Dare sheriff candidate Jimmy Pierce

Jimmy Pierce (Photo courtesy Jimmy Pierce’s online campaign)

By Corinne Saunders

Editor’s Note: This is one of our weekly open-access articles. Candidate information comes from public records, verbal responses during a public forum and written responses to questions from Outer Banks Insider. To support Outer Banks Insider’s work and to access all of it, click the button below.

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Jimmy Pierce, one of four Republican primary candidates for Dare County sheriff, in his campaign has highlighted that he is the only candidate with over 40 years of law enforcement experience. He is currently working as a senior police officer with the Nags Head Police Department.

• Read about candidate Theodore “Teddy” Daniels here.

• Read about candidate Jeffrey “Jeff” Deringer here.

• Read about candidate Rodney Rawls here.

No candidates from any other political parties filed to run in the sheriff’s race, meaning the primary winner will most likely win the general election. Longtime Dare County Sheriff John D. “Doug” Doughtie is retiring this November, at the end of his term.

Sheriffs in North Carolina are not required to have any law enforcement experience. But one of the questions at the Dare County GOP’s sheriff candidate forum on Thursday, Jan. 8, in Nags Head, asked about candidates’ respective North Carolina law enforcement credentials and experience.

Three of the candidates, including Pierce, said they hold a North Carolina Advanced Law Enforcement Certificate, among many other certifications.

“I have been fortunate to enjoy a diverse and fulfilling career serving as a patrol officer and deputy sheriff, as well as a special agent for the state of North Carolina,” Pierce said at the forum. “This included training many fellow officers and agencies, working major investigations, including homicides and serving on an FBI threat task force. Law enforcement has been my calling since childhood.”

Pierce spoke highly of serving locally and said that becoming sheriff “would be the ultimate honor and the fulfillment of a dream I have carried for many years.”

The Southern Shores resident highlighted his experiences as beneficial for dealing with drug activity.

“Across the country, we have all witnessed disorder and blatant disregard for the rule of law,” Pierce said. “I will not allow Dare County to become a magnet for criminal activity.”

He continued, “Illicit drugs, especially fentanyl, are poisoning our youth, and I will lead aggressively to ensure dealers face the full consequences of their actions. Because of my extensive background, I am prepared to lead from day one.”

He said that he is a firearms instructor, a field training officer, a driving instructor and more. For approximately the last decade before retiring from the state, he said he worked specifically on drug cases.

“I was on a federal OCDETF Task Force—Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force,” he said. “I worked federal drug crimes all over the eastern part of North Carolina.”

At the forum, he also noted his experience assisting other agencies in the wake of Hurricane Floyd and working a joint security detail for the 100th anniversary of flight in Kill Devil Hills.

“It was a partnership between the State Bureau of Investigation and State Alcohol Law Enforcement Division and the [National] Park Service and the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation,” he said. “We were assigned internal security for that whole event for a week.”

In response to Outer Banks Insider’s question about what he thinks his responsibility to the public is as sheriff, he pointed to the office’s creation by the North Carolina State Constitution as the chief law enforcement officer of the county.

The sheriff is “responsible for maintaining peace, running the county jail, providing court security (judges, juries, buildings), serving legal papers and overseeing deputies who enforce laws, focusing on unincorporated areas and supporting cities, with duties set by state law and managed through training standards by the Sheriffs’ Commission,” he said.

During the forum, Pierce stressed that the sheriff does not make the laws but enforces them, and “I will do so fairly and impartially without regard to race, color, creed, or a political affiliation,” he said.

In response to Outer Banks Insider’s question about how he plans to hold the sheriff’s office accountable to the citizens of Dare County, Pierce indicated that he would create a citizen’s advisory board.

“I am planning to create a Dare County Sheriff’s Office Citizen’s Advisory Board for all of Dare County,” Pierce said. “I would like to have a nine-member panel to serve on this board.”

Three board members would come from Hatteras Island, and the board would meet on a schedule set by the board and him, he noted.

“This board would offer suggestions on things they would like to see implemented throughout the county,” he said.

Law enforcement employment history

Pierce said during the forum that he has called Dare County home for 37 years.

“I have raised my children here, and I love this community deeply,” he said.

He worked for the Aulander Police Department for approximately 15 months before resigning to accept employment with the Hertford County Sheriff’s Office, he told Outer Banks Insider.

He said he then worked for the Hertford County Sheriff’s Office for approximately 17 months.

“I resigned to accept employment with the Dare County Sheriff’s Office,” he said, noting that he moved to Dare County in August 1988 for that job.

Nazim “Kris” Khan, director of human resources/risk management for Hertford County, in an email to Outer Banks Insider said that Pierce worked as a patrol deputy for the county sheriff’s office.

Khan said he was told by the current sheriff that Pierce “was last employed with us in 1987, but I don’t have any other records of his employment,” he said.

Records from Aulander were not immediately available.

Pierce worked for the Dare County Sheriff’s Office as a full-time deputy sheriff from Aug. 1, 1988, until his July 3, 1993, resignation, according to Dare County Human Resources Director Elizabeth K. Reilly.

“I resigned from the Dare County Sheriff’s Office in June/July 1993 to accept employment as an agent with the N.C. Alcohol Law Enforcement [ALE] Division,” Pierce said.

He then worked for over 21 years for ALE, a division of the North Carolina Department of Safety, and started working part-time as an animal control officer with the Town of Nags Head a month and a half before retirement, public records indicate.

Since the day of his ALE retirement, he has worked full-time as an animal control officer.

Pierce worked full-time for ALE from June 22, 1993, until his July 1, 2014, retirement, according to Jennifer Elliott of the Department of Public Safety.

