Latah County sheriff’s race pits incumbent against two independents, including former Moscow police chief

The next Latah County sheriff will have years of law enforcement leadership, deep roots on the Palouse and a desire to fix an aging county jail.

Incumbent Sheriff Richie Skiles, a Republican, is seeking a third term, while former Moscow Police Chief James Fry and former Idaho State Police and sheriff’s office deputy Christopher Middleton, both independents, are challenging.

Skiles said he wants to continue the work he’s done the last eight years.

“I believe I’m the people’s sheriff,” he said. “I believe that when I took office, I said that I’d be a working sheriff that leads by example. I believe I’ve done that for eight years.”

Middleton said the same problems, such as an old jail, exist at the sheriff’s office as when he started as a deputy in 2008.

“The sheriff’s office is the exact same as it was when I left in 2013, and I find that unacceptable,” Middleton said.

Fry said he was asked to run by some employees at the sheriff’s office and “didn’t see a lot of movement” at the sheriff’s office during Skiles’ tenure.

“I haven’t seen any movement in the sheriff’s department,” Fry said. “It’s just status quo.”

Addressing jail deficiencies and building a new jail

The 51-year-old Latah County Jail in the basement of the Latah County Courthouse will be one of the main issues the next sheriff needs to address.

Skiles and Chief Deputy Tim Besst outlined the infrastructure problems at the jail at an Oct. 8 meeting with Latah County Commissioners.

Besst said the sheriff’s office struggled over the years to maintain compliance with Idaho jail standards.

A recent inspection showed several inmate cell doors were too narrow, causing fire egress issues, its fire suppression system needed to be replaced, sprinkler heads needed to be replaced and installed, and electrical upgrades were needed.

Skiles added that replacing the sewer system under the concrete floors would probably be an “unbearable expense.”

The problems could make the jail a liability, officials said.

“It is failing in several areas,” Besst said.

The improvements would cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, and perhaps more if cell doors, which Skiles estimated at $100,000 each, were replaced with wider ones. Besst said the infrastructure problems are common in Idaho counties with small jails.

“I started in our jail in 1995,” Besst said. “It has not changed since I’ve worked there.”

But, jail mandates have changed, hence some of the needed upgrades.

The Latah County Jail held 50 beds when it was built in 1973 and can now hold 35 beds after mandates requiring more room for inmates changed over the years. Besst said the average daily inmate population the last three years is 22.

Fixing the issues would cause inmates to be temporarily moved to another jail in the region. Besst said the sheriff’s office is working with a jail to house inmates if the Latah County Jail undergoes repairs.

Deputies and potentially Moscow police officers would be taken off the street when transporting an inmate to another facility.

All three candidates believe a new jail is needed eventually.

“The writing’s been on the wall for that poor facility for the last 20 years,” Middleton said.

At the commissioners meeting, Besst said a new jail would cost roughly $14 million, and another $10 million to $15 million would be tacked on for a law enforcement center attached to the new jail. The county would still need to purchase 5 to 10 acres of land to place the facility.

To remedy the current jail issues, Middleton said crews can update two large holding cells, one for men and the other for women, until a new jail is built. Suspects can be booked into the holding cells, and a van can transport inmates to a nearby jail each night instead of constantly eliminating a deputy or police officer from patrol when they transport one inmate at a time.

Middleton said a new jail should have been built years ago when it would have been millions of dollars cheaper. He said he’d like to see a law enforcement center and potentially training facilities attached to a new jail, which he hoped would be built by the end of his four-year term.

“Why would you wait for something to fail to fix it?” he said.

Skiles said the jail will not close right away, and he and county officials are still discussing the infrastructure problems and costs.

He said there’s no deadline to complete the jail upgrades. However, the county needs to act in “good faith” that it’s working to make improvements.

Skiles said he would like to complete the needed repairs and eventually purchase property on the edge of Moscow to build a new jail. He proposed a local option sales tax, a bond and/or levy to pay for a new facility.

Some Idaho cities have a local sales tax in addition to the state sales tax. They can choose to tax everything subject to the state sales tax, but some cities limit the local tax to lodging, alcohol and restaurant food, according to the Idaho State Tax Commission.

Skiles said relocating the jail, courthouse, sheriff’s office and other county services to one place would allow the county to sell the Latah County Annex and other existing county buildings to help pay for the new jail and the land it would sit on.

“We have a broken facility, right?” Skiles said. “So, we have to figure out some way to move forward if we’re going to retain a jail in Latah County.”

Fry said Skiles should have been more proactive in addressing the jail’s needs.

“You had eight years to fix that and you didn’t,” Fry said. “And now you’re just trying to scramble. And I think it’s time for somebody else to fix the problem and actually get things taken care of so that we can have the security of either getting our jail fixed or figuring out what we need to do to keep our community safe.”

Fry said the county could have used millions of dollars in American Rescue Plan Act funds to address the jail deficiencies or purchase land to build a jail.

