Shane Nelson - A Customer Service Approach to Public Safety

Sheriff Nelson has been in law enforcement since 1993 and is in his second term as Sheriff.  The Deschutes County Commissioners unanimously appointed Nelson as the 9th Sheriff of Deschutes County in July 2015. He was voted in by the citizens of Deschutes County in November 2016. He was born and raised in Bend and graduated from Mountain View High School in 1988.  After graduating from Oregon State University in 1993 he moved back to Bend and began his years of service in the Bend Sheriff’s department. 

Sheriff Nelson is an active member of the community; as Sheriff of Deschutes County, he serves on the Board of the Oregon State Sheriffs’ Association, where he holds the office of President; he’s a board member of the Oregon-Idaho High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area and past Chair, Vice Chair, and Chair of the Finance Subcommittee; serves on the Board of Oregon Accreditation Alliance as Vice Chair and is a past Secretary/Treasurer; he serves on the Board of Directors for Pilot Butte Partners and has served on the Board of Directors for the Redmond School District.

 Shane has pulled away from a demanding schedule to share a few thoughts on some important county-wide issues and on public safety.

Transcript

Unknown: 0:07

What would have helped ballot measure 110 be successful is if they would have had a consequential hammer so you only get so many bites at the apple so to speak, where there's not this unlimited number of decriminalized, decriminalized drugs citations that you can get, or health assessment screenings that you can get because right now, it's unlimited. So you can deal with an individual has user amounts of drugs and and cite them hundreds of times. Welcome to

Narrator: 0:39

cascade views a discussion with Central Oregon leaders. Your host is Michael SIPE, local business and community leader Best Selling Author of the Avada principle in candidate for Oregon State Representative for House District 53, which encompasses southern Redmon sisters, Tom hello and northern Ben. The purpose of these discussions is to share the views and insights of local leaders from a variety of community sectors on a range of timely and important regional and state issues. With that now, here's your host, Michael SIPE.

Michael Sipe: 1:13

Thanks for joining us on cascade views. My name is Michael SIPE, and I'm here today with the shoots County Sheriff Shane Nelson. Sheriff Nelson has been in law enforcement since 1993, and is in a second term Sheriff that shoots county commissioners unanimously appointed Nelson as the ninth sheriff of the chutes County in July 2015. He was voted in by the citizens of the chutes County in November 2016. And again in 2020. He was born and raised in Bend and graduated from Mountain View High School in 1988. After graduating from Oregon State University in 1993, he moved back to bend and began his years of service in the bend Sheriff's Department. Sheriff's now Sheriff Nelson is an active member of the community as Sheriff chutes County. He serves on the board of the Oregon State Sheriffs Association where he holds the office of president. He's a board member of the Oregon Idaho High Intensity Drug trafficking area. And Past Chair vice chair and Chair of the Finance subcommittee, he serves on the board of Oregon accreditation Alliance as vice chair and is a past secretary treasurer. He serves on the board of directors for pilot beat partners, and has served on the board of directors for the Redmond School District. Shane's pulled away from what I know is a very demanding schedule to share a few thoughts on important county wide issues and on public safety with us today. So it's my great pleasure to welcome Sheriff Nelson to the show. Hi, Shane.

Unknown: 2:37

Hello, Michael, thank you for having me. I have to have to save really quick when when you give my bio and you say I graduated from high school in 1988, I immediately come to the fact that we're hiring folks now that were born when I started in this business. So it really sticks in your mind.

Michael Sipe: 2:59

That's for sure. I'm, I'm cognizant that too as I am involved in this campaign and and I realized that I am experienced and mature. I'm beginning to change that from old. Those descriptors they really are anyway, I'll use those. Yeah, I'm super glad you're on the show today. And I'm looking forward to getting into some big topics. But before we do, how about sharing just a little bit about yourself how you got into law enforcement and gosh, what keeps you in it after so many years of service?

