Former KC police chief is Democrats’ pick to continue as sheriff another two years

Darryl Forte, the first African American to serve as Jackson County sheriff, albeit on an interim basis, was chosen Tuesday night as