“We need a guy that has a vision and some ideas, and not sit back and go, well, now that it’s a crisis, I’ll try something; so it’s a little frustrating,” Fry said.

Fry estimated it would take six months to a year to make the jail improvements. He said he would like to break ground on a new jail by the end of his second term, which is the number of terms Fry wants to serve.

The other issues

All three candidates said they want a drug detection dog and stressed the importance of deputies at schools.

Skiles said he’s asked Latah County Commissioners for a drug dog the last six years or so to help deter drug activity. The dog and related costs, like equipment and training, would cost about $30,000 the first year and then $5,000 to $7,000 in subsequent years, he said.

Fry helped the Moscow Police Department get a drug dog, and he wants to do the same for the sheriff’s office. He said he believes private entities are willing to help purchase the dog.

Fry said 40 people have died from fentanyl overdoses the last five years in Latah County, and he’s responded to some cases where family members and friends are devastated by the loss. A drug dog would help combat those overdoses by getting drugs off the street, he said.

Middleton said he wants a dog that detects drugs and apprehends suspects. He said apprehension dogs reduce use of force better than a stun gun or pepper spray deployed by a law enforcement officer.

“A dog that is on a leash that is barking has more command presence than any law enforcement officer I ever met,” Middleton said.

Skiles said he established a full-time school resource deputy position instead of the part-time position that was staffed when he was elected in 2016.

“I just think that’s important,” Skiles said. “It’s where you build trust and relationships with your younger generation.”

He said a sheriff’s office school resource deputy works full time at Genesee School thanks to a grant the Genesee Joint School District received.

Fry said he would like to have two school resource deputies who can cover all the schools in the county.

He said the resource deputies’ presence can prevent issues at the schools and that building relationships with students is important. The connections between deputies and students allow students to be comfortable speaking with law enforcement and could prevent a tragedy.

Middleton said he would like to have one primary school resource deputy and several other deputies who also spend time at schools engaging with students.

Middleton said he always planned to run for sheriff.

He said he’d like to implement “resident deputies,” or deputies designated to one town to patrol and interact with schools, the city council and school board. He said he’d like to see deputies interact with community members more instead of driving through town, making occasional stops and responding to calls.

“That’s my idea of community policing,” he said.

Fry said he wants deputies to establish a larger presence in the small towns in the county and also bring a community policing philosophy to those rural areas.

Although running as an independent, Middleton said he is conservative. Still, he doesn’t believe politics and law enforcement go together.

Fry said he’s running as an independent because he didn’t have time to get ready for the primary. He resigned as police chief this past spring.

He said the party affiliation also pushed him forward to the general election and allowed him time to speak to his constituents. He also said the sheriff should be independent because they serve all people and he will work to bring both sides to the middle to get things done.

“I’m just going to go out and do my job,” Fry said.

Fry and Skiles said they have a “professional” relationship with each other, as they worked together as law enforcement leaders the last eight years.

Fry said the two used to meet as sheriff and police chief, but those conversations stopped in part because the conversations were not “visionary,” Fry said.

“I got to the point where I’m like, OK, if I’m gonna meet, I want to talk about what are we going to do for our departments?” Fry said. “What are we going do to build better relationships? And that just wasn’t happening.”

Skiles said they communicated well about improvements for the county and city of Moscow.

In November 2022, Fry was thrust into the national limelight after four UI students were stabbed to death at a rental home just off the university’s campus.

Fry provided updates on the case at news conferences packed with national and local media and watched across the country. He and his department faced criticism by some who said Fry did not provide enough information, and that his department was not equipped to handle a quadruple homicide investigation.

Seven weeks after the killings, police arrested Washington State University graduate student Bryan Kohberger in Pennsylvania.

Fry said earlier this year the stress that accompanied the Kohberger case played “somewhat of a role” in his decision to retire.

Fry said he hoped Skiles and Middleton don’t have to endure what he did during the seven weeks investigators worked to identify a suspect.

“Local press is one thing,” Fry said. “National press is a whole different stressor that is put on you.”

He said there was a steep learning curve speaking at major press conferences.

“That was a long seven weeks, and we worked hard to get to where we’re at and bring justice to the families,” Fry said.

Besides a desire to purchase a drug detection dog, Skiles said he also wants to have a full-time deputy focused on investigations on internet crimes against children. He said one of his detectives works part-time investigating those cases and spends the remaining time investigating other cases.

Since he was elected in 2016, Skiles said he’s increased patrol coverage from 20 hours to 24 hours per day. He said deputies did not patrol roads from 3 a.m. to 7 a.m., and instead worked on call during that four-hour period, which Skiles called “ridiculous.”

The sheriff’s office also implemented body-worn cameras and in-car cameras in June. Each deputy is equipped with a body camera, which automatically turns on when a deputy draws their handgun, starts to run or activates their lights and sirens in their patrol vehicle, among other actions, according to a sheriff’s office Facebook post.