Unknown: 3:33

Well, I think the most important thing to me is I always love to tell people that I'm married to my wonderful and beautiful wife, Lisa. For 22 years, we have four kids, two grown sons. And my wife spent 25 years in law enforcement as a bench City police officer. And so I really thank her for her service. And she just retired a little over a year ago. One of the things that is really the reason that we all do, what we do here at the sheriff's office is that we live here, our kids go to school here, we volunteer here, we shop here. And so we really have a vested interest in making sure we protect public safety and enhance livability. And for me, I was born and raised in Central Oregon. And except for a brief time when I was at Oregon State University for five years, I graduated and came back here. So I've spent my entire life here and we're raising our kids here. And the reason I got into law enforcement was when I was a young young child growing up around here I used to see the dark brown sheriff's office cars driving around and they waved at us kids and I always had a fascination and an interest and so I went to college studied speech communication and corporate commute. occasion. And when I graduated, I came back here and I volunteered my time as reserve Deputy Sheriff with, with our office. And I really caught that selfless public service bug, where you're out there, and you truly have an opportunity to change people's lives for the better. You are seeing people sometimes at the worst moment in their life. And so we really believe let's just leave people better than we found them and do our part. So that's what led me to law enforcement. I work with great people, I worked for great people, I have a great supportive family. And that's what keeps me serving as your sheriff.

Michael Sipe: 5:44

Well, let's dig into that a little bit more. Just tell us a little bit about the Deschutes. County Sheriff's Office, how many people you employ Catholics overall budget? And maybe what are your main areas of, of service in our region, that kind of thing?

Unknown: 5:58

Well, so our current budgets about $72 million, and that does include reserves. And I think what's important to note also, when we talk about our budget is we only want the amount of tax payer money that we need to deliver a quality public service and customer service to our community members who expect and deserve that high quality service. So taxpayer money is better left in people's wallets. And that's why we're very proud of the fact that in both of our law enforcement tax districts, they have a reduced rate for for this fiscal year, and then that's the first time in our history that we've done that. We've got about 260 full time employees that work for you at your Sheriff's Office. And we probably have anywhere between three and 400 volunteers that volunteer their time here for the Sheriff's Office. So you have quite a lot of people that are here delivering the service. Some things that folks may not know is my job description is set through Oregon law. And the sheriff is the conservator of the piece and Chief Executive Officer of the county. And we have some mandated services. One of the mandated services of the sheriff's office is to operate a jail and transport prisoners. Another one of the mandated services is to arrest people that commit crimes commit offenses, search and rescue. civil process. And court security are also mandated functions of of the sheriff. And Sheriff is is an old elected office came over here from from England, in the United States about 1635. So it's the oldest elected and non military office. That's that's been around for for several 100 years.

Michael Sipe: 7:53

Wow, that's really interesting. I didn't know that. Um, here's my last general question. I've had tremendous experiences with your office and deputies, throughout the county and community service activities and nonprofit involvement and just a lot of special touches that the that the sheriff's office does all around the community. So what makes a great sheriff's deputy for example, what do you look for in hiring, and maybe you could even share a story about one of the members of your team and then maybe that could give us a little insight into the character of the men and women in the Sheriff's Department?

Unknown: 8:34

Well, you just described why we want to why we want to hire the best professionals here at your Sheriff's Office, those experiences that you've had, when we go out and we look for people to come and work with us here at this office. What we have in our mind is we are in the customer service business. That's what we do. And and it's our job to make sure we maintain public safety and enhance livability around here to keep people wanting to move here own businesses here. send their kids to school here and visit here. And so we have a foundation that we treat people the way we want our family members to be treated, I can't think of a better way to be able to deliver successful customer service. The foundation of that is when we go out and we also try and recruit folks to come and join our organization. But we go out we look for folks with a positive attitude. The concept of being a team player, selfless service while still balancing your family life and your you know your personal life. And really try and find those folks that are service oriented. And then we have a very thorough background process to make sure individuals applying for this office. Have a good background before we hire them. We've been very successful. So that is the basis for who we look for and I'll tell you we have We have a lot of great people that work here. We've gotten talent from other public safety agencies and professional organizations, in our community and across the nation. Right off the top of my head, I can just think of over 10 folks that were lateral or experienced hires, both sworn in and non sworn individuals that we have had apply with us and be hired by us who came from other professional agencies.

