James Mendrick: Candidate profile
Bio
Name: James Mendrick
City: Woodridge
Website: www.James4Sheriff.com
Twitter: @James4Sheriff
Facebook: James Mendrick for DuPage Sheriff
Party: Republican
Office sought: DuPage County sheriff
Age: 48
Family: Cynthia Mendrick, Connor Mendrick, son; Colin Mendrick, son
Occupation: Patrol commander at the DuPage County Sheriff's Office
Education: Lincoln College, Liberal Arts Associates Degree, graduate 1990; Illinois State University, 1990-1991; Lewis University, graduate 1994, B.A. Criminal Justice, Voted most likely to become a Chief of Police; Basic Law Enforcement 400-hour Law Enforcement Officers Training Board, spring 1996, receiving the Valedictorian award; Northwestern University, Illinois Law Enforcement Training and Standards Board Executive Institute, Staff and Command, January 21- May 17, 2002; Policing Executive Role in the 21st Century; Illinois Law Enforcement Training and Standard Board
Civic involvement: NAMI, Trinity Services
Elected offices held: Downers Grove Township Committeeman and Area Chair
Questions & Answers
1. Why are you running for this office? Is there a particular issue that motivates you?
The reason that I'm running for this office is that I really feel that I can make a significant difference and create a safer DuPage County. I also have the men and women in blue behind me. I would never have even considered this if the rank-and-file didn't support me. I'm a 22 year veteran of the sheriff's office. I've been a deputy, field training officer, patrol sergeant, detective sergeant, lieutenant, patrol commander, gang commander, canine commander, major, accreditation manager, administrative bureau chief, managed the courthouse, crime laboratory, dispatch center, civil division, information technology and budget director. This is a county the size of almost one million, with a diverse cultural and economic population. I will need every ounce of that experience to bring in a new era of law enforcement. I don't need to be trained and can hit the ground running by instantly tackling issues like opioids, mental health, school shootings and keeping city crime out of DuPage. I feel it's critical to the safety of this county to have a sheriff that understands all of the inner workings of our office and the community that we serve. I feel that anyone running for a countywide office such as sheriff, should have more than just basic ideas but instead should have a concrete platform.
Having two children in school makes the safety of our schools the issue that motivates me the most. In police culture, school assignments typically are considered to be a fairly easy assignment. That's certainly not the case anymore. We need highly trained and disciplined officers within our school environments. There's no one solution to fix this. There are several moving parts that need to work together cohesively. The police need to partner with schools and be more involved to harden targets.
Bulletproof glass, abilities to lockdown doors electronically, cameras that can be turned on and monitored during emergencies and public announcement systems could direct children and teachers away from a threat and into controlled safe zones.
An administration office can be patched into law enforcement dispatch centers through the use of a panic button. This way, we're not placing the burden of immediate response on school authorities but instead, public safety controls the incident from the onset. Trained dispatchers could utilize school PA systems, cameras and door lockdowns to direct civilian movement to safe zones while simultaneously giving direction and suspect movements to school officers for immediate intervention.
School officers trained in rapid deployment that teach police to properly aggress and stop an active shooter or threat is critical. School camera systems can now even be transferred to the smartphones of responding police officers so they can see what is actually happening and stop the threat immediately. Human strategy combined with technology gives law enforcement the very best chance to reduce or eliminate loss of life.
The second tier revolves around detection, identification and intervention. School liaison officers must also have training in sociology related fields. They need to be trained to identify symptoms of mental health issues. Another critical area of training is bullying and cyberbullying. These are consistent reasons given by active shooters as the cause of their actions. It should be mandatory for school officers to have training in all of these aspects.
School liaison officers interacting with the students daily can easily identify outcasts. These are children who need help and assistance before it goes critical. Families and teachers need to be recruited into this process.
If we detect these behaviors ahead of time, we can stop many of these incidents before they occur. School authorities, officers and family members need to have access to counselors, clinicians, psychologists and other services to provide the help required based on the symptoms a student displays.
Law enforcement needs to evolve traditional responsibilities toward a more involved role within the school environment. Consistent communication between law enforcement, students, teachers, families and community services is extremely important. School officers can prevent future incidents if we modify what we do. Protecting our children needs to be our top priority.
2. There has been a disconnect between the sheriff's office and the county board in many areas, including questions about the sheriff's budget. What steps would you take to repair that relationship?
