The new sheriff of Sedgwick County has survived a campaign by angry voters to recall him during his first year in office.
Wednesday’s unofficial tally from the previous day’s recall vote showed 383 people voted to recall Sheriff Randy Peck and 585 voted to retain him. The vote will be confirmed and reported to the state next week.
“Randy will remain in office,” County Clerk Christy Beckman said.
Sedgwick, a rural county at the northeastern corner of Colorado, is home to 2,379 people, nearly one-fourth of them retired.
Peck’s critics contended there have been too many incidents of excessive force during his first year in office, including the July 4 beating of Steven Dye, a 63-year-old physically handicapped man, by a deputy who had stopped him for an improper lane change.
“Randy is the biggest liability this county has,” the recall petition stated.
The sheriff’s defenders charged that the recall campaign was organized by voters unhappy with the outcome of the November 2010 election.
“I have always respectfully and seriously fulfilled my duties,” Peck wrote to voters in his response to the recall petition. “While enforcing the law, there are times an officer must make a decision to use a degree of physical force to subdue a noncompliant person not only for that person’s safety but also for the safety of others and the officer.”
Jess Smith, a retired Colorado State Patrol officer who hoped to replace Peck, garnered 335 votes, according to the county clerk.
“This is the last time I’m going to run,” Smith said Wednesday.
Smith and others questioned what has become of Darin Poole, the deputy who injured Dye during the July 4 arrest. Poole recently injured another man, Joshua Boone, during an arrest, according to Boone’s girlfriend, and Smith said Poole’s car has remained parked at the county courthouse for at least a week.
Adams County Sheriff’s Office records show that Poole, who moved to Sedgwick County from the Denver area this year, was arrested by his employer in 2005 for allegedly assaulting an inmate while he worked as a jail guard.
According to the arrest report, Poole grabbed the inmate off stairs where another guard had told him to sit and smacked the man into a door frame, leaving scratches and marks on his face, torso and arms.
Kevin Lyster, a guard who witnessed the altercation and accused Poole of an unprovoked assault, told an investigator that Poole “was an ultimate fighter, and he likes to fight” and brags “how he always ends up having to punch somebody or take somebody down.”
Poole was acquitted in a jury trial, Adams County records show.
The Denver Post could not reach Peck or Poole for comment Wednesday.
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