Michael Sipe: 10:33

Well, that's terrific, let's turn to public safety. Because I want to dig into some of the issues that face our region, what are some of the biggest issues that you and your office are facing these days?

Unknown: 10:45

When I look at it, our response in these issues are no surprise to anyone. But I, I think of some of the challenges that we have in melt mental wellness with individuals that we deal with, you also can can take a look at the effects of addiction, and how that tends to drive quality of life crimes, which are property crimes, burglaries, thefts, car clouds. And really when we take a look at those types of situations, and how we're addressing and dealing with it, we always try and be as proactive as we can be, because our ultimate vision would be to put ourselves out of business. If you're looking at something from that angle, you're really going to be providing the best services that would that would help deter those individuals away from the criminal justice system when it's appropriate. And so when we look at some of those tactics that we use, while we're still here, enforcing the law, and in enforcing the rules, and using discretion, as we go about it, we still want to be offering proactive programs that that help these individuals do the right thing, and get back on the path to being a productive citizen. The other element that I think is causing us some challenges, of course, illegal marijuana and activity that goes on in the state in the county that's feeding the black market.

Michael Sipe: 12:16

Well, in some of the bigger cities on the west coast, the crime rates, especially violent crime seem to be skyrocketing. What's the situation around here? Are we getting better holding steady getting worse, or, or maybe just things are shifting around?

Unknown: 12:29

Well, we're very blessed, I'm going to knock on wood, Michael, I'm not superstitious, to that's just something I'm doing law enforcement. You look at some of these larger cities. And I actually just read a national news article on it that says, when you have reduced law enforcement stops or reduced law enforcement activity, you're going to get an increase in crime increase in violent crime. And some of the examples they use, of course, were Minneapolis, Chicago, and, and Seattle. And I think we're all familiar with the situations that went there. And, and they just were not a successful response. And I know that a lot of that response was driven by elected councils, or elected commissions in those types of situations. But when I you know, take a look at that, that that enforcement piece is always important in addressing any challenge, or, or any problem. And we're very blessed around here, because we have very responsible people that that move here we have very responsible people that live here, and very responsible people that visit here. So I haven't seen a huge rise or increase in crime that I wouldn't expect. With a with a rise or increase in population or vicinity visitation, I think we have to remember this county is now over 200,000 people, some of the numbers put it at 210,000 People 10 years ago is 160,000 people. And so when you take a look at the increase in population, you also take a look that that you can get anywhere from three to 5 million million visitors a year to Central Oregon. And so with an increase in population or an increase in visitation, you're going to get an increase in crime.

Michael Sipe: 14:13

Well, there is one issue that at least it appears is increasing, although not necessarily classed in the violent crime area, but that's the homeless issue. And so that issue does at least apparently seem to be increasing. Can you give us a big picture on that from your perspective?

Unknown: 14:32

Yes. And, and the homeless issue. It's a multi faceted issue. It really can't be lumped into any one reason for ended individuals not having a place or stable place to camp stay or live. Really, if you look at it, there's a there's a component of homelessness where those are individuals that just need to access resources because maybe they've had The hard time in their lives and many people are just a breath away from any type of the challenges situation like that. And they just need to access resources, so that they can get a hand up to get back on track to, to their productive lives. There's also an element that involves addiction, or drug abuse and mental wellness. And when you take a look at trying to offer resources to those individuals affected by that, at the end of the day, it always hinges on the fact that people have to want to get help. And so some of some of that the individuals in that area, that's a challenge, because a lot of those individuals may or may not want to get help. And so that depends on on how you're going to approach that situation or how you're going to solve that situation. And then, of course, you have individuals where, look, they just want to live off the grid, they just want to be involved in criminal activity. And and some of that's because of a mental health challenge or an addiction or substance abuse challenge. But it's multifaceted. So when you take a look at it, the one thing that I can tell you is you have to have enforcement be a piece of that response. I always say that, look, people have to follow the rules, there is you know, there is no blind eye, when you're out enforcing the rules. Now you can use discretion, one of the things that our office does is we want to be able to awful off offer these resources for folks that are in those awful conditions, because you offer the resources such as the stabilization center, or some of the other things that we're going to talk about in the program, you you help them access the Bethlehem in or shepherd's house or neighbor impact or any number of these resources out there, so that you can do your part. But at the end of the day, when some of these individuals have had a lot of chances, the fact of the matter remains for public health and public safety. And basically to also ensure there's humane conditions for these individuals, you've got to enforce the rules.

