Ben Wolfinger: New sheriff in town

Ben Wolfinger was sworn in as Kootenai County's top lawman three weeks ago, nearly 30 years after joining the sheriff's department as a rookie, fresh from passing his deputy test.

Wolfinger, the county's 28th sheriff, said his parents, Dean and Alice, instilled in him at an early age, a deep sense of obligation and commitment to community engagement.

"My dad was the chief of the volunteer fire department, Shoshone County District 1, for 25 years," Wolfinger said. "As a 17-year-old, he talked me into taking the first EMT class they ever offered up there, and I couldn't even take the final exam until I turned 18, later that year." Wolfinger's mother, who died just four days prior to Wolfinger's Nov. 6 election, volunteered in Shoshone County as an EMT and as a member of the sheriff's posse. Dean died in 1997.

"They influenced me to this fact, 'You're here to give back to your community,'" Wolfinger said. "I think that's critical. No question."

The new sheriff's history of community service includes a stint heading up the Coeur d'Alene Chamber of Commerce board of directors, and five years on the Coeur d'Alene City Council.

Wolfinger was appointed to fill the term of Nancy Sue Wallace on the council, after Wallace moved out of the city.

"I think there were 12 of us that applied. I went through a pretty arduous selection process and was appointed. Steve Judy was the mayor at the time," Wolfinger said.

He ran for the office in 2001, and was elected. He served four years.

"I was set for re-election in 2005, but you may remember in 2005 we had the Groene case and I was kind of up to my eyeballs in work. I just made the decision I couldn't do them both, and do them right, so I decided not to run again," Wolfinger said.

Faith and family carry Wolfinger, an elder in his church, Real Life Ministries.

"I guide my thoughts, my actions and my decisions, based on biblical principles. I think if you do that, you won't be wrong," Wolfinger said.

Still, Wolfinger acknowledges there is room for human error.

He shared an office catch phrase he likes to use: "You mess up; you 'Fess up; you clean up."

"We're all going to make mistakes. If you can 'fess 'em up, we'll clean 'em up," Wolfinger said.

His family extends, he said, beyond those he is connected to by blood or marriage.

Wolfinger considers the men and women he works with to be "family" as well.

"We take care of each other like family, and that also means we can bicker like family, but we're tight," he said.

In the course of their work, Wolfinger said he and his sheriff's department "family" members are all carrying that same message that he learned from his parents.

"Instilling in people the idea of giving back to your community, I think that's an accomplishment," Wolfinger said.

Wolfinger said he's looking forward to moving ahead with the sheriff's office and the county.

"I'm different than Rocky Watson. A lot of people during the campaign said, 'Oh, he's just like Rocky. I'm not like Rocky. We have different styles, and that's OK," Wolfinger said.

He said that every sheriff he has ever known has his own style of doing things, but the goal is always the same, to move things forward.

"It's a great career. It's an honorable career. I'm sure glad to be here," Wolfinger said.

When you started working for the sheriff's office back in 1983, did you ever imagine you would be the sheriff one day?

Not then, but I think as time goes on, you start realizing where you can go and what you're doing. But in 1983, no, I was just happy to have a job. The economy was kind of tight here in the '80s. I was working in the jail, the old jail downtown had been condemned in the '70s and we could only hold inmates 48 hours, and we housed the vast majority of our inmates then in Wallace, and we did transports back and forth a couple of times a day. When Wallace was full, we'd take them to Bonner County or Benewah County or Latah County. In those days it was one deputy on in the jail, and we only had female dispatchers and they were our matrons. Times have certainly changed.

Did you want to be a police officer or deputy when you were growing up?

I had the typical kid stuff. I grew up when Neil Armstrong was walking on the moon, and we all wanted to be astronauts and things like that. But I always did want to be a police officer. I don't know why. It just always appealed to me.

When I first went to school, I thought I was going to be a doctor. I was going to do pre-med. I'm probably the only cop here that's been through a semester of anatomy and physiology, and then microbiology and inorganic chemistry and those type of things. I hated calculus. I squeaked through it. Then, after leaving Linfield I came here and changed my major and three semesters later I graduated with an A.S. in law enforcement and then I took the test to be a deputy. I don't regret a day.

How does being a longtime lawman manifest itself in your day-to-day life, when you're not in uniform? Are you always on the lookout for bad guys?

I don't think I'm unique. I think most officers are a little more alert. They pay a little more attention. I don't care whether I'm at lunch with my wife, or at church. My wife and I teach Sunday school to 3-year-olds. I'm more safety conscious than probably the average citizen, but that's because of what I do, who I've become because of the almost 30 years in this business. I think you're always a little more vigilant than anybody else.

What's the greatest change you've seen since you started at the sheriff's office?

Size is probably the first thing. I think I was the 50th or 60th employee when I was hired here, and now I think our strength is 306, but the size of the county has grown exponentially as well. As you know, the growth here through the last 20 years has been pretty phenomenal. And then managing that change. We always seem to be behind, and trying to play catch up. Just as an example, the national average of law enforcement officers per 1,000 population is 2.7 for sheriff's offices. In Idaho, it's 1.7, and we're at 1.4. That certainly puts a little extra burden on the guys out there who are working, because they don't necessarily have the backup out there or the additional deputies, and it's been that way since I've been here.

