WHITEHEAD: Eminently qualified

In response to “Jones exits sheriff’s race, backs Norris,” there were three notable quotes by Mr. Jones. First, that Norris is most qualified because he “managed contracts for the L.A. County Sheriff’s Office;” second, “There’s a lot of problems with the sheriff’s office and an insider is not the answer;” third, “Whitehead hasn’t done anything that’s equivalent.” Mr. Jones obviously hasn’t done his research. In moments, (https://sheriffrick.com/) and (https://norris 2020.com/) this is what I found:

Mr. Whitehead has more than 40 years experience in law enforcement achieving the rank of captain in the Travis County Sheriff’s Office, an agency 5x the size of Kootenai County. He earned a statewide leadership commendation for solving a retention/attrition issue exactly like the Kootenai County Sheriff’s Office faces today. He designed a longevity-based pay scale for the office that is still in use.

During a time of explosive growth in Austin, Texas, he has led all aspects of a sheriff’s office to include: Homicide, SWAT, Intelligence, Crime Lab, Dispatch to include being Incident Commander for large-scale events and natural disasters.

Upon arriving in Idaho in 2011, he was quickly recognized by Idaho Peace Officers and Training (POST) for his curriculums and instructional abilities to the extent that he is the only person, outside active ID personnel, the ID POST has recognized as a subject matter expert in Leadership, Field Training and Forensic Investigations.

Now this just being my opinion, I would say Mr. Whitehead is very well qualified and the only candidate that has actually solved the issues facing the Kootenai County Sheriff’s today, based on my research,

TOM COOK

Post Falls