‘I do not mince words’: Spokane County’s next sheriff sizes up the job ahead

(The Center Square) – Spokane County Sheriff-Elect John Nowels said winning his first election by 58% of votes cast on Nov. 8 was a vote of confidence that has been humbling. He beat out long-time sheriff’s office employee Wade Nelson for the top law enforcement job.

“I woke up on election day at peace – I felt the outcome was going to be good and we had done everything we could,” said Nowels.

He will continue as undersheriff until Sheriff Ozzie Knezovich retires at the end of the year, but expects the transition into his new role to go smoothly. He has spent more than 24 years at the agency and worked his way up through the ranks so he is knowledgeable about all aspects of operations.

Equally important, he said, are the leadership lessons that Knezovich imparted by standing strong for his beliefs regardless of pushback from dissenters.

“I have come to learn that Sheriff Knezovich does what he thinks is the right thing for public safety every time,” said Nowels.

Knezovich, who is relocating to his home state of Wyoming at the end of 2022, endorsed Nowels as his replacement. Like Knezovich and Nelson, Nowels is a Republican.

“The right man won,” the sheriff told The Center Square last week. “John did everything he could do to prepare himself to be sheriff. About six years ago, John came to me to ask what he had to do to take that seat and then he set about doing what needed to be done.”

Nowels, 49, has been the undersheriff since 2019. He said immersion in that role taught him the ins and outs of managing an annual budget that tops $50 million and dealing with personnel issues involving about 320 deputies and support staff.

After graduating from Eastern Washington University in 1996 with a bachelor’s in Criminal Justice, Nowels earned his master’s in Organizational Leadership from the University of Oklahoma in 2019. His training includes attendance at the 265th session of the FBI National Academy in Quantico, Virginia, in 2016.

Nowels grew up in the county and sees that as hugely beneficial in the position of sheriff because he understands the local culture and what people expect as a quality of life. His wife, Shawna, was also raised in Spokane and they are parents to four children.

Like Knezovich, Nowels describes himself as a “straight shooter,” which will define his management style.

“I do not mince words – people will know what I think,” he said.

Nowels said his office will respect the Second Amendment right of the people to be armed and be able to defend themselves.

Nowels said people are increasingly concerned about public safety. Making sure neighborhoods throughout the county are safe will be his top priority as sheriff, as it has been throughout his career, he said.

“There are 560,000 people in this county, so we have a big job to do,” he said.

Gangs and drug trafficking are driving much of the violence in the county, said Nowels. He said that 40% of homicides in the county last year were connected to drugs, so working to get more people into treatment and off the streets is one way to reduce that problem.

Nowels believes in giving people second chances, but he also wants to hold them accountable for the harm they do.

That is made somewhat difficult, he said, by overcrowding at the local jail that makes it difficult to hold offenders who have committed lesser crimes.

“We are going to be better at community policing and giving our deputies more opportunities to engage with area residents in proactive ways,” he said.

With that said, Nowels wants to see greater awareness among some local and state leaders about the difficult role that law enforcement plays in keeping citizens safe. He will advocate in Olympia for tools to be restored that help deputies and officers do their jobs.

He said police reform measures approved by the Legislature in 2021, such as scaling back pursuits, need to be reversed if law enforcement agencies are going to get ahead of crime.

“A lot of people don’t understand how difficult it is to become a great law enforcement officer,” he said. “It takes so much of your capacity and vision to learn how to be a good cop and keep yourself alive on the streets.”

As far as command staff goes, Nowels said there are already two other undersheriffs to assume some of his duties, Dave Ellis and Mike Kittilstved. He doesn’t anticipate any big changes in the hierarchy of the sheriff’s office.