A2Politico: Washtenaw County Dodged a Bullet in Rebuffing Derrick Jackson’s Bid to Be the Next Sheriff

P.D. Lesko

Since 384 votes out of more than 40,000 separated the top two candidates for Sheriff, we may see a recount, but one must be requested. Ann Arbor’s first Black Mayor Al Wheeler won by a single vote. In Ypsilanti, an incumbent City Council member lost his seat by a four vote margin. Recounts rarely result in victories being overturned, and I don’t think that a recount of the vote in the Sheriff’s race will do so, either. If there is a recount, Alyshia Dyer should insist that all clerks who endorsed Derrick Jackson should recuse themselves from the recount, and that includes County Clerk Larry Kestenbaum, Superior Twp. Clerk Dr. Lynette Findley, Ann Arbor Twp. Clerk Rena Basch, Dexter Twp. Clerk Michelle Stamboulellis, and Michelle Anzaldi, the Pittsfield Twp. Clerk.

Alyshia Dyer should seek a Court injunction, if necessary, to make sure these clerks are not in charge of any recount of votes. They’ll all protest too much, but it’s high time our county’s clerks realize their jobs are first to protect the accuracy and credibility of the vote. That credibility takes a huge hit when they endorse candidates and then count their candidate’s votes.

The current corrupt Sheriff, and “let them eat cake” Corporate Dems who run the show in Washtenaw County, anointed Derrick Jackson the next Sheriff. It’s remindy of when La Cosa Nostra in Sicily anointed Salvatore (Totò) Riina as ‘u capu di ‘i capi (boss of bosses).

Jackson has served as the Sheriff’s Dir. of Community Engagement for the last 16 years. The Bandwagon groaned under the weight of dutiful political lemmings. Jackson was endorsed by all but one County Commissioner, most Ann Arbor City Council members, Scio Twp., Superior Twp., Pittsfield Twp and Lodi Twp., trustees and elected officials, Ann Arbor’s Mayor, the Mayors of Ypsilanti and Saline, and Ypsilanti City Council members, the County Prosecutor and the Chief Asst. Prosecutor, the County Clerk the Good Lord himself, and the ghost of Mother Teresa of Calcutta.

Derrick Jackson raised over a quarter of a million dollars to get a job that pays $165,000 a year. If that doesn’t raise red flags, you might need to be tested for color-blindness. But he lost an election that should have been a gimme, and the residents of Washtenaw County are safer because of it.

Alyshia Dyer is going to come under intense pressure to go along to get along and to maintain the status quo in the Sheriff’s Office. She’ll be offered inducements, she’ll be subtly threatened, and if she doesn’t play ball, she’ll be politically isolated, targeted and undermined. Because of her financial problems, like Supreme Justice Clarence Thomas, she could be tempted to accept favors, gifts, and inducements she shouldn’t. Justice Thomas has reportedly raked in $4 million in gifts, much of which he hid.

What she should do is keep her promises, bring in a forensic accountant to comb through the Sheriff’s budget for the past ten years, and if any financial malfeasance is discovered she should ask the County Prosecutor to bring charges. He won’t, because he has become a gigantic prosecutorial disappointment, enmeshed in the political machine with lips puckered, but she should ask nonetheless. Savit’s video plea to get votes for Derrick Jackson is an example of Savit the political sell-out. He touts Jackson’s deep understanding of gun violence. Derrick Jackson is the Community Engagement Director of the Sheriff’s Dept., a man who has never investigated a crime or made an arrest. While making the video, Savit says, “I’ve been proud to work for…with Derrick.” Dr. Freud? Calling Dr. Freud, there has been a slip in the County Prosecutor’s Office.

Derrick Jackson, while campaigning and even before, habitually lied with impunity: about an election for Ypsilanti Twp. trustee he lost (he lies and says by one vote), his policing accomplishments, claiming awards he never won, including taking credit for an ACLU award given to Alma Wheeler-Smith (she endorsed Jackson). In a 2016 TedX talk, he claimed to be a social worker who became a police officer and also claims in that same talk that he runs a police agency. In a talk before members of Congress he lied and told them he was a social worker. Derrick Jackson, on behalf of the Sheriff’s Office, lied to members of Congress. Perhaps because he’d told the lie so often and for so long, he actually believed it himself. His wife, who doesn’t have a license as a social worker donated to her husband’s campaign. Campaign finance records show her employment as “social work.”

