Wake County’s new sheriff has stepped in. What are his priorities?

In her 25 years living in Wake County, Griselda Alonso says she feels more hopeful about the county’s chief law enforcement officer than she ever has.

There’s a rift between the Latino immigrant community, in particular those in the country without legal documentation, and law enforcement, and she feels new Wake Sheriff Willie Rowe could do something about it.

“During his campaign he was in touch with us ... about there being a bridge between his officers and our community,” Alonso said, speaking in Spanish. “A fear of law enforcement doesn’t help us cooperate. When we witness a crime, we don’t know what we should do. Our fear prevents us from getting involved.”

Alonso, a local immigration activist, says most Latino residents who’ve lived in Wake for over a decade know someone who was deported after being arrested in the county.

That was due to the 287(g) program, under which the Sheriff’s Office collaborated with federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents as part of a program adopted by former Sheriff Donnie Harrison. It was ended in 2019 by Sheriff Gerald Baker, whom Rowe defeated in the Democratic primary this year.

Rowe, 62, was sworn in last week as the 55th Wake County sheriff, overseeing a budget of over $100 million.

He inherits a department that has suffered from staffing shortages and criticism of some of Baker’s hiring and firing decisions.

Rowe was not available for a full interview with The N&O for this story.

A retired 28-year major in the Sheriff’s Office, he campaigned on his familiarity and reputation among the sheriff’s staff.

He faced an uphill battle against Harrison, a former 16-year sheriff with more name recognition and campaign money. Rowe won with 53% of the ballots cast by Wake voters, the majority of whom are unaffiliated or registered Democrats.

The Sheriff’s Office has already received around 40 applications for new deputies, Rowe told ABC11, The N&O’s news partner, after his swearing-in ceremony Dec. 6.

Hiring and retaining staff

The Wake County Sheriff’s Office has a vacancy rate of about 26%, or 220 vacancies out of 837 staff positions, including 100 in the jail, recent records requested by The N&O show.

Rowe has said hiring and keeping staff will be crucial to planned community outreach that is part of his crime prevention.

But he’s also said “you can’t arrest your way out of crime,” which he’s talked about since he first ran for sheriff against Harrison in 2014.

In his election victory speech, Rowe outlined his first steps: “Going into the office and letting the current staff know how much they are appreciated and how they have held things together the last four years. We’re going to properly compensate them, and we’re going to reach out to bring in new people. That’s priority one.”

Rowe wants to make officers’ jobs more attractive to candidates, less stressful and improve morale.

He has said he will put into place performance-based incentives and rearrange shifts to give officers more time off in order to fight fatigue.

“We will bring the expectation of people (to do) their job and be held accountable,” Rowe said, vowing an “end of favoritism” and promising deputies “an opportunity to advance, to be properly compensated and to be appreciated and valued for the work they put in.”

Community engagement in Wake County

Rebuilding trust, particularly with Black and Latino residents, has been one of Rowe’s top goals.

Engaging the community through youth programming and Hispanic outreach are among his plans.

“A lot of knowledge is lacking in the community around what our rights are,” said Alonso, who said she hopes Rowe will follow up on a pledge to hire a Hispanic community liaison officer and more bilingual deputies.

“We need people in the Sheriff’s Office who speak our language and understand our culture,” she said in Spanish. “There can be a lot of misunderstandings, unfair arrests. ... We need officers who are bicultural and understand that language for us is fundamental.”

The county told The N&O it does not track of the number of bilingual employees in the Sheriff’s Office.

Efforts to build trust lagged under Baker, who she said “closed his office doors” after being elected in 2018.

Dawn Blagrove, executive director and attorney at Emancipate NC, is also optimistic about Rowe.

“Sheriff Rowe was incredibly transparent during his campaign,” said Blagrove, the director of the Raleigh-based civil rights organization. “He made clear that he intends to address overcrowding in the jail, repair distrust in the Black community, allow real community involvement in policies and issues the Sheriff’s Office has struggled with in the past, and be a partner in creating accountability.”

Rowe plans to emphasize job training and job placement programming for those incarcerated in the county.

“I (need to) have deputies and detention staff and civilian staff serving as mentors and coaches ... we need to build that relationship,” he told ABC 11 . ”What happens is that our youths are able to look past the uniform and see a person. Our staff is able to see a little of bit themselves when they were that age instead of seeing a statistic.”

Rick Padgett, the executive director of the N.C. Sheriff Police Alliance, expects Rowe to lead with the “utmost integrity.”

“Because that slipped by the wayside in the last few years,” Padgett said. “We would like to see a bond between the Sheriff’s Office and the community ... [so that] people will be more than happy to report crimes, to protect our citizens and protect our officers.”

Because deputies are “overworked,” the alliance also wants to see a pay raise to compensate them for their increased workload in the understaffed office, he said.