“Just One Life Matters”: A Twisted Tagline Used By the “Great Pretenders” Running for Sheriff

by Ken Magee

Note: Ken Magee is a candidate in a three-way race to serve as the next Washtenaw County Sheriff.

 Does “just one life” matter to you? This twisted joke is the calling card of the current Sheriff’s administration. If “just one life” matters to you, you know your current Washtenaw County Sheriff’s Office administration (WCSO) is an abject failure. For years, the WCSO has funded programs without proper oversight and this has had disastrous consequences. We’ve had thirty incidents of gun crime in the last four months, and for the family and friends of these victims, the WCSO’s tagline rings empty.

The WCSO is not properly serving these victims and their families; our Sheriff’s Office’s policing results are the antithesis of what a law enforcement agency should be able to accomplish with a budget of $200M. Since 2009, the WCSO had failed to solve 57,000 of the 90,000 crimes reported to that agency. During Derrick Jackson’s tenure at the Sheriff’s Dept., the mortality rate among Black women and men in Washtenaw County has risen 47 percent.

 My name is Ken Magee, I was born and raised in Ann Arbor, I have served in law enforcement for over 30+ years locally, nationally, and internationally, including as a police officer, the Chief of Police at the University of Michigan, and as a Federal agent. I am the only candidate in this race who has risen through the ranks, and who has learned how to deliver on the promise of reducing violent crime. I have been honored with awards from around the world for my crime fighting strategies. Those proven successes at fighting crime will be replicated right here in Washtenaw County. 

Restorative Justice is a component of my platform and a vital part of the program is the support afforded to the victims in our community. Our duly elected County Commissioners voted to award grant funding for (under the pressure of my opponent, Derrick Jackson) a non-profit called “Supreme Felons, Inc.” controlled by Derrick Jackson and run by a front group of convicted criminals. In July 2022, these felons were gifted your hard-earned tax dollars to “mediate” and “de-escalate” gun crime in your community. How has putting Derrick Jackson and his felons in charge of crime prevention for the past two years worked out? Michigan State Police data show that in our county murder, felony assault and gun crimes have risen sharply. Meanwhile, throughout Michigan and the U.S., FBI crime statistics show violent crime is down significantly. 

 I’m a strong proponent of programs assisting the reentry of returning citizens, but we always need to have victims in mind when running a law enforcement agency. Having convicted murderers and sex offenders stand side-by-side with law enforcement leadership is a smack in the face to the victims of the previous crimes perpetrated by those forming the “Supreme Felons,” whose pain is still felt to this day. Giving convicted felons $1.2M of tax-payer money with little oversight (applied for with fraudulent and misleading information as a 501c3 organization) is not a viable law enforcement strategy; it is the definition of political corruption. 

My opponent Alyshia Dyer was a patrol officer for three years who did not make Sergeant, because she failed the exam. She resigned from policing twice. Now, she wants the top job. She has no experience supervising anyone except her own ten campaign staffers, she has said.

She recently posted on her campaign Facebook page that she got really drunk in a local restaurant. What she left out is that the police report shows she was so impaired she passed out in the restaurant’s bathroom and required an ambulance to take her to the hospital. In the same Facebook post, Dyer said does not have a cocaine addiction and did not go to rehab. Good to know, but what’s her plan to fight the opioid epidemic that has killed hundreds of our residents in Washtenaw County? She doesn’t have one. I do.

As U-M Chief of Police, I employed an officer who later developed a cocaine addiction. I called in the State Police to investigate and ultimately terminated the officer.

Alyshia Dyer is a licensed social-worker-in-training who says she cares deeply about the mental health of Sheriff’s deputies, and so do I. However, I am the only candidate who wants to develop resources to help the victims of violent crime, including victims of police brutality. 

In Ms. Dyer’s same astonishing Facebook post, she admitted to losing her badge, but did not mention that she also lost her police ID as well. Police reports show that this happened months after she resigned from the WCSO. She should not have had a numberless police badge or a police ID, because she wasn’t a police officer, but this could be construed as impersonating one. 

My opponent Derrick Jackson and his boss recently held a press conference concerning the continued escalation of gun violence in Washtenaw County. Their plan entails: “parents, talk to your children,” combined with providing more grant money to groups like the “Supreme Felons.” As a longtime resident of Washtenaw County, that concerns me. I have heard while going door-to-door that Mr. Jackson’s “crime prevention strategy” deeply concerns County residents, and victims of crime, as well. Mr. Jackson plans to rely on unsupervised felons whose “work” as crime-fighters is not tracked or documented, parents, and luck. Is it any wonder Derrick Jackson, the status quo candidate, has been endorsed (twice) by the County Sheriff and received thousands of dollars from the Sheriff’s personal PAC? 

