yeah. Well, look, I want to see my police chief, my sheriff, my mayor, you know, whoever we've we've asked to represent us and be in power. I think it's incumbent on you guys to be visible and accessible. Well, you just brought up a a perfect example. We got basically three police chiefs. Well, four count instead. Four. But how many of do you see that's in here or in any podcast with the sheriff sitting down or any of the other chiefs together doing that? It's because none of them want to work together. Mm-hmm. And what people don't understand, the sheriff is the most powerful decision in the county. Right. Sheriff can take over any crime scene he wants to take over at any time, can run any agency off of it. Mm-hmm. I think it was evident during the SRO debacle back in twenty it was twenty twenty four. Twenty four. you know The biggest thumb in the eye to the municipalities was that Sheriff Wright waited until after the budgets had been finalized for that year, whether that was intentional or not. But also it was a lack of communication. Cause he didn't say, Hey, the the letter he sent out did not say, Hey, we got a problem. Let's get together and talk about it. It was I'm out, meet me this day and I'll tell you how it's gonna be. That's not how you run a county. That's that's almost like how he retired last year. You know, it was like what June the twentieth and I'm out July the first? Really? Mm-hmm. You know, then then we've got everybody jumping through hoops trying to get the appointment and, you know, and and blah, blah, blah. And that was a you talking about a debacle. That was a debacle. Well, and unfortunately I think that's essentially how he was I call that anointed and appointed. I don't call that elected. That's a you know, and then he did And I think I questioned so he was appointed and then the election he ran, the first one he ran in, he he had on his signs reelect. And I reached out to Andrew Porter at the time, an attorney, and I said, Hey, I know Andrew. How how can he be reelected if he was appointed the first time? And we both agreed, well, it's a little gray area. But see, it's a little facetious. You're being elected the first time if you win. And then science should just say just like mine does right now, elect. Elect, yes. Well, we'll be happy to see you put a re elect on the I look forward to that. well, let's move on here. I did torture your opponent with this, so I'm gonna torture you with it. Go right ahead. State law already makes every sheriff in North Carolina honor ICE detainers. A two hundred eighty seven G agreement goes further and it is voluntary. So as sheriff, will you sign a two hundred eighty seven G agreement with ICE? Yes. Okay. now tell me though, because everybody loses their damn mind over ICE detainers and stuff like that. I'll let go ahead and explain. Your deputy pulls somebody over, which you don't do a lot of traffic enforcement right now. But i I think Sheriff Morgan had begun a traffic enforcement or had c tried to. so one of those guy one of those deputies pulls over somebody for speeding or acting the fool, and they are not citizens. How does that look? Well th that's kind of a twofold question there. They're not citizen. Let's let's let's let's let's straighten that question out a little bit. Go ahead. That that that the person that has been pulled over appears to be an illegal that has gotten here via the border. Okay. The ice detainer, if there's a t a detainer on there, ninety nine percent of them are good for thirty days. You'll have some that are that are maybe a little longer than that, and you may have some that are a little shorter than that. But the thirty day ice detainer, and the bad thing is, or what gets the sheriff or a sheriff a bad name, is once that detainer lapses or it gets to that thirty days and ice has not reissued that detainer for the next thirty days, then we have no choice but to let that person out. That's that's let's back up to the initial interaction though. So you you walk up to the vehicle, Juan Don Carlos is in there and but you have no idea who he is, what he is. So you've asked for I D, he doesn't present or he does. If he does, how do you know he's got a ret a detainer? He's not gonna tell you. Do you type it in the computer? Does it probably you run what you've got and then they run it through NCIC and and so forth? Right. is that part of a standard traffic stats? Yes. Okay. So what I'm trying to think I'm missing under no, it's okay. And I I'm trying to get people to understand that you're not pulling over brown people. No, no, no, no. It's after the interaction they have given you probable cause to pull them over. Then it's not your fault how they got here. No. But you're not taking extra steps to determine their citizenship. You are simply typing their name in a computer. You know, th think of this. When you pull someone someone over like that, you do you now have an investigation going on. Sure. So you you know, you take all your avenues and you come up with a common denominator. Same way with with a DWI. It's a suspected DWI. You have to have I another charge to go with that DWI and nine out of ten times that's driving left to center. Okay. Once you cross that line, that's when the lights come on. Then when you go up, they smell the alcohol, blah, blah, blah, and it goes downhill from there. Now, getting back to the ostrainer, once somebody has stopped and no matter what type of license they hand you, or an out of state license, whatever the case may be, you run it. That state of comeback, that's not about a license, that's not a South Carolina license or North Carolina, Virginia, whatever the case may be, that license has been made in somebody's basement. Okay. So at that time then you can take that person into custody or detain that person until we determine that that person is either here illegally or how they got that particular ID and so forth. And then we can should have enough probable cause or sus reasonable suspicion to go ahead and place that person under arrest and take them down to a local master or to the detention center and have them booked and then contact