Counties are rather unique because cities are an option, you don't have to be a city, but you have to be a county. You take the city of Dalton Gardens, across the street here. Nice city, nice people, nice city council, but they don't have to have a law enforcement agency, so we provide their law enforcement. They don't have to have a street department; they can contract that out. They don't have to have a fire department; they can contract that out. They don't have to have an assessor or a treasurer or any of those jobs. The county has to have EMS; they have to have a sheriff; they have to have a jail; they have to have a treasurer and an assessor and an auditor and all of those things. So, we understand that because the counties have to, and the pie is only so big, that there's only so much money to go around.

Are other counties in the same boat?

Certainly, to some extent. We're not that unique. I think the biggest issue here is because we're a resort community. We have about 140,000 people in the county, full-time residents, but how many vacation homes do we have here? This is our economy. I get that. I understand that, but how many people come here that we have to deal with in some way, shape or form? Even though it may be a very small fraction, those people are visitors here and they're really not paying property taxes that support this. Maybe it's just a drunk driving arrest, maybe they're a victim of a crime. But that's using our resources that somebody else isn't paying for. But, you know, it is what it is in a resort community. We have to live with it.

What do you see to be the greatest misconception people have about law enforcement officers?

That A., we have a quota, and B., we're doing this for a revenue hunt. We have no quota. I joke with people, I tell them that if I write one more ticket I can get a toaster next week. But we have no quota, and the counties get no money from fines. Cities do. If the county gets a ticket, the fine money goes to the state's general fund. It's certainly not a revenue-builder for us. We do it because that's our job.

The other thing, I guess, is the idea that we're all kind of hard-nosed. Gosh, I've got guys out here that are some of the most compassionate people I know, and they're out here coaching soccer teams, or Little League teams. They're trying to be involved in the community. I've got command staff people that are on boards like North Idaho Violence Prevention Center. They want to make a difference in their community in a positive way. They're not hard-nosed.

What part of your job gives you the most satisfaction?

It's got to be, without a doubt, when a crime victim, or even better yet, when somebody we take to jail says thank you. I'll tell you a story. I won't tell you a name, but a few years ago I arrested a guy in Bayview for DUI. He almost hit me head-on, which is a pretty good reason to stop and talk to somebody, since I was on my side of the road. I arrested him for DUI. I had to chase him clear to his house, and he was really, really intoxicated. This summer, when I was out campaigning, I ran into him up in Bayview. He said, 'I want you to know, I'm not mad at you,' and I said, 'I'm glad. Thank you,' and he goes, 'I had it coming, and I've really slowed down my drinking, and I'm not doing any of that stuff anymore.'

Maybe it wasn't a thank you, but it was kind of a back-door thank you, and that's OK. That's the best part of the job, when people realize, that it wasn't like I was picking on them. I have a job to do. He made a mistake, and yes, he had to pay the piper, but that's that clean-up part, sometimes you have to pay the piper.

Is there a trend in society right now that you find particularly troubling?

The lack of respect for authority, and I'm not just talking about law enforcement authority. I'm talking about lack of respect for parental authority, for educators' authority. That's a trend that I've seen over the last 20 or 30 years that is just getting worse and worse and worse. I grew up in an era that, if you got in trouble at school, you got it twice as bad at home, but you don't see that anymore. I would never have even thought about flipping off the police officers as they drove by. You waved, because it was cool, and they waved back. That respect is gone, regardless of what contact they've had. That's a rather alarming trend. Nationwide assaults on officers are up; assaults on school teachers are up. It's amazing how many times we see domestic calls where it's child-parent, and the child's the aggressor. That's a troubling trend, and I don't know how we turn it around. I really don't.

What advice would you give a young person considering a career in law enforcement today?

Keep your nose clean. That's the first thing. Don't do drugs, because that will eliminate you from a career in this field.

There are three classes you want to take. One, is a good writing class. When I teach media relations, one of the things I write on the board that the media and law enforcement have in common is writing skills. We're both writing reports.

Take a good speech class because you're going to interact with people whether it be one-on-one or in groups, all the time, so you need to know how to speak.

And take a drama class, because half of what we do is an act. If I walk into a bar fight and there's two of us, and there's 10 guys fighting, we better act tough. Or maybe it's the unattended death, where grandma didn't wake up, and she's dead in bed. You've got to be able to act tough. Or even worse yet, maybe it's a SIDS death, and you've got to be able to hold it together and do your job, do that investigation and be compassionate, even though maybe you've got a child that age at home. So, yeah, a drama class is very important.

What are you the most proud of when you look at the men and women in your profession?

Their compassion. They're here because they want to be here, and they want to make a difference. I know they're not here for the money, because we're the lowest paid agency on the I-90 corridor. I'll give you an example. I have a new deputy assigned down in the Harrison area. I see him here in the office the other day. I said, 'What's that?' He said, 'Those are the schools in my district. I'm working with the schools so we can do some emergency drills.'

It's that buy-in. He doesn't live in that community, but he's so bought into the community, he wants to make things safe for the people living there. That kind of compassion, that's not something you pay for. That comes from the heart.