The election for the next Charleston County sheriff is still more than a year away, but some hopefuls have already kicked off their campaigns and are ready to discuss the big issues.
Incumbent Sheriff Kristen Graziano, a Democrat, intends to run for reelection, according to an office spokesman. She was elected to the office in November 2020, making her the first female sheriff in the state. Prior to her election, she was a 33-year law enforcement veteran with 19 years of experience serving in the Lowcountry. She designed and implemented a uniform response code for active shooter scenarios in Charleston County schools that was later used as a model for the state. She is a 2015 recipient of the Medal of Valor from the South Carolina Sheriff’s Association and a 2011 President’s Award from the South Carolina Law Enforcement Officers Association.
Republican Carl Ritchie currently serves as a Mount Pleasant town council member. He has been in public service for over 39 years. His pedigree began with military service immediately after his high school graduation, and after his retirement, he became a police officer. He later served as Mount Pleasant chief of police, where he led the department to two consecutive Gold Standard Accreditations. During his tenure as chief, Mount Pleasant was recognized as one of the safest cities in South Carolina, according to Safewise.
Republican Rocky Burke currently serves as deputy chief of Folly Beach Police Department. He has 48 years of experience in public safety, serving in law enforcement and fire service in roles ranging from patrol officer and private investigator to sheriff’s deputy and fire chief.
Ritchie and Burke will vie for the GOP nomination in a primary election ahead of the general in November 2024.
Graziano says much to be proud of in first term
The death of Jamal Sutherland only months after Graziano won her election to the sheriff’s office put mental health at the forefront of law enforcement, a trend that she says is one of her greatest accomplishments and continual goal moving forward.
“I knew before I even went into office that changing the culture at the jail would be one of our biggest challenges,” she said. “I didn’t have the chance to do much of anything before that tragedy occurred, but the most important thing is what we’ve done as a result.
“We are now the largest mental health care provider in the state of South Carolina,” Graziano added. “We added a clinical psychologist to our staff who works directly with the courts, jail staff and others to ensure we aren’t letting people into our care if they could be better served in a medical setting.”
Beyond mental health, Graziano said the office’s work in overcoming a years-long staffing shortage is a point of pride.
“For a year, I fought to get pay equity for our deputies,” she said. “We were losing people to offices paying $7,000-$8,000 more per year than we were. We researched, we studied and in January of this year, we raised salaries to be competitive in the market. Now, we’re one of the highest paid offices in the state.”
Graziano said the Al Cannon Detention Center specifically went from more than 130 vacancies before she took office to the low 80s now. “This is the first time I can remember vacancies have been this low,” she said.
And at the sheriff’s office, she said she expects all vacant positions to be filled by the end of the summer.
“I’m not going to take all the credit for that,” Graziano said. “It goes to show the incredible staff that serves the Charleston area. They toughed it out through the pandemic, through overtime, and they’re seeing the benefits, and they’re more motivated than ever. I owe it to them for sticking it out. I couldn’t have done it without them.
“We have a great opportunity to push forward with the vision for the community that we have,” she added. “I couldn’t be more proud of the staff I work with now.”
Ritchie focused on mental health
Before his retirement from the police department in Mount Pleasant, Ritchie says improving mental health services for the community was one of his top priorities.
“It’s never taken seriously enough,” he said. “But if we don’t get a grip on what’s happening with mental health, we will continue going down a path we aren’t going to be able to come back from. … Too often, it never gets diagnosed or recognized until someone encounters a police officer for the first time, and if you don’t know what to look for or how to deal with it, that’s where you end up with these use-of-force issues that could really have been avoided.”
Ritchie said he wants to work more closely with mental health professionals and health care providers to see what can be provided to community members struggling with mental health.
Other challenges facing law enforcement in the Lowcountry, he said, include the ongoing staffing issues at the sheriff’s office. While some solutions have been employed, Ritchie said there’s still room for improvement.
“We have to get staffing up,” he said. “We need to hire a staffing specialist to tell us what’s missing, especially at the detention center. Until you can get the staffing in place, you can’t operate the other important programs — and you have to support the professionals that are already there working to fill those gaps. They need to know they have the support from the sheriff.”
Ritchie said his previous experience will greatly inform his potential new role as sheriff.
“If I’m fortunate enough to be elected, I plan to continue what I did for 47-plus years — be someone who is professional and unbiased and operates with full transparency,” he said.
Burke focused on Lowcountry’s drug problem
Mental health and staffing issues are great concerns for Burke as well, but he said a more pressing matter is the drug problem, particularly fentanyl.
“We have a mental health issue. We have a homelessness issue. And we have a substance abuse issue,” he said. “In Folly Beach, we have had some instances of people being contaminated with fentanyl, and not only the person abusing the drug, but also cases of even an infant child exposed from the parents’ substance abuse,” he said.
From the law enforcement side, Burke said, the most important thing to bolster is training to ensure officers are able to safely and efficiently handle cases in which fentanyl is involved.
Burke said he would bring more critical thinking to the office if elected.
“I would put forth an effort to do what they call critical thinking … in reviewing all the policies, all the resources we have, the staffing we have, to the operation of the detention center,” he said. “I feel they can’t do it all, but I do feel like critical thinking [will help us] see where we may be falling short.”
Burke said it’s important to recognize these shortcomings, and understand that the sheriff’s office is one of many Charleston County agencies working toward the same goal: public safety.
“It’s a collaboration of all agencies — law enforcement, fire, emergency medical services, mental health care providers — and this collaborative effort deals with these issues in the hopes of saving people from themselves. That’s how I see it.”
The primaries are expected in June 2024, with a general election in November 2024.
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