Michael Sipe: 17:11

Well, that leads me to a question around the rules, which is measure 110. And its impact on the homeless issue, as well as addiction and mental health. Maybe you could give us just a quick overview of measure 110. And, and how you see that having an impact on this whole topic.

Unknown: 17:31

Measure 110 I support the spirit of ballot measure 110 I think it was a little misleading to the voters where there was a strong belief that there would be a lot of treatment options out of measure 110. And we haven't seen that quite come to fruition. But my main concern about measure 110 is the fact that the decriminalization of user amounts of drugs. And first of all, I think it's quick to point out that 40 oxycodone pills is considered a user amount of drugs, which to me makes no sense whatsoever. It's not a user amount of drugs, and so user amount of drugs and individual who gets caught with the user amount of drugs, that is not a crime anymore, they can get a citation, which is equivalent, and actually the finest less than traffic citation. The fine can be anywhere from $45 to $100. They can also choose to take a health assessment, which is a good thing if people choose that they can take a health assessment and that qualifies in substitution of the the traffic ticket. But I think what's important to point out is in the first year of ballot measure 110 There is about 1800 cases where individuals were cited for ballot measure 110 Out of those 1800 cases yet 816 individuals failed to appear. Another 500 were were convicted in court. But to me the real telling number is that there was only 55 assessment, health assessment or screening verifications received. So that's, that's very small. That's a small number. I hope that that really improves as time goes on. But I think the other thing to keep in mind is law enforcement has a limited number of resources everybody's aware of that they've seen across the nation, you can't find law enforcement officers or keep folks in the business. And so when they start prioritizing their call response, you of course look at the the higher the higher criminal actions that are taking place as you prioritize things so your assaults and and cases like that. And so when you you look at the state of Oregon, Multnomah County had 108 citations for ballot measure 110 violations in the past year. Deschutes County, which is about a quarter of the size had 91 citations. So I think what you're seeing is there's not as much enforcement of of the the ballot measure 110. And I think that's driven a lot by resource management of law enforcement officers. The other thing we know that addiction and and mental illness is a huge component of homelessness. And so my fear is, if you have a lot more individuals where you increase access to drugs, because self gets, it's the whole supply demand deal, if you have decriminalization of drugs, you might have individuals that that might use use drugs, because there's not the the consequence hammer there. And so I'm curious to see how, how this affects addiction rates rising, which would, again, affect quality of life crimes and see how those increase as time goes on. But when I really look at the component of this, what would have helped ballot measure 110 be successful is if they would have had a consequential hammer. So you only get so many bites at the apple, so to speak, where there's not this unlimited number of of decriminalise decriminalized drugs citations that you can get, or health assessment screenings that you can get, because right now, it's unlimited. So you can deal with an individual has user amounts of drugs and incite them hundreds of times.

Michael Sipe: 21:37

Wow. Great points. A little earlier, you talked about or noted the stabilization center program that I believe you're a big supporter of here in the chutes. County, would you mind sharing a little bit about how this works and how it ties into this whole topic?

Unknown: 21:55

Yes, the stabilization center is run by our behavioral health group, which is in health services department for the chutes County. And they do an amazing job. They also also oversee the mobile crisis assessment team, which is a group of behavioral health specialists who go out 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and assist individuals in crisis out in the field. So we were discussing what is a way that we can deter people away from the criminal justice system when it's appropriate, and help them with their their mental health challenges. And so the stabilization center does just that. It's a it's a place where they give respite to people, and they take walk ins, they also take law enforcement officers dropping off individuals there, which it's a huge savings to the taxpayers in law enforcement response, because the turnaround time for a law enforcement officer at the stabilization center is anywhere from three to four minutes, which is incredible. That means you're getting law enforcement officers back on the road to do their job. But this has just been a great tool for us. I don't have exactly the numbers to tell you how many people got diverted from jail. But I could tell you based on the the numbers and statistics that they put out, I think it's it's not a huge leap to say at least 300 individuals have probably probably been, you know, detoured from the criminal justice system by getting help at the stabilization center.