As an employee of the sheriff's office, I have watched this disconnect between the sheriff and county board grow over the years. I would suggest that I've already put the time and effort in to have repaired that relationship. I am endorsed by the county board chairman and most of the county board. Those endorsements did not come easily. Rightfully so, they all wanted to know what improvements I planned for the sheriff's office and how I would reach those goals fiscally. Anyone can have great ideas and intended initiatives but if you don't have the money in your budget; it's all hot air. Budget knowledge and experience will be critical in fiscal year 2019 and beyond. I not only have managed the global $40 million budget for several cycles but have also presented and explained it to the county board for approval. When I did these presentations, I kept consistent and clear communication with all board members and assured they had ample time to give input and ask questions. Our budget is the largest portion of the county budget. If it's mismanaged due to lack of knowledge or experience, public safety will be thrown into disarray, people who we service can get hurt and taxes will increase dramatically. We need to look at leasing technology that will save significant money while allowing us to provide better, more efficient law enforcement. I will implement drug canines and provide them to every police department within DuPage. This will take dope off the streets and acquire seizure money that supplements our budget instead of asking for more from citizens. Bulk purchasing and combining resources with other police agencies and county sheriff's agencies will drive down cost of equipment. Budgeting is a strategic initiative and if done right, can bolster public safety while not raising taxes. This is why communicating with the county board is essential. We must not simply ask for budget items but show an economic path to get there.
3. Should sheriff's deputies be equipped with body cameras? If so, how should the county pay for them?
Body cameras sound like a great idea on first glance but there are many factors to consider prior to purchase. As I've said before, an idea may be good but if you can't afford it within your budget, it's just a fancy talking point. The first factor is cost of the units. We have approximately 400 deputies so we would need 400 units plus replacements for damage or defects. Then we will need significant infrastructure storage. There will be thousands of hours of footage that must be kept and stored. We will then need extra staff to facilitate freedom of information requests for the videos. In tandem with that, we will need extra staff for video redaction. This will place extra needs from the state's attorney's office as well. In fiscal 2018, we had to reduce approximately 4 percent of our operating costs and head count. The fiscal 2019 budget doesn't appear to be replacing those cuts. There are privacy issues with the use of body cameras as well. In Round Lake Park, police officers filed a federal lawsuit due to body cameras recording them using the bathroom and other places where there was a high expectation of privacy. There have been other privacy issues such as recording people during domestic violence issues, interviewing juveniles, sexual assault victims or victims of domestic battery. We currently have dashcams in our squad cars and cameras that record when a Taser is deployed. A study released by the ACLU in November of 2017 stated "the wearing of body cameras had no statistically significant effect on the number of use-of-force incidents and civilian complaints recorded."
Typically, body cameras are tools that are implemented from complaint based reasons. I'm proud to say that here, in DuPage County, we don't have the complaint base that would necessitate or mandate the use of this expensive technology platform. I would rather see money go to mental health services where taxpayer dollars go to programs that truly help the citizens.
4. The sheriff's office has a very poor reputation for dealing with the media and providing public information about crime in unincorporated areas. How would that change if you are elected?
I will create a media center within our office. I believe the local media and the sheriff's office could have a symbiotic relationship where we can easily relate important facts and information to media outlets which would improve public safety operations and efficiencies. Crimes in progress, missing people or other evolving incidents could quickly be relayed to citizens through media resources. This will also engage our communities to assist in delivering potentially helpful information that could resolve some of our investigatory needs. Partnerships between law enforcement and the media gives residents more information quickly and enhances our transparency. Every strategy I plan to deploy revolves around a teamwork-oriented approach. All of the stakeholders within DuPage County can work together to make a real difference in enhancing our quality of life and increasing the safety of our communities. No true progress will occur if everyone is doing their own thing. The sheriff's office is in a unique position where we could be the heart of a cooperative county wide model that will consolidate cost and bring a myriad new and enhanced services to the residents of DuPage County. A healthy relationship between media outlets and the sheriff's office will benefit the residents of DuPage County.
