(The Center Square) – Maricopa County residents will have to decide in November who they want to be Maricopa County sheriff. However, the choice may be difficult, as both candidates have pasts of law enforcement misconduct ranging from sexual harassment to defying federal court orders.
Democrat Tyler Kamp
Democratic Candidate Tyler Kamp, a former Phoenix police officer, has a past of misconduct investigations and reports while working at the Phoenix Police Department including sexual harassment allegations from a rookie officer under his leadership.
The woman’s name was left out of the report as she was considered the victim which was filed Jan. 23, 2023 after Kamp had already retired from the Phoenix Police Department. The report includes screenshots of text messages from Kamp to the woman commenting on her appearance and making unwanted sexual advances.
“Since November 30, 2020, former REDACTED received text messages from Lt. Tyler Kamp in which he harassed her by asking her out for drinks or made sexually harassing comments about her appearance,” reads the report. “For example, Lt. Tyler texted her, ‘Yoga pants?? Shoot I missed it… Ummm REDACTED a little heads up next time pls.’”
Kamp is married and has four children and when interviewed about these claims, Kamp said that he does not remember sending those messages.
“In no way did I harass her at all,” Kamp said in the report. “We did have conversations before she worked under me. Any friendly conversations we had if you want to call them flirty or banter was completely mutual and solicited from her.”
The report concluded that a violation of A.R. 2.35, the sexual harassment regulation for the city of Phoenix, did occur. However, since the report was filed after Kamp had retired, it was inconclusive on if further action needed to be taken and at this time, no action was taken on that report.
Kamp also admitted to illegally utilizing a law enforcement database for personal uses.
“This was an administrative infraction on my part,” Kamp said during a Sept. 12 Arizona Horizon debate that aired on PBS. “Someone had needed some information, his own information, I provided that. That was 12 years ago.”
Furthermore, Benjamin Fisk, president of the Maricopa County Law Enforcement Association, sent a letter to the county recorder’s office asking for clarification on Kamp’s financial disclosure statement he submitted as part of his candidacy application, submitting evidence of multiple discrepancies in his report.
The letter states that Kamp disclosed that his only source of income compensation during April 2023-April 2024 was from Goodwill of Central and Northern Arizona. However, his Linkedin account shows that his only employer during that time was Thrive Services Group. While there is overlap among the executive teams of both organizations, they are categorized as two separate legal entities and would have to reflect that on tax documents.
Additionally, Kamp worked as director of investigations and law enforcement development for the Internal Justice Mission in Ghana from Aug. 2021 to March 2022, according to his Linkedin account. While this is outside of the covered period, his tax documents indicate that he was paid $148,162 from the organization between April 2022 to March 2023. Fisk requested in the letter that the recorder’s office obtain clarifying information from Kamp and that he be required to file an amended financial disclosure statement if necessary.
“Mr. Kamp has a long and unfortunate history of non-compliance with the law,” Fisk said in the letter. “Voters deserve no less than absolute transparency from candidates for public office.”
The Kamp campaign issued the following statement in response to the letter: “Jerry Sheridan has been embarrassing himself and so his allies are seeking a distraction. This letter is the epitome of grasping at straws, which doesn’t come as a surprise considering Mr. Fisk’s history. We agree that voters should be fully informed. Therefore, we encourage them to watch the AZ PBS debate that aired last week where Jerry Sheridan suggested he was willing to defy a federal judge again and admitted to being on the Brady List.”
Republican Jerry Sheridan
Republican Candidate Jerry Sheridan, who served as chief deputy of the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office and worked with MCSO for 42 years, did admit during the debate that he is on the Brady List – a list of public safety officials who have been accused of misconduct.
This comes from Sheridan being held in contempt of court in 2016 for disobeying court orders. When Sheridan became chief deputy, he inherited a six-year-long legal battle that stemmed from MCSO deputies racially profiling Hispanic individuals in traffic stops in an attempt to deport illegal immigrants.
Shortly after Sheridan was promoted to chief deputy in 2013, Maricopa County Judge Snow issued an order requiring then Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio to make changes to prevent continued misconduct. They were required to have a monitor to keep track of the MCSO’s behavior, record all traffic stops, increase training of employees and radio in the basis of every traffic stop before making contact with the individuals inside the vehicle.
However, in 2016, the court found that MCSO leadership had violated those court orders, when evidence was revealed that the MCSO was not complying with the required monitoring and oversight and the traffic stop recordings were being hidden from the court. Additionally, recordings were released revealing that Sheridan had told his deputies that the court ruling was “ludicrous” and “crap.”
Sheridan admitted to this during the debate, saying, “I think people in this county want a leader that is not afraid to do the right thing when the right thing needs to be done and if that is disagreeing with a federal district court judge and suffering the consequences of that.”
This court ruling and subsequent consent decree resulted in an increase of $350 million of taxpayer money going towards oversight at the MCSO, something that both candidates agree is an issue. However, they have different approaches addressing it.
Sheridan said that the number one expense was the order that the MCSO hire 40 new sergeants, saying that they did not have enough staff and the current MCSO administration is adding extra oversight and costs that are not needed.
Kamp claims that the order is close to being no longer needed now that there is a new administration and says that the backlog of misconduct investigations should be addressed.
“We need to clean up the backlog of misconduct investigations, the reason being it prevents employees from potentially transferring or promoting so it hurts their career development,” Kamp said. “The court orders have hurt recruiting, retention. It’s hurt morale.”
Sheridan’s campaign did not respond to a request for comment.
