By Lindsay Peyton

King County Sheriff John Urquhart has a list -- three pages long -- of accomplishments made since he first assumed the post in 2012. 

In addition to reducing general crime and property crime, he started a domestic violence unit, installed a memorial wall for deputies who died in the line of duty and equipped patrol officers with opioid reversal inhalers.

Under his leadership, the Sheriff’s Office has the highest percentage of female deputies of any large sheriff’s office in the state – and a number of women have moved into command positions. 

Recruiting policies were changed to make the department more diverse – and the King County human resources department changed its civil service rules to give preference points to anyone fluent in a second language.  

Urquhart re-opened the Maple Valley Precinct, led efforts on marijuana reform, limited the number of pursuits, created the first de-escalation policy for the office, instated transgender sensitivity training for all employees, revised procedures to better protect immigrants and supported mandatory access to defense attorneys. 

“Every single campaign promise I made in 2012, I kept – and then some,” he said. “I’m proud of that – and I’m running on my record.”

Urquhart is pushing full steam ahead – and plans to add more accomplishments to the list if re-elected this November. 

In fact, he has a whole other page, listing his goals for the next term. “There’s still a lot to do,” he said. “But we have good momentum going.”

He wants to ensure deputies receive 40 hours of crisis intervention training, as well as three days of training on recognizing implicit racial bias and de-escalation techniques. He plans to give body cameras to all patrol and SWAT deputies – and deploy bean bag shotguns to patrol officers as an alternative to deadly force.

He hopes to increase the domestic violence unit, create a simplified Miranda warning for juveniles, focus on harm reduction when it comes to personal drug use crimes, lobby to have marijuana removed from the Schedule I controlled substances list and implement alternative investigations for officer-involved shootings either in the Washington State Patrol or the Office of Attorney General. 

Urquhart said he has always been a leader – since he served as class and student body president at Ingraham High School. He also has always been the type to think outside the box. 

“I try to do things differently,” he said. 

While in high school, he mowed lawns for his neighbors and started painting houses. He continued these endeavors to pay for his college education at the University of Washington. 

After earning a business degree, he opened a janitorial company and then became a wholesaler of electrical construction material. He built the business for 10 year before selling it.

Urquhart then became a police officer in 1988, after serving for 13 years in the reserves. 

“By the time I went full time, I was 38 years old,” he said. “I had a lot of life experience.”

He said being a bit older and wiser – and having a background in business served him well. 

“Public service is not a business,” he said. “It’s something 180-degrees different – but you can still bring business attributes to the job.”

Most importantly, Urquhart said he was poised to create a workable and balanced budget.

He was also prepared to tackle what he considers an essential task – changing the culture of the police force to make it more open and accountable. 

“My biggest challenge is maintaining the trust of the community,” he said. “It can vanish in an instant.”

His method is “being up front, telling the truth, answering questions and most of all being there.”

Urquhart values keeping an open door policy and meeting regularly with the community. 

“They say that 99 percent of success in life is just showing up,” he said. “I show up. It’s really important for the community to be able to see me.”

Urquhart now has 41 years of police experience – with the last 28 years as a full-time member of the Sheriff’s Office.  He has served as a Patrol Officer, Field Training Officer, Master Police Officer, street-level vice/narcotics detective, public information officer and administrative aid to Sheriff Dave Reichert and Sheriff Sue Rahr.

He is known for being straight-forward and direct and says honesty and hard work are key to being Sheriff.