Sheriff Ruben Nolasco won re-election despite pressure from victims’ families to step down and a Justice Department report finding ‘cascading’ failures among the law enforcement response that day
For nearly two years, a Texas county sheriff has refused to step down after a gunman killed 19 children and two teachers at Robb Elementary School in 2022.
Instead, on Super Tuesday, Uvalde County sheriff Ruben Nolasco faced voters for the first time in the wake of the massacre.
And he won re-election with roughly 39 per cent of votes against three Republican challengers, according to preliminary results.
The sheriff has repeatedly rebuffed calls to resign or withdraw his candidacy for re-election despite overwhelming public pressure from victims’ families, demands that he face criminal charges, and a federal investigation that detailed a minute-by-minute timeline exposing “cascading” failures in the law enforcement response that day.
It makes them independent of the mayor, who appoints the police chief and is effectively in control of the police department (if the chief doesn’t cooperate with them they’ll appoint a new one). The mayor is just as likely to be corrupt as the sheriff, so having 2 separate law enforcement agencies that are able to investigate each other seems like a good idea. In an ideal situation they’d keep each other honest.
Checks and balances…
Same with coroner. Let’s say you have a corrupt mayor and corrupt police department that would really like it if the coroner reported some deaths to be suicide or of natural causes.
But when everyone is in the same political party and colluding anyways, it doesn’t really work.
How do coroner run anyways? Like…what are their platforms?
They rarely run opposed. But if they do I assume it’s based on qualifications or local trust.
Interestingly, basically no one has any checks on sheriffs. We can “vote them out” but that’s extremely difficult, and sheriffs can interfere with they’re competitors with no consequences.
The police department can investigate them. Do you think there are more checks on the mayor?