whichever necessary agency needs to be contacted. As you said, Don Juan is here, have y'all got something on Don Juan? and let's let's do the complete investigation. Let's find out if that's the case. And if it is, then you know, we just we got lucky. We got a So again, it's twenty twenty six. We type somebody's name in NCIC, whatever, and that's what's done from the stop, that's gonna flag something at that point. It's not like you're you don't have to arrest somebody to take in front of a magistrate. They if their name comes up, is ICE not putting tags on people's names? I mean, is that how I'm trying to figure out how it works. Then they will, as you call it, a flag. They'll put a flag on it if Peter's ever stopped somewhere. Then when it pops up, they'll s it will say either detain him or take him into custody and so forth and you know, await ICE's arrival or some of some more instructions to come through. I don't even think that you're playing with a thin line with this because There's so much of it here. and I think we look at things alike, and I tell folks, I said, you know, we're an election or two away from losing a lot of the freedoms that we are very much accustomed to. And it's not because of what me and you have done, it's because of what has been done to us and now that we are trying to correct it, we've got people here is like, Why are you doing that? Well I'm doing it for your safety. I'm doing it for your family, doing it for your kids in college, you know. Just like my son is in college in Wilmington. I want him to have a great experience in college. But I don't want him have to worry about coming out of Walmart or or food line and worry about somebody trying to snatch him in the parking lot. He'll fight you till the cows come home. But that's right. And a lot of people don't understand that that's why there is such a movement behind ice and the enforcement that There are a lot of dangerous folks that have made it through here. yeah, no, it sucks. Somebody made it through and they're picking tobacco for us or whatever, you know, and those are hard working people, but that is the the the illegals are the the harmful people are the exceptions to that rule. Well, what you got to keep in mind, it that's not our fault. Yeah. You know. They chose to come here. And if we can put our hands on them then we choose to send back. Mm. It's pretty simple. Well, I believe Can I answer your question? Yeah, absolutely. And I believe your opponent had a similar but a little softer. I think because pandering to the the left side of the political spectrum, they wanna they wanna sugar and I I'm not throwing shade on Mr. McDuffie at all. He did well in his segment, but I I just like a direct yes or no on these things because it's state law is what we're missing. See, all of this stuff you can You know that poor sheriff, well, I don't call him poor sheriff, but that guy in Mecklenburg, Mr. He looks like every Sunday preacher out there. I always troll his TikToks and and say, Where's your uniform? Where's your uniform? Always. Well, that's a question. So should you become our sheriff? uniform or suit? Both. Okay. Both. All right. And I've even told the the two hundred and sixty years worth of experience that hopefully will come with me that there's gonna be at least one day a week that we'll wear a uniform. Okay. At least one. 'Cause most of the time w in my position I'll be coming back to business, even though I grew up with a dad that was in the in the business but he wore suit and tie every day. So that's I don't know. That's kind of instilled in me. Just dress for the job you want. Exactly. Okay. All right. So last one, then I'm gonna let you go. if somebody watching agrees with me on almost everything and thinks you're just wrong on almost everything, what's the one thing you'd want them to take out of the last half hour we've spent together? Could you rephrase that if you don't mind? So let's just say out of the last half hour, what's something you'd like them to take from this program, from this broadcast? I would like anybody in the counties, residents, visitors, whatever the case that may be, young, middle aged, old, black, white, brown. it doesn't matter that I'm serious about this job. I'm serious about this county. I think back to nine eleven. You know, a lot of people think where were you at when nine eleven happened? I can tell you exactly where I was at and what I was doing. because myself and the special response team, we were getting prepared for our day. Mm-hmm. But that hit. So, you know, we had to change focus that morning of what could potentially happen next. Yeah. So my point being is I pay attention to what's going on around me. and some people might even catch me looking their way, but I'm not looking at them. I'm looking at something else. But I want folks to know one is I'm easy to approach, very approachable. And, you know, I talked about the being able to come see me. If you want to talk to the sheriff, all you gotta do is call me or call the office or come down there. You may have to wait a little bit 'cause I may be in the middle of something, but you will talk to the sheriff coup before in close the business that day. Okay. I want everybody to know if you go on my website right now, my phone number's on it. Mm-hmm. All you gotta do is pick up and call me. Speaking of that, where do people find you? Elect Wyndham for Sheriff. I'm sorry. I'm gonna give you credit because you are not feeling a hundred percent. But so it's elect wendham. We'll let Wendham for Sheriff. Okay. Wend ham. W-I-N-D-H A Okay. So actually if you top LaRue Wendham in, it pops up. It'll come up. Well, yeah, you gotta get on that algorithm. They gotta, you know. So well, LaRue, thank you. you came back in six months later and you answered every question. Not everybody does that. folks go look up his website yourself. That's the point. Please do. Larue, the door's open. Come back the week after election, win or lose, and tell us what you learned out there. I'm definitely doing it. Thanks for having me, Peter. Thanks for being here. Have a good afternoon. You do the same.