In 2023, 27-year-old Niani Finlayson told 911 that an ex-boyfriend was threatening her and her nine-year-old daughter. But the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department officer who arrived shot Finlayson four times seconds after entering her home. That year, the L.A.S.D. was already under fire for deputy gangs and the consistent brutalization of Black women. But it isn’t just L.A. sheriffs.
Successful calls to shut down small police departments didn’t make policing disappear. County sheriffs assumed that power, and are now twice as deadly as they were ten years ago. Sheriffs are responsible for three times as many deaths as city police, whose departments often receive closer scrutiny.
Since sheriffs are elected officials, one could assume taxpayers should vote them out to reduce death rates and diminish their unchecked power. If only it were that easy. Many run unopposed and stay in office for decades. It’s rare for a sheriff to be forced from office.
Nearly three-quarters of the U.S. is rural, and that’s where over 3,000 sheriffs are the main form of “law enforcement.” Connecticut abolished sheriffs in 2000 following corruption scandals, joining Alaska as the only other state without them.
Relocating power by shutting down a few police departments or incarcerating individual officers can’t be the only, or long-term, strategy to target police violence. The death tolls of killer sheriffs remind us that ending police violence requires dismantling and decarceration.