Centralia Sergeant Says He Wants to Get Local Law Enforcement 'Back on Track' as Lewis County Sheriff: Opposing Snaza: Tracy Murphy Will Formally Launch Campaign for Sheriff On March 5 - Centralia Chronicle

Opposing Snaza: Tracy Murphy Will Formally Launch Campaign for Sheriff On March 5

Editor's Note: A story focused on the candidacy of incumbent Sheriff Rob Snaza will be included in an upcoming edition of The Chronicle.

During a meeting with the Lewis County Board of Commissioners in November, Sheriff Rob Snaza said anyone who thought they could do a better job than him should run for sheriff in the next election.

Centralia Police Sergeant Tracy Murphy, frustrated with how Snaza “lost his patience” with the board during a budget discussion, took Snaza’s message to heart.

“The anger and the emotional feel of it, that should be set aside for you as an individual, but not in your professional position,” he said. “I think that the emotional outbursts are frustrating. ‘Well, we can't do this, and we can't do that…’ OK, let's focus on what we can do. This is where we're at. But we still have a job to do. So let's focus on what we can do. Let's spend our energy doing that.”

With more than 27 years of law enforcement experience and about five years left before he can retire, Murphy said he wants to use the end of his career to help the sheriff’s office — and by extension other local law enforcement — regain focus on the foundation of law enforcement as a public service.

“It is going to benefit me if we get back on track, then when I'm retired, and I'm just an average citizen, I’ll feel safe and confident and comfortable and have the utmost trust in the system of Lewis County, like how we are, who we are,” Murphy said.

Murphy said he always knew he wanted to be a cop.

He recalled growing up in a “public service” household and having potlucks at the fire station where his father, retired Centralia Fire Chief Dana Murphy, worked on the weekends.

At those potlucks, he shared meals with the families of other firefighters, state troopers and police officers who were also working on the weekends.

“It was just this family environment. So I grew up seeing that. And that's what I know. Like, this is a family. Yeah, police and fire were all together. There is no difference,” he said.

He joined the Centralia Police Department’s cadet program at the age of 16 to “volunteer and learn what police do,” he said. He graduated high school and went to a Bible school in Oregon for a year before returning to Centralia, where he enrolled at Centralia College and got a part-time job as a community service officer. At the age of 20, he asked the Centralia Police Department to sponsor him to go to a reserve academy in Cowlitz County.

“In that time, I ended up testing to be a police officer, because everybody tells you, you need experience taking tests, like, you don't get hired in the first place you test,” he said.

But he happened to take his test at a time when the Centralia Police Department was looking to hire three officers, and he was selected by the department as one of those new hires.

However, he had to wait until he was 21 to start working.

He actually waited a couple extra weeks past his 21st birthday to start work so he could finish the reserve academy, he said.

“I didn't know that I would be here. But I mean, I've had just a wonderful career here,” he said.

He finished his training as a police officer and worked as a patrol officer for about two and a half years before he was selected as a K9 handler in 1997. He was paired with K9 Bak until Bak’s retirement in 2008.

“My experiences through working the dog, I was very fortunate, because K9 is really such a high liability detail. And so the training that you're given on use of force and on things surrounding liability — we want to teach you, we want to train the handlers to be that way. So they make good, sound, solid decisions, and they understand the consequences of their actions,” he said.

Since the K9 community is so small relative to law enforcement as a whole, he said the actions of K9 officers affect K9 programs throughout the state can have consequences.

“So if I'm down here in Centralia and I misuse my dog, I deploy him wrong, I get bad case law because of my actions — that affects everyone in the state. So it was nice getting that training and that knowledge at such a young time in my career because that's what forms us, right? And who we are, and having that knowledge and the understanding of that even as a police officer, the decisions I make and the things that I do affect the entire law enforcement community,” he said.

Murphy became the Centralia Police Department’s K9 training manager after Bak retired in 2008. He also became a firearms instructor and a field training officer for new recruits.

“What's really important, as far as foundational law enforcement, really hasn't changed. I mean, our responsibilities are still the same. We enforce the laws and uphold the constitution. And it has always been equal across the board. The laws and the constitution apply to everyone, regardless of who you are, regardless of what you do. … So, when we're tasked with doing stuff, we need to do it to the best of our ability. And training is a huge component of that,” he said.

Even though he deeply enjoyed his work, he applied for an open sergeant position within the department in 2016 and was later assigned as the detective sergeant supervising the Joint Narcotics Enforcement Team (JNET) a few years later.

“We only have a limited sphere of influence, and we only have a limited amount of time to share that influence. And so there were things going on within my department that I wanted to help make a positive change,” he said of his decision to seek a promotion. “And it wasn't so much a change in what the rules were. It wasn't a change in what our mission statement was. It wasn't a change in what our vision was. It was a change of culture. Because I think that we lose when we start focusing more on ourselves than we lose touch with what our job is. So we kind of get off course a little bit. The fundamental stuff is still there, but we're losing focus on what it is. So as a supervisor, you have the ability to (say), ‘Hey, let's refocus and let's get things back on track,’” he said.

That culture change is what he hopes to bring to the Lewis County Sheriff’s Office if he’s elected, he said.

“My personal beliefs outside the job, I can go vote and I can talk to my legislator, but in the office, even the job as a police officer, my personal feelings, they can't have a place in it. Because then when we start doing that, we lose public trust. We have to be professional. We have to be ethical. You know, we have to take that higher standard. And when you look at the mission statements, and the police officers oath of office, it's all there. And we've sworn to do that. So I think it's just, let’s refocus on why we're doing what we're doing, who we're doing it for, and that's going to get us back on track. All these other issues that we're having are not going to be there,” he said.

Murphy will formally launch his campaign for Lewis County sheriff with a kickoff breakfast at the Lewis and Clark Hotel at 10:30 a.m. on March 5. More information on his campaign can be found online at https://www.facebook.com/TracyMurphyForLewisCountySheriff.

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source: https://www.chronline.com/stories/centralia-sergeant-says-he-wants-to-get-local-law-enforcement-back-on-track-as-lewis-county,284938?

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