Let’s not pretend that Derrick Jackson is the only politician who ever lied. Politicians lie. The smart ones tell lies that are difficult to factcheck. Derrick, instead, told easily factchecked whoppers that rivaled the Great White Whale Moby Dick in size. To MLive.com, when asked about a complaint filed against him for impersonating a social worker, Derrick said the complaint was “made up.” The MLive.com article led with the fact that a complaint had been filed.

Had Jackson been elected, I told friends we would begin to see headlines from MLive.com like this: “Sheriff Jackson, after thorough investigation, concludes man beat himself to death in jail cell”; “Gun crime in Washtenaw County drops to less than zero in just the space of one week, says Sheriff Jackson”; “Sheriff Jackson replaces all sworn officers with felon-led neighborhood patrols, and says his Dept. saves over 5 billion dollars.”

Derrick Jackson is clearly not the sharpest pencil in the box where truth-telling is concerned, and Jerry Clayton hired a kindred soul, or perhaps someone who was even more dishonest.

But that’s only one reason why county residents dodged a bullet. Residents dodged a bullet, because between 2010 and 2020, years Derrick Jackson and Jerry Clayton have been teamed up, the mortality rate among Black County residents has risen 47 percent. Between 2012 and 2021, firearms deaths including suicide, rose 74 percent. Opioid deaths among the Black residents of Washtenaw County have risen exponentially. The number of crimes unsolved by the Sheriff’s Dept. over the past dozen years tops 40,000, in a County with approximately 366,000 residents. This is Derrick Jackson’s “record,” that and turning unsupervised, untrained, felons loose on residents to keep residents safe.

The fact that he secretly founded and secretly controlled Supreme Felons, Inc., a group incorporated by a child rapist and a murderer on parole, and then in violation of Michigan law, foisted the felons as a “neighborhood watch” on Ypsilanti Twp., demonstrated Jackson’s megalomania.

As I watched Derrick Jackson gaslight voters and lie, it became obvious to me that he would be dangerous if given the power of a county sheriff.

In reality, with $250,000, all those endorsements and former State Rep. Adam Zemke getting paid $4,000 per month to advise his campaign, Derrick Jackson should have ground Alyshia Dyer into a fine powder.

She raised $185,000, had the endorsement of one County Commissioner and was buffeted by attacks from the powers-that-be and Jackson’s supporters. Dyer told me after she’d announced her candidacy, she had been approached and told that if she dropped out, she would be supported by the local machine for a run in 2030. In other words, six years after he was elected, Derrick Jackson would serve one term and bow out. As if. Jerry Clayton served 16 years. Derrick Jackson would never have served a single term so a woman whom he’d demeaned and insulted for months on the campaign trail could run in 2030.

If Alyshia Dyer cleans up the corruption in the Sheriff’s Dept., corruption she acknowledged on the campaign trail, she’ll earn the confidence of the voters and, I think, serve longer than Jerry Clayton. It won’t be easy, but Dyer comes from a hardscrabble background. She needs to surround herself with honest, scrupulous advisors and replace every single undersheriff (perhaps reducing their numbers along the way).

I don’t think Alyshia Dyer will have to fire Derrick Jackson from his $112,000 a year job and repossess the electric truck the Sheriff bought him during the campaign. Jackson will quit sometime before Sheriff Dyer takes office in November. Then, Dyer should repossess the electric truck and force Jackson to repay the salary he collected during the 50 days the Sheriff paid him not to work, but rather paid him to run for office.

She will, I hope, hire a director of community engagement who can help her actually engage with a community that desperately needs a Sheriff’s Dept. that can prevent crime, solve crime, focus on victims of crime, and stop extorting small cities and townships with contracts that demand $200,000 per contract patrol officer.

In the musical “Fiddler on the Roof,” Labish asks the aged Rabbi if there’s a blessing for the Tsar. The Rabbi replies, “May God bless and keep the Tsar far away from us.” We should all wish the same for Derrick Jackson.