In a 2018 photograph, then-San Jose Police Assistant Chief Dave Knopf greets attendees of a group assembly on the Washington United Youth Middle. Knopf, retired in 2021, is now working to change into Santa Clara County sheriff. (Nhat V. Meyer/Bay Space Information Group)
Dave Knopf, a former assistant chief then performing chief of the San Jose Police Division, is popping out of retirement to run for Santa Clara County sheriff, including to a listing of potential challengers to six-term incumbent Laurie Smith.
Knopf, 53, a lifelong Morgan Hill resident, joins retired sheriff’s captain Kevin Jensen and present sheriff’s Sgt. Christine Nagaye on the June main poll and stands because the highest-profile exterior candidate to attempt to substitute Smith, who was elected because the state’s first feminine sheriff in 1998.
County election data present that on Tuesday, Palo Alto police Chief Bob Jonsen — who was as soon as chief in Menlo Park and likewise beforehand served within the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Division — additionally filed paperwork to run for sheriff.
Smith has not publicly introduced her intent to run for a seventh time period, and she or he has not filed the required paperwork with the county and state to run for re-election; she has till mid-March to submit them. Final fall she was the topic of a unanimous no-confidence vote by the Board of Supervisors centered on her jail administration, and she or he faces formal corruption accusations from the county’s Civil Grand Jury over her closely scrutinized issuing of hid gun permits. If these accusations are affirmed at trial, she may very well be expelled from workplace.
Mix that with political challengers in Jensen, who ran towards her in 2014, and Knopf, who can cite the expertise of working the county’s solely law-enforcement company comparable in measurement to the sheriff’s workplace, and Smith is in probably the most politically weak place of her 24-year run as sheriff.
Knopf says that his five-year time period because the No. 2 in SJPD was highlighted by restoring staffing numbers and rank-and-file morale alongside then-Chief Eddie Garcia — who's now police chief in Dallas — and that he goals to use that have to the sheriff’s workplace.
“We turned that ship round when it was a sinking ship,” he mentioned. “The fact is that there's a lack of management within the sheriff’s workplace that must be addressed. We have to plug the holes earlier than they worsen. There must be a brand new recent set of eyes to come back in and have a look at the problems occurring.”
The main target of the present wave of scrutiny on the sheriff’s workplace revolves round its operation of the county jails. A sequence of Board of Supervisors actions disclosed in new ranges of element a string of jail-abuse and neglect instances which have led to multi-million greenback settlements and vital authorized claims on behalf of individuals severely injured in jail custody.
Knopf acknowledges that his familiarity with working a jail operation is modest at finest. Certainly one of his objectives is to assist extra exterior and impartial evaluations of jail procedures and practices.
“I perceive there’s not numerous time to waste. Individuals are sick and uninterested in ready for one thing to occur,” he mentioned. “This didn’t occur in a single day and we’re not going to resolve it in a single day, however we are able to do the perfect we are able to within the shortest period of time.”
His law-enforcement background entails 4 years as a police officer in his hometown of Morgan Hill and 29 years with SJPD. He readily admits he's a political novice.
“I don’t essentially crave politics, and that’s not the explanation why I’m leaping into this,” Knopf mentioned.
As an alternative, he mentioned, in conversations with present and former members of the sheriff’s workplace, he determined that his expertise in San Jose may gain advantage one other large-scale South Bay police company.
“These expertise are transferable,” Knopf mentioned. “I feel after I have a look at the sheriff’s workplace and the necessity on the sheriff’s workplace, I feel I could make an enormous contribution and assist them out. Carry them to full energy.”
The 2 established sheriff challengers, Jensen and Nagaye, responded to the information of a big-name entry — a minimum of in division pedigree — by trying to distinguish themselves from their opponents.
Nagaye, who has spent her profession working within the jail division, mentioned Knopf’s “admitted lack of expertise on the custody facet would put him at an obstacle.” In making an attempt to separate herself from Jensen, who was a former assistant chief of correction for the county, she described him and Knopf as merchandise of police tradition that's the goal of reform actions throughout the nation.
“We want somebody who is just not entrenched in old-fashioned regulation enforcement,” Nagaye mentioned in an announcement.
Jensen pointed to his 2014 marketing campaign to unseat Smith, wherein he garnered 40% of the vote, as one instance of him making an attempt to reform the company lengthy earlier than the previous couple of years of public scrutiny, noting that he “ran towards the incumbent earlier than she was weak” politically.
“I imagine that voters will determine between those that see a neater path to a prestigious place of energy and maybe one other pension, and one who has fought for a few years to curb the abuse of energy, to heal the group that gave him an opportunity,” Jensen mentioned.
However Garrick Percival, a San Jose State College political science professor who focuses on native authorities, mentioned Knopf’s lack of ties to Smith may show advantageous within the race.
“Knopf, as an outsider to the group, is the form of candidate that’s maybe finest positioned to promote himself as a candidate who can supply voters a transparent break from greater than 20 years of management underneath Sheriff Smith,” Percival mentioned. “And because the scandals pile up for Smith, the job for Knopf over the marketing campaign will change into that a lot simpler.”