For the Sheriff’s Office to erroneously say “violent crime is up nationally” is a complete excuse and passes the buck for his and Derrick’s utter failures. In fact, to provide such an excuse in one of the most educated counties in the United States, is condescending to our community members who are suffering from the failures of Clayton, Derrick and their team. This excuse is false on its face, as violent crime has dropped nationally year-over-year from 2020-2024.

Gaslighting and excuses are not viable law enforcement strategies. 

Derrick’s lack of vision and empty rhetoric have resulted in no strategy that remotely resembles any type of law enforcement conceptually or on the ground, thus making us all suffer in a County that is less safe. Jackson speaks about “changing the soil in Washtenaw County.” He’s had 15 years to address his “root causes” of violence. The fruit that has been born from that soil is rotten and it is something we have all had regrettably shoved down our throats; it’s time to call his lack of vision and policy failures what they are: failures.

I pray for the end to this violence that is brutalizing so many families, but prayer is not a viable law enforcement strategy. 

Experience matters, and Derrick has none. He describes himself as a “non-traditional police officer…an officer who has never placed cuffs on anyone.” If by non-traditional he means a Director of Community Engagement who has never investigated a crime or made an arrest, I would say Mr. Jackson’s self-awareness is clearer than many might have thought.

I have three decades of experience solving crimes and getting criminals off the streets and leading law enforcement officers. 

As a direct result of the disrespect by the administration that officers feel on the street level, the Sheriff’s Office is down well over 25 percent of its core staff. These are the officers you see patrolling your streets, responding to domestic violence calls, and creating what we in the profession call “visibility presence” which deters and prevents crime in our neighborhood. Next year, we lose ten more officers to retirement. Most importantly, the Sheriff’s Office budget is out of overtime funding and training is being cut.

What we don’t need in Washtenaw County is a police force whose wings are clipped, tired, forced to collaborate with a felonious squad of extrajudicial vigilantes, all while borrowing money from other critical programs to pay the brave men and women who continue to risk their lives for us.

As Sheriff, I will foster brother-and-sisterhood among my deputies, the women and men who are entrusted with our most intimate and personal problems. I have the experience to rally the morale, and instill confidence in the deputies I will lead. We need a fully trained, prepared and functioning staff. That is a law enforcement strategy. 

I am the only candidate with the experience, the strategy, and the respect of law enforcement to turn this foundering ship around.

It is obvious that we have to hold criminals accountable.

If this means pressing the County Prosecutor to start taking domestic violence and gun violence seriously, and to stop giving three-time domestic abusers $5,000 PR bonds, and giving violent criminals who use and possess illegal weapons sweetheart sentencing deals, I’ll do it.

On June 14, 2024, County Prosecutor Eli Savit gave Timothy Cole Palmer, a habitual felon in possession of a firearm who could have faced federal charges, who shot up a neighborhood, and who is suspected of having stolen a firearm, a shocking five month sentence in the County jail. In 2009, in the County Trial Court Palmer was charged with 1st degree home invasion, domestic violence, assault with a dangerous weapon, 3rd degree child abuse and assault and battery. He was sentenced to prison, released and reoffended. Then given a slap on the wrist, just like the habitual felon who murdered Ann Arbor woman Jude Walton.

Prosecutor Savit has endorsed Derrick Jackson. Imagine, with Jackson as Sheriff, what sweetheart deals habitual, violent offenders will be gifted at the expense of innocent County residents?

As your Sheriff, I will stand up for you. I will not be silent in the face of such prosecutorial incompetence. And if speaking out doesn’t work, I will consult with Federal prosecutors.

I will use the Sheriff Department’s Community Mental Health Millage money to buy more gun locks for the community, as opposed to buying campaign billboards. Mental Health Millage money was used to put Derrick Jackson’s face up on I-94, congratulating him for a job that I would consider an abject failure. We could have spent that millage money on an advertisement to let the community know that we have gun locks for free at the Sheriff’s Office – that is a law enforcement strategy, albeit a very simple one that could save “just one life.” 

The Ann Arbor Independent welcomes letters to the editor and op-eds from all elected officials and candidates running in local, county, state and national elections.