He says God told him to run. Now ex-Seattle cop will be Pierce County’s new sheriff
Keith Swank has won the election for Pierce County sheriff, an upset over a decades-long veteran of the department favored by the county's political establishment, and a chance for Swank to remake the department's leadership.
The results of the election will not be certified by the county auditor until Nov. 26, but Swank had 50.89 percent of the votes on Friday, and Patrol Chief Patti Jackson would need more than 82 percent of the 10,000 ballots left to be counted to overtake him. She has captured 48.73 percent of votes.
Swank, 56, retired from the Seattle Police Department in June last year as a captain after 33 years on the force. Reached by phone Friday, Swank said he believed the outcome showed that voters wanted change and safety. He said the public would see how "terribly" Sheriff Ed Troyer had behaved during the election and that they would realize that they hadn't had a good sheriff the past four years. He said he would bring honesty, integrity and real leadership to the department.
"There's been a lot of things talked about, said about me being a certain way or this way or that way," Swank said. "I want everybody to know that, as the sheriff of Pierce County, everybody's going to be treated with dignity and respect, and that's going to be treated under the Constitution and color of law."
"People will be treated fairly, and we're going to crack down on crime to the best of our ability," he added.
Troyer can remain in his position until his term is up Jan. 1, 2025. But Swank said he planned to see if Troyer would be willing to retire before then so he can take the reins. Lt. Cynthia Fajardo, who he plans to appoint as undersheriff, is working with him to put together a leadership team.
As of now, he said, he planned to choose his command staff from within the department, and he said people would be surprised by his pick for a "strategic advisor," who he wasn't yet ready to make public. He said he was putting together a bipartisan group to lead the department.
Of Jackson, he said she had the right to return to the rank of lieutenant in the Corrections Bureau, or she could work as a patrol deputy.
"There's a couple different places for her on the agency still. So I hope she stays," Swank said.
Troyer told The News Tribune on Friday that he won't retire before his term ends, but he said he will help Swank with the transition and would reach out to him next week. After his term ends, Troyer said he would turn his attention to nonprofit work. He's been a longtime organizer for Toys for Tots Pierce County and Charlie's Dinosaur, which helps foster kids and underprivileged youth in the county. Troyer has worked for the Sheriff's Department for 40 years, and he said he loved the job and Pierce County, but it is time to move on.
Asked if he thought the department was in good hands with Swank, Troyer said he'd have to wait and see who is appointed to command positions.
"It's a large department; it's more than about one person," Troyer said.
Jackson said in a phone call that she was proud of her campaign as a first-time candidate, and she didn't have the words to express her gratitude to the supporters involved, the people she has met and their time, effort, money and advice.
She said she thinks the department would have been in better hands under her leadership, but she is hopeful about Swank. She added that she wanted members of the Sheriff's Department to know that regardless of the outcome of the election or their feelings along the way, she loves them, and it has been an "incredible honor" to grow up with the agency for the last 35 years.
"I am hopeful that the community will continue to love and support the individuals across all bureaus of the department that every day show up to selflessly safeguard a community," Jackson said.
Jackson said she had no comment on what her plans were after Swank is sworn in.
Swank's win breaks a history of electing sheriffs who carried the endorsement of their predecessor. When Troyer was elected in 2020 — at the time the first contested race in 48 years — he had the support of former Sheriff Paul Pastor, who had served in the role for nearly two decades as an appointed and then elected sheriff. After Troyer opted not to run for reelection, he endorsed Jackson.
Jackson, 60, was also backed by County Council Chair Ryan Mello, a Democrat who appears poised to be elected County Executive, a position that implements the council's policy decisions and proposes the biennial budget, which for 2024-2025 earmarked about $377 million for the Sheriff's Department.
Swank had the support of the Pierce County Republican Party and received donations from other local Republican clubs. Neither he or Jackson earned endorsements from the unions that represent Sheriff's Department employees in patrol and corrections.
As sheriff he will provide law enforcement services to unincorporated Pierce County, Pierce Transit and cities that contract for police services, Edgewood and University Place. His pay will be about $191,099.85 annually. That was Troyer's annual pay rate for 2023, according to The News Tribune's salary database.
Voters have chosen a sheriff who has vowed to use his use his experience as a street cop and time teaching law enforcement de-escalation techniques to take a tough-on-crime approach to enforcing the law. They have also chosen someone who has said more than once that he ran for sheriff because God told him to , has stood by his social-media posts expressing conspiracy-minded beliefs about Democratic leadership being behind the assault on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021 and has repeatedly used his X account to mock transgender people.
Swank's retirement as a Seattle police captain came a month after the Seattle Office of Police Accountability reviewed his accounts on X and Facebook for violations of SPD's social-media policy.
Investigators flagged posts where Swank said Democrats "hated the American people" and said politicians wanted to "murder babies." He also tweeted that a trans legislator from Montana, Democratic Rep. Zooey Zephyr, was a man with mental health issues who should be referred to by her given male name. An investigation report noted that PublicCola reported finding a March 24, 2023 tweet where Swank referred to a Black man accused of paralyzing a woman in a robbery as a "violent animal."
Swank has made four failed attempts to win a seat in U.S. Congress as a Republican, but he has previously told The News Tribune that he would treat everyone equally under the law and that he wants to be a nonpartisan sheriff. About the posts, he said he's a supporter of free speech.
He has cast himself as a change from Troyer's leadership style. In an interview with the Family Policy Institute of Washington in July, he said morale was at an "all time low" in the department and that there was a lot of "nepotism and cronyism" going on.
Troyer's single term as sheriff was a turbulent one. He was tried and acquitted of misdemeanor false reporting in relation to a 2021 confrontation in which he called the police on a Black man delivering newspapers in his neighborhood. And he was placed on Pierce County prosecutors' so-called "Brady list" of witnesses with credibility issues.
Swank has said he doesn't have any friends in the department, and he could bring a fresh perspective to review policies and procedures.
One policy he might review is the department's use of vehicle pursuits. Recent changes in state law have given police discretion to pursue people suspected of any crime, so long as the risk of letting them go is greater than the risks of giving chase, but Swank has said he believes pursuits should only be used for violent crimes.
He has also said he would "fully enforce" immigration laws and work with federal partners, something that might be relevant if President-elect Donald Trump follows through on his promise to carry out "the largest deportation program of criminals in the history of America."
Swank said Friday that he would be focused on putting "bad people in jail" for crimes going on in the county, which he said were mostly committed by U.S. citizens. He said he's be looking at "regular things" like quality of life issues, violent crime and juvenile crime.
How much Swank is able to work with Trump might not be up to him. Governor-elect Bob Ferguson said this week that he would take on a second Trump administration if he overreaches on that issue or others, and the state Legislature in 2019 determined that a person's immigration status is not a matter for police action when it passed the Keep Washington Working Act.
Of the presidential election, Swank said he found out about Trump's win on Wednesday morning. Asked if he was excited by the result, he said he's been more concerned about his own election.
"All I would say about the presidential election, it seems like the American people have spoken," Swank said. "So we'll see what happens over this next four years in the administration."