5. Are there enough deputies on the street and are they properly deployed? What changes would you make?
The advantages that I have from working in county wide patrol for so many years is that I truly understand DuPage County policing the way it exists today and they way it should work tomorrow. Shift staffing currently runs on a twelve-hour shift model. Sixteen deputies is the normal compliment for county coverage. This does not account for allowable staff reductions for employee vacation time or unforeseen sick time. We service an unincorporated community of approximately 104,000 residents which carries a deputy to resident ratio of one deputy per six thousand five hundred residents when fully staffed. I do believe that we need more deputies on our streets. There are many ways to accomplish this goal. I've been at the sheriff's office for 22 years and I have never seen an agency wide job task analysis. It's critical to conduct this process where we analyze our environment to see where we can modify or change staffing responsibilities. I would venture to guess that our needs are different now than they were 22 years ago. We break down the county into what we call beats. There are eight beats. These beats need to be assessed through crime analysis where we use compiled data from calls for service and modify beat boundaries and deploy more deputies into areas based on spikes in criminal activity. Then we need to utilize predictive policing. There are some great new technologies out there that analyze every bit of activity and data that comes through our office. This data then gives us patterns of what weekdays, times and locations of where certain crime types are most likely to occur. We now reinforce these areas with patrol, detectives, drug unit, gang unit or other law enforcement supplement to stop the crime as it occurs. I plan to move away from reactionary policing and focus on preventive policing where we stop crime as it happens or stop it before it begins. There are new tools out there that need to be utilized. I strongly feel that we need to also partner more with all of the local municipalities to resource share. Teaming up with those around us will benefit citizens in both incorporated and unincorporated areas while increasing all of our staffing needs. If we combine manpower and resources with our municipal brothers and sisters, we can accomplish any law enforcement goal. I plan to offer canine services to all surrounding agencies for drugs, missing persons, suspect tracking or explosive recognition. I will offer our SWAT teams, bomb squad, crime laboratory or any other resource we have to assist with major crimes, drug enforcement or any other community needs. Working in tandem will make DuPage County a safer community.
6. What role should the sheriff's department play in dealing with the county's opioid crisis?
I have a strategic, multitiered strategy to fight the opioid epidemic. According to the coroner's report, DuPage County suffered 95 opioid related deaths in 2017. That number is staggering. We need new ideas and strategies to combat this plague. We need to enhance our technology. The unregulated internet, the dark web, is where a great deal of drug trafficking now takes place. When deals are being made in cyber space, it only stands to reason that we need to invade that environment to catch criminals. In today's world, you either evolve your technology or become a victim of it. We can't use 20th century strategies and technology for 21st century problems. Our canine unit should be expanded so we have a drug detection dog on each shift.
I think the sheriff's office is in a unique position as a county wide entity to partner with the other local police agencies to combine efforts in fighting drugs. If we all pool our DuPage County resources together and create massive, shared response teams, we could devastate drug dealers and drug trafficking areas. A countywide, unified force, could scour this county area by area until the drug culture is purged. Unused medications are also a large source of drug abuse for our youths. I'll start a new program where residents can text or email the sheriff's office when they have medications they want to dispose of and we will send personnel to homes for collection and destruction. This is will take potentially harmful substances out of the hands of our children. Parental education programs through the sheriff's office is another valuable tool. We will work with families and help educate them about drug culture and signs of drug use. I'm also working with the Illinois Save a Child's Life Network. They target children from 6th grade through high school and offers incentives through a "Gold Star Achievement Award" to be drug free. If parents authorize their children to accept random drug testing, and they remain clean, they're given assistance with college entry, employment opportunities and various gifts from local businesses. This begins building a drug free generation of children. Diversion, education, technology and enforcement combined is the only way to have true impact on this crisis. "Because it's always been done this way," is a philosophy that is stopping us in our tracks. I propose instead, "every new day is a chance to do better than yesterday." We have a very large and diverse population. I've worked on our streets and have been to an uncountable number of homes in all 32 municipalities, helping our citizens combat drug addiction and arresting drug dealers. During my off time, I meet with help groups, citizen groups, homeowners, and families that are affected by drug use. I know our residents and will include them to help our office combat this opioid epidemic. Knowing and engaging so many residents over so much time gives me strategic knowledge of where to focus enforcement and how help those who can be rehabilitated. I know where many problems are coming from and have many citizens willing to help solve these problems. A good cop knows their community.
7. Please name one current leader who most inspires you.
The leader who most inspires is someone most people probably haven't heard about. His name is Alan Mulally. He's an incredibly intelligent businessman who worked at Ford and Google and seemed to be successful wherever he managed. His self management style is very intuitive. His philosophy is "Everybody always talks about how you manage your time. You need to manage your energy as well. You first have to ask, what gives me energy? There can be lots of sources: your family, exercise, your spiritual well-being … In our house, we had a family meeting every week - the family BPR (Business Plan Review) - where we reviewed what we needed to do and the support required to get us through the week. It's another kind of process step, and a really important one." I feel that type of organizational discipline in both working life and family life is commendable.