Michael Sipe: 23:34

And as I understand it, the stabilization center isn't just for law enforcement, is it? Isn't it a situation where a citizen could just say, you know, I, I need to calm down and can walk in?

Unknown: 23:46

You are absolutely correct, Michael, and and I really like how you put that because listen, everybody has a bad day, everybody can have a challenge with mental wellness issues, or like you put it just say, Hey, I just need a break, I need to calm down. It's a resource for family members who have a loved one with with mental wellness challenges. It's a resource for them. And there's many levels of response from the behavioral health team there. It could be as simple as hey, just come and sit in the lobby. You know, get get a bottle of water, get some food, and just have some time to yourself before you go back out there.

Michael Sipe: 24:26

So good. One of the things I appreciate about your office is the innovative approach you take to some of the issues that face us. And one of the ones that I'd love to hear a little bit about that is a recent implementation, I understand is something called Operation guardian angel. So would you fill us in just a little bit on that?

Unknown: 24:45

Yes, Operation guardian angel is something that has been done in other sheriff's offices and and police departments throughout the nation. And basically in a nutshell what it is, is I just said, Hey, if you have family members or if you yourself want to bring in your illegal drugs and your drug paraphernalia, we'll destroy it for you no questions asked no criminal charges. And we'll connect individuals with medication assisted treatment, it was kind of our answer to ballot measure 110. And we just wanted to do our part because we always look at where is the earliest opportunity we could intervene, or what is the earliest opportunity that we could provide a program or do something to change somebody's life. And Operation guardian angel is a partnership with ideal option. We work closely with Josh lair who's a wonderful man, he's been over here several times, going out into the community and homeless encampments with us to try and connect individuals to this resource. And I'll tell you, when we kicked off operation guardian angel, about I guess it's almost been about three months ago, now, we kicked it off, we had six individuals that came in for medication assisted treatment. And by the way, you don't, you don't have to have any illegal drugs to turn in, you could just show up and say I need medication assisted treatment, 24 hours a day, seven days a week or call our office, and we'll, we'll plug individuals into that. But we had six individuals and three individuals are still with the program. And to me, that's a huge success. I think that sometimes for individuals that are suffering addiction, I think that sometimes it takes more than one opportunity. And so we just want to, we want to provide that service, and do what's right by people and their families in the community.

Michael Sipe: 26:45

That's so good. Yeah, Josh is a good friend and an incredible guy, what a what an amazing story. You know, he's the, he's the keynote speaker for our upcoming community leaders prayer breakfast, and I think he's gonna really do a fantastic job of, of helping people really understand a lot of the color around these issues. So that's a terrific program. So here, here's a question that's on everyone's mind all around the county. I everywhere I go, people ask me about this. And so I'm going to ask you, because I want your answer. What do we do about it? You know, on a bigger picture level, what do we do about the homelessness, addiction and mental illness that's rampant? And and, and apparently growing in our region? You've talked about some of the things that that your office is doing. But you know, any other thoughts on kind of globally? What are the cities in the county do about this?

