The St. Mary’s County Sheriff’s Race, an Outsider’s View

To the Editor:

In July I retired after 39 years in law enforcement, with nineteen of those years in Special Operations (SWAT).  At retirement I was the oldest active duty SWAT officer in the United States, and so feel that I can speak knowledgeably about the law enforcement needs of the tri-county area.

I hear many people in St. Mary’s County say that Tim Cameron may be the better trained of the two candidates, but Sheriff Zylak really hasn’t done anything wrong, so they’ll vote for him. I wonder if those people have considered that there may be a lot that has happened that they don’t know about.  Twelve of those years were spent in the St. Mary’s County Sheriff’s Department. In the beginning most people would look at my uniform name tag and greet me with “oh, you’re not a county boy”?  When I retired from the Sheriff’s office 12 years later the people of St. Mary’s County no longer raised that issue and instead treated me with the hospitality special to St. Mary’s County. Even though that was 17 years ago, my ties to the county have continued and it holds a special place in my memories. It is because of those feelings that I would like to offer an outsider’s view from an insider’s perspective on the current race for Sheriff.

Sheriff Zylak – the Cost:

Personnel - approximately 50 people have left the Sheriff’s department in the last 3-1/2 years.  Not all were deputies, but for those that were, the cost to hire and train a new deputy is $100,000. A cool 3.5 million of the taxpayer’s money should fix that problem.

Poor Judgment – when Sheriff Zylack took several County Commissioners and the press along on a drug raid, the case had to be thrown out and cost the county another $250,000. MD case law had already established that this sort of PR stunt was illegal, but the Sheriff’s excuse was that he didn’t know about that law. When questioned as to whether he realized it was also illegal for him to use the County email system to send out his campaign material, he wasn’t aware of that law either. As private citizens we learn early that “ignorance of the law is no excuse”. Should we not hold the top law enforcement officer in the county to that same standard?

Substandard training for the department’s Emergency Services Team .This was done by cutting training days in half. This is in violation of the National Tactical Officers’ Association protocol which sets the standards across the entire country. When questioned on this, Sheriff Zylak's response was “I’ll take the responsibility”. That’s all well and good, except the money paid out in civil suits comes out of the taxpayer’s pocket. And since the 1970’s, the training that any law enforcement personnel has, or has not, received has been a core issue in all civil suits involving law enforcement. This policy also caused a cessation of mutual training with the Calvert County Sheriff’s Department’s Special Operations Team, of which I was a member.  

Not only did Sheriff Zylak fail his men in their role as 1^st Responders, he failed the St. Mary’s Co. taxpayers by not taking advantage of local, no cost training by a unit considered by Homeland Defense to be one of the best in the country. Most areas of the country have no likely targets for terrorist and they can take a lackadaisical attitude toward 1^st Responder training.

Unfortunately St. Mary’s, Charles, and Calvert counties have no less than five listed national critical assets.

All of which require multi-jurisdictional cooperation for protection.  The danger of one unprotected, or inadequately protected, site is a hazard not only to its home county but the surrounding counties as well.

Due to the critical nature of the area’s need for the best available training for the 1^st Responders, the state and federal government guaranteed that millions of dollars could be tapped by law enforcement in the to insure that the citizens were well protected.  The Southern MD Homeland Security Committee was set up by the three counties to coordinate programs and resources in order to best utilize both money and man power. Unfortunately, I can say from personal experience that on many occasions there was no representative sent by Sheriff Zylack to represent St. Mary’s County.

Through this program grant money was provided to hire and equip an E.O.D. tech to be shared by the three counties.

The only condition was that each county would pay one-third of the tech’s annual salary. Yet now that the tech has been hired and trained, the one-third salary share from St. Mary’s County Sheriff’s Office is no where to be seen.

If the money was allocated in the budget for that, where was it used? Sheriff Zylak's failure to participate faithfully in post 9-11 with the Southern MD Homeland Security Committee has not only kept a hole in the dyke so to speak, but has cost St. Mary’s County hundreds of thousands of dollars in federal grant money.

And then there was a program recently put on by a Regional Task Force to provide all local law enforcement with the current information on gangs, and gang related crime, as well as made a $25,000 grant available. Guess who was a “no show”.  Sheriff Zylack says there is no gang activity in the county. I suggest he pay a visit to a certain restaurant north of Lexington Park. He would have to be blind not to see at least several MS 13 gang members. Or, maybe if he would get out and talk to the counties school teachers he could hear them confirm that St. Mary’s County does have a gang problem.

I believe Sheriff Zylak's abject failure to responsibly lead the St. Mary’s County Sheriff’s Department in post 9-11 jeopardizes the safety and well being of the citizens of St. Mary’s County, as well as those of the entire southern MD region. It is for this reason that I support Tim Cameron for Sheriff of St. Mary’s County.

Jack H. McMillin

Hughesville