8. What is the biggest lesson you learned at home growing up?
The biggest lesson I learned at home growing up was "don't make decisions based on emotion." My father used to tell me that emotions cloud good judgment. If somebody makes you angry, it's easy to make a mistake. That's when they control your actions. It's best to go home at the end of the day, sleep on it and see how you feel the next day. I've always kept that philosophy in mind. So many times when someone has said something that got me mad, I followed that advice. And every single time, when the next day arrived, I was glad I didn't say what I felt like saying at the time. That advice helped me develop emotional maturity. Now, when I watch people begin to argue or name call, I offer them that same advice. I have seen so many really bad decisions made from emotions and anger. Knee jerk reactions that cannot be taken back. You cannot unring a bell. I would much rather maintain control of my feelings than have to mea culpa in the morning. This was the best advice I have ever been given.
9. If life gave you one do-over, what would you spend it on?
The one thing I would do over in my life if I could is I would have spent more time with my father. My father, Joseph Mendrick, was the police chief of Oak Park. He was an incredibly busy and hard working man. He was a true master in law enforcement. There was no emergency he didn't run out the door for to make sure nothing went wrong. He loved his work and excelled at it. He helped countless people. The unfortunate byproduct of having a very important father was that he was always busy. When he retired, he became a completely different man. He became "Papa." Having a special needs son can be challenging for parents at times but Papa made it his life mission to help our son. That tenacity that made him such a great cop made him the absolute greatest grandfather that I ever could have imagined. There are no words to describe how much my father helped my son. It was a gift from God. I would watch them play and do schoolwork together and was so fascinated how he could uniquely reach my boy. One day, two years ago, he was gone. He seemed to have great health. I never would have anticipated him passing away so early. The best advice I could give to anyone is spend as much time with your family as you can because you never know how much time you have.
10. What was your favorite subject in school and how did it help you in later life?
In school, I really enjoyed English and mathematics (especially accounting). But my favorite, believe it or not was art. I was a student teacher in college for ceramics and sculpting. Ceramics stimulate creativity and is practice for problem solving. Starting with the basic preparation of the clay, there must be a process to remove any potential pockets of air from within all of the clay. Miss one and your entire product will explode when firing your piece in the kiln. Then there is the idealism versus practicality argument when designing the work. You may have an idea in your head but the composition of the clay won't support the model that you wish to design. You must then regroup and approach the challenge differently. Sculpting taught me to look at things differently. When you continually modified your approach based on the problems that popped up, eventually a work of art is created. You can't always do things the way you want or feel. There has to be basic practicality to achieve your goals. These concepts carried into everything I've done in my life. There have been many things I would have liked to accomplish based on an idea I had but realized I must reform my approach to obtain my goal. And every once in a while I had an air bubble and learned to do it a different way next time. Mathematics and English taught me very necessary disciplines but art taught me to perceive the world on a multitude of different levels until that work of art is finally created.
11. If you could give your children only one piece of advice, what would it be?
If I could only give my children one piece of advice it would be this: Treat people well and with respect. Treat them the same way you would want to be treated. I feel that this is truly the key to life. Nothing is really about things; everything is about people. No one will ever remember everything you said but they will most certainly remember how you made them feel. In life, relationships carry you across the finish line. Every single accomplishment or victory I've had in my life was due to help from someone in my life. My parents, my wife, my children, my friends, my co-workers and even at times, people I didn't know very well, helped get me where I am. By simply being nice and not mean, malicious or angry, I've garnered a great deal of support when I need it most. I'm also very grateful to have so many good relationships in my life which I only have because I've always made it a point to treat people well.
12. I know there were eleven questions but I had to add a twelfth to wrap things up.
I see the Sheriff's Office as being a key player in a focused, unified government where we're all working together to create a fiscally responsible and safer community. Working with local governments, the County Board, municipal police and fire agencies, citizens and all other stakeholders of DuPage County will be the recipe for success. Life is truly about relationships. My goal is to make the DuPage County Sheriff's Office a national model of good government. I am a 34 year resident of DuPage and a 22 year veteran of our Office. I understand the needs of DuPage County. My goal is to maintain and enhance safety within DuPage County and keep city crime out. As a resident, I feel we have good quality of life here in DuPage and I intend to safeguard us from anything that would diminish this County that we love to live in. I promise that this will never be James Mendrick's Sheriff's Office; it will be yours.