He started as an “ALE II” and became a “law enforcement agent”—a higher rank—on June 1, 2006, Elliott said. He had “no write-ups” and received a “career growth achievement” award in 2000.

Pierce started full-time employment with the Town of Nags Head on July 1, 2014, “as a police officer assigned as animal control officer, and is still currently in that position,” town spokesperson Roberta Thuman said in an email. “It looks like he was part-time in that role from 5/14/2014 - 6/30/2014.”

When asked what motivated him to work for ALE for so long, he responded, “I enjoyed working with N.C. ALE due to the diverse nature of the job and the professionalism that was displayed by the agency.”

He added, “I was assigned many different duties during my tenure here. I never became bored and looked forward to each new assignment.”

When asked what has motivated him to work for the Nags Head Police Department since his ALE retirement, Pierce said that he’s worked closely with the department since he moved to Dare County and considers it “a very professional organization.”

He added, “As I was retiring from N.C. ALE, I was offered a job by the command staff at Nags Head. I gladly accepted and have thoroughly enjoyed working there ever since. I was sworn in with Nags Head shortly before retirement date so that I could hit the ground working as soon as possible.”

A positive and the first challenge to address

When asked what he thinks the Dare County Sheriff's Office is currently doing well, Pierce pointed to staffing efforts.

“I believe the sheriff’s office has done a pretty good job of trying to keep their vacancies filled with qualified employees,” he said. “In today’s climate, this is a challenging task.”

When asked what the first challenge he’d address as sheriff is and how he’d do it, Pierce highlighted employee retention.

“The first challenge would be to attract and retain quality employees in all facets of the sheriff’s office,” he said. “I would try to work with county commissioners to implement a pay increase if possible.”

He continued. “I would also like to start a recruitment program to possibly attract people just finishing high school or college. The training program needs to be restructured to offer more training opportunities to members of the sheriff’s office. This would help with the retention of employees.”

He also said he’d make the sheriff’s office “a place where employees are proud to work and would receive the proper training and supervision to get the job done.”

Pierce said he’s “a big proponent of community policing,” stressing the importance of law enforcement interacting closely with the citizens that they serve and protect and establishing trust.

“I will ask that the deputies get out of their cars when they are not on active calls and get to know the people in the communities and businesses that they serve,” Pierce said. “I will also ask that they visit the schools and make walk-throughs when they are not busy elsewhere.”

He added, “Throughout my career, I have always operated on the philosophy of treating people like I would want to be treated.”

When asked what he was most proud of in his law enforcement career to date, he pointed to his decades of service and receiving a prestigious award from former Gov. Pat McCrory in July 2014.

“I am most proud to have honorably and faithfully served the citizens of North Carolina for over forty years and for having received the Order of the Longleaf Pine award,” he said.

“I will ask that the deputies get out of their cars when they are not on active calls and get to know the people in the communities and businesses that they serve.”

— Jimmy Pierce, candidate for Dare County sheriff

Position on ICE

During the Jan. 8 GOP forum, candidates fielded a question about their position on supporting U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) enforcement on the local level.

Pierce noted that state and local law enforcement do not have immigration authority: “The only people who have that authority and capability is ICE.”

He indicated willingness to potentially pursue the 287(g) program, though, in which some local officers are dually sworn with ICE.

“They can swear in local officers and give them a certain amount of authority and jurisdiction to enforce immigration matters,” Pierce said. “Personally, I don’t know that we have the problems here in Dare County that would arise for that to happen.”

Pierce opined that there is a difference between people who are actively breaking the law and those who are working and paying taxes.

“Now, I'm a firm believer if you are an illegal immigrant and you violate the law, then you need to be put in jail and you need to be sent back to where you came from,” he said.

“I’m also a firm believer if you've been here for 10 years—I’m not saying it’s right—and you’ve never caused a minute’s problem since you’ve been here, and you paid your taxes, and you’re doing what you’re supposed to do, I can’t see going out and dragging those people out of houses.”

He also spoke to the negative local economic impacts that would have.

“If we take all those people, we wouldn’t have anybody to do construction, work in restaurants,” he opined. “This place would be hurting bad if we went after all those people.”

He added, “But if there’s a need for it, I’m all for having a 287(g) task force here in Dare County and having some of my deputies sworn with ICE.”

According to ICE’s 287(g) flyer, the task force model “allows your officers to identify and report suspected aliens not charged with crimes (under ICE oversight) and exercise limited immigration authority on ICE-led task forces.”

It “allows your officers to enforce limited immigration authority while performing routine police duties or as an active participant in an ICE-led task force,” according to an ICE brochure.

ICE made headlines with its high-profile killings of two U.S. citizens in January, with eight total deaths attributed to ICE last month, according to a Jan. 28 article in The Guardian that’s included on the Congress.gov website.

When asked if his position on ICE changed since the forum, given recent events, Pierce indicated that it had not. He said he would consider the program “if I saw a need for it in Dare County” and if ICE agreed.

“This decision would not be mine alone as ICE would have to determine if there was a need also,” he said. “I don’t have a problem partnering with any other local, state or federal agency if this cooperation is used to make Dare County a safer and better place to live, work and raise a family.”

When asked about his views on any positives or negatives to pursuing the agreement, he pointed to cost.

“The positive side of this program is that it would have no cost to the citizens of Dare County,” he said. “The negative side is that if there is not a need for it, it could be considered counterproductive and a waste of tax money.”

Click here to watch the video of the Dare sheriff candidate forum recorded by Christina Williams.

Pierce has a campaign website and a campaign Facebook page.

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