Having spent only two years on the Carlsbad police force, Dave Myers went to work for the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department.
After 33 years in the department, the now 60 year old retired as a commander following an unsuccessful run for Sheriff in 2018 and is campaigning for the seat again this year.
“I ran against my boss, Bill Gore in 2018 but only got 40% of the votes and retired that June. I agreed to run for Sheriff again because I truly believe there is a tremendous void of leadership within the department that has led to record high jail deaths and lack of honesty with the community,” Myers said.
Former Vice-Chair of San Diego county LGBTQ and Allies Group, and former Board President of at-risk youth outreach program YES, Myers currently serves on the non-profit Community Advocates for Just and Moral Governance board.
He has raised about $62,000 toward his campaign so far in 2022 on top of the roughly $60,000 he raised in the second half of 2021; there are no outstandingly large individual contributions listed on his financial filings.
Myers is endorsed by the San Diego County Democratic Party and political clubs spanning the county from Oceanside Democratic club to Chula Vista Democratic club, as well as non-partisan organizations like Planned Parenthood and LGBTQ political action committee HONOR PAC.
He is also individually endorsed by elected officials including Congressional representatives Sara Jacobs and Mike Levin, California Assemblywoman Akilah Weber, La Mesa Mayor Mark Arapostathis and Vice Mayor Jack Shu as well as La Mesa City Council Member Bill Baber, National City Vice Mayor Marcus Bush and City Council member Jose Rodriguez, National City Port Commissioner Sandy Naranjo and educational representatives such as San Diego Community College District Board of Trustees president Marìa Nieto Senour.
The retired officer, who said he “wants to ensure sheriffs are reflective of the communities they’re policing” believes being present in minority, refugee and underserved communities starts with hiring from the community.
“Leadership needs to think about how they recruit, build relationships. There are plenty of places to recruit from: go to community colleges, local universities, send people to street fairs in southeast San Diego and San Ysidro, attend farmers markets on a consistent and constant basis, go to community meetings— not just in the hetero, white community but also the transgender communities,” Myers said.
According to data on the sheriff’s recruitment section of their website, over 50% of their sworn officers are white. Fewer than 20% are women.
Myers believes the department needs to crack down on white supremacy activities before they develop into criminal situations. San Diego county, he said, is known for white supremacy and white power movements.
“When you talk to community members in Lakeside and Santee, they all say the communities are known as a hotbed for white power and we have just one detective to deal with it, yet we have 17 to deal with Black and brown gangs,” Myers said.
Recently, he recounts, a 16-year old Lakeside boy yelled misogynistic, racial epitaphs then stabbed a Black girl while his parents were standing there and encouraged it.
“People need to push back, recognize and say ‘Those are hate crimes’,” Myers said.
He believes a law enforcement presence can make school campuses safer, touts practicing de-escalation techniques so Campus Resource Officers can more effectively increase school safety without use of force, but ultimately would leave sworn officers in their current outreach positions.
On the other hand, he would entirely change how the sheriff responds to unsheltered resident calls through Homeless Assistance Resource Teams. Primarily, he would like to divert funding so less is spent on arresting and imprisoning homeless individuals and instead dedicate those funds to mental health facilities where HART teams could take people rather than arrest them.
“I think our law enforcement has been looked upon as the go-to for unsheltered people, the mentally ill, long-term drug abusers. Criminalizing has nothing to do with solving the homeless issues, it doesn’t make it better, it just forces people into a jail situation that isn’t equipped for them,” Myers said.
According to the state auditor, San Diego County jails had one of the highest death rates in the state from 2006 through 2020. Myers believes imprisoning people rather than taking them for medical care is directly related to that outcome.
However, he said, as much as law enforcement might want to connect an individual with care rather than jail time, the first question mental health officers ask is what health insurance someone has.
“As a peace officer, I can commit you for up to three days but it’s frustrating to see mental health providers stabilize, then release people. We don’t have government officials who have taken on the system to create housing, to stabilize people, to address how someone maintains sobriety,” Myers said.
The Citizens Law Enforcement Review Board, which investigates in-prison deaths, is ineffective because they only have authority to investigate uniformed officers, Myers said.
CLERB, he said, should be able to investigate everyone from evidence clerks to medical personnel in order to provide meaningful data that can be used to affect change.
“We had an incident at the Santee station where the evidence clerk was actually stealing evidence,” Myers said, referring to a 2017 incident in which former sheriff employee Angela Messig was investigated for disorderly conditions in the Santee substation evidence room but denied stealing evidence and later resigned.
The retired officer speaks passionately in favor of utilizing data and shared information to improve transparency and reduce death within the prison system.
“We, as an organization, should have nothing to hide. The sheriff’s department has so much data and it says very different things about communities from Lakeside to Poway to El Cajon, to Ramona. There’s a higher number of Black, brown, Native Americans who are stopped and searched with higher numbers of contraband. Why is that?” Myers asked, his voice rising.
The top three policies he would enact to increase transparency are to publish body-worn camera footage online for public viewing, release and house reports online in an accessible format, and publish gathered data online for easy analysis that would, to his thinking, spur systemic change.
A “very open and very transparent” relationship with the media is ideal, he said. “I think it’s absolute bulls— that a sheriff sued a reporter for their sources. Alex Villanueva in Los Angeles basically putting a journalist on a ‘Wanted’ poster? That completely demonstrates they have zero understanding of the first amendment or job of reporters,” Myers said.
The sheriff needs to “do things right to begin with” or acknowledge mistakes made and use data to improve policies, he said.