Unknown: 27:40

Well, one of the things I think is a community, we, first of all, we have to get rid of this notion that we're going to solve homelessness. I mean, that can be the vision, but we're not going to solve homelessness, what we want to do is we want to mitigate it, we want to mitigate those situations and imbalance, the offer of resources, and enforcement. And there's a number of things that this community is blessed to have, we have a tremendous number of resources here, and wonderful groups that volunteer their time and get a lot of resources to assist individuals. It also can draw individuals from other areas, and I don't blame them, people that are looking to access a resource for one example I'll use they had they had the the camp cleanup and eviction around Second Street and that needed to be done it was public health hazard. And, and not only that, it was quality of life issue for all involved. And when they were cleaning that camp up, they they came across several individuals who had come here from Eugene, because if folks can remember Eugene is clamping down and enforcing and, and in in narrowing the number of areas where where individuals can be your state. So you had a number of individuals that had come from Eugene, the other thing that I like to point out is the city has very graciously purchased two hotels, and they're going to be having some some residences that individuals can access. So some of these individuals were asked, hey, when these come available, would you be interested in going and living there? And and some of the comments from from some of the individuals were no, we don't want to go live there. Because we don't want to have any rules. We don't want to follow the rules. And so I respect that point of view. But but my response is, well, then you have to find a place where I guess there's no rules. And personally, Michael, I don't know of any place. I think every place has rules. It just depends on when you you get contacted about about following rumor or not. So the way you balances is you offer the resources. The whole point is to drive individuals to these resources. And those individuals that don't want to access the resources. Then you just say well, that's fine, but you have to follow the rules. So enforcement of the rules is key. And that is just part of life. That is part of public safety. And it's part of enhanced livability. And I think one example that I that I would use is the Oregon Department of Transportation is going about it very well, they are they are going about it in a compassionate manner. But they need to make sure these camps are cleared off the site of highways, they need to make sure these on ramps and off ramps are cleared of these camps for public health and safety of the individuals that are staying there. And for the community at large you take a look at Salem police department just had a vehicle that was being driven by a person who's allegedly to be driving under the influence of intoxicants, left the roadway and drove into an encampment and I believe that killed four people. So it is a it is a safety issue. And at the end of the day, we're not going to you know, we're not going to guide all these folks to to resources. And and we've just got to be okay with that, we've got to understand that there are some individuals that look they don't want to follow the rules, and they don't want to access the resources and that's fine. But it's that's not going to be an acceptable situation. And I you know, when when I talk about something like that, it's we've just got to make sure that we're doing what we can to protect all the community and, and enhance that livability piece for all involved. Because if you look at some of these encampments, or living situations, Hunter road on the north end, Abend, that's that's not a humane way to live, there are criminal activities that are taking place there that involve knives or firearms and in the city of banned in our office are responding to those calls and trying to keep people as safe as we can be in those situations.

Michael Sipe: 31:47

That's a great answer. Here's my last question for today. You work hard for us. Your whole office works tirelessly for us. How can we help you? How can the people of the chutes county help the sheriff's office?

Unknown: 32:02

Well, that's a great question. What I say is, please just support your law enforcement agencies, law enforcement agencies aren't perfect. Sadly, in our profession, a few bad apples out of the 800,000 law enforcement officers nationally tend to draw the the biggest amount of media attention. So I just say support your law enforcement agencies support those individuals that work in those law enforcement agencies. And always understand that when an incident happens, happens, it takes time to investigate that incident. But as our office has shown, we will investigate those incidents, we take a look at those things. And we hold people accountable. People who aren't in line with the mission, and values of this office won't work here. So just just that support, and a smile and a wave. We appreciate it.

Michael Sipe: 32:58

So good. Well, it's been great having you on the show, Shane, thanks for how you and your team are serving all of us in the community. My main takeaway really is to to look more into understanding and being able to tell the story about the stabilization centers, also an operation guardian angel, those two programs just seem to me to be tremendous assets to the community. And I'm grateful for your your support and institution of those programs. So thanks very much for your time and message today.

Unknown: 33:32

You're welcome, Michael. Thank you for having me. And I really appreciate the invite on the show. I'll see you at the prayer breakfast where I can listen to my good friend Josh.

Michael Sipe: 33:42

Awesome. Well, my guest for this show has been Shane Nelson, the shoots County Sheriff, he leads a dedicated team of public servants. So when you see them around the county as he said, Hey, be sure and say hi Wave at him and smiled and let him know how much we appreciate them and the work that they do to protect and serve our communities. Thanks for tuning in.

Narrator: 34:04

Thanks for listening to cascade views with Michael SIPE. To find out more about Mike the upcoming election the key issues he's focused on and his campaign to represent Central Oregon and Salem as a state representative. Visit www dot a voice for Central oregon.com that's www dot a voice for Central oregon.com You can get your own copy of Michael sipes best selling book the Avada principle@amazon.com. And finally, please vote in the upcoming election. Your Voice Matters