King County gets a new Sheriff: Mitzi Johanknecht defeats John Urquhart

It appears that King Coun­ty will soon have a new top law enforce­ment offi­cial. Thurs­day’s bal­lot drop saw sher­iff hope­ful Mitzi Johanknect widen her lead over incum­bent John Urquhart for the sec­ond con­sec­u­tive day, sig­nif­i­cant­ly dimin­ish­ing the like­li­hood of a come­back vic­to­ry by Urquhart in the remain­ing late ballots.

Johanknect (pro­nounced Joe HANK Nick) is a vet­er­an deputy who has held many posi­tions in the sher­if­f’s depart­ment dur­ing the past few decades. She decid­ed to chal­lenge Urquhart after con­clud­ing the coun­ty need­ed new lead­er­ship at the top. She was endorsed by The Stranger, The Seat­tle Times, NARAL, the Nation­al Wom­en’s Polit­i­cal Cau­cus of Wash­ing­ton, for­mer King Coun­ty Exec­u­tive Ron Sims, Equal Rights Wash­ing­ton, and sev­er­al Demo­c­ra­t­ic leg­isla­tive dis­trict organizations.

Mitzi was also rat­ed “Out­stand­ing” by the Munic­i­pal League; where­as incum­bent John Urquhart received a rat­ing of “Very Good”.

“Mitzi is run­ning for Sher­iff because it is time to focus on the busi­ness of pub­lic safe­ty in King Coun­ty,” reads the pitch on her cam­paign web­site. “The women and men of the Sheriff’s Office and the com­mu­ni­ties they pro­tect deserve a Sher­iff who makes fight­ing crime and com­mu­ni­ty build­ing her first pri­or­i­ties. Mitzi is an expe­ri­enced law enforce­ment leader with a track record of success.”

“Born and raised in King Coun­ty, Mitzi has served her com­mu­ni­ty for thir­ty-two years,” the web­site goes on to say. “She is an expe­ri­enced, pro­gres­sive law enforce­ment leader, hav­ing risen to the rank of Major.”

“Mitzi was the first woman to com­mand TAC-30, the King Coun­ty Sheriff’s Office SWAT team, and has served in lead­er­ship roles in every divi­sion and loca­tion in the Sheriff’s Office. As a deputy, she was the first to work with a mul­ti-dis­ci­pli­nary team in King Coun­ty hous­ing projects. She col­lab­o­rat­ed with oth­er agen­cies, com­mu­ni­ty groups and res­i­dents to build rela­tion­ships and trust, pro­mot­ing pub­lic safety.”

Urquhart’s cam­paign — his third in the last five years — was plagued by weeks of bad head­lines. Urquhart has been accused of sex­u­al harass­ment and inap­pro­pri­ate behav­ior by mul­ti­ple indi­vid­u­als (he denies the alle­ga­tions). Urquhart’s finan­cial deal­ings as Sher­iff have also come under scruti­ny in recent weeks.

Angered by the report­ing of The Seat­tle Times, Urquhart’s cam­paign sent a rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the news­pa­per to a nonex­is­tent elec­tion night par­ty on Tues­day night instead of pro­vid­ing the actu­al loca­tion. The paper’s reporter ulti­mate­ly tracked Urquhart down at his real par­ty and con­front­ed Urquhart.

Urquhart said he was only play­ing around, call­ing the feint “a joke”.

But he’s prob­a­bly not laugh­ing now that his oppo­nent is pro­ject­ed to win.

Urquhart was for many years the Pub­lic Infor­ma­tion Offi­cer for the King Coun­ty Sher­if­f’s office. He retired from that posi­tion pri­or to decid­ing to run against appoint­ed Sher­iff Steve Stra­chan in 2012. Urquhart eas­i­ly defeat­ed Stra­chan, who ulti­mate­ly found anoth­er job lead­ing the Bre­mer­ton Police Department.

Stra­chan will be leav­ing that posi­tion at the end of 2017 to take over the Wash­ing­ton Asso­ci­a­tion of Sher­iffs and Police Chiefs.

Urquhart was unop­posed for reelec­tion the fol­low­ing year (2013) and won a full four year term. Dur­ing his tenure, he has repeat­ed­ly made head­lines for ter­mi­nat­ing deputies for con­duct unbe­com­ing of a law enforce­ment official.

But, as men­tioned, more recent­ly the head­lines have been about him and his alleged con­duct — and not the prob­lem­at­ic con­duct of the rot­ten apples Urquhart vowed to get rid of when he first sought the posi­tion in 2012.

Johanknect will be King Coun­ty’s sec­ond female sher­iff, after Sue Rahr, who suc­ceed­ed Dave Reichert fol­low­ing his elec­tion to Con­gress in 2004. Rahr resigned in 2012 to lead the Wash­ing­ton State Crim­i­nal Jus­tice Train­ing Com­mis­sion, three years after run­ning unop­posed for a full year term. Rahr still runs the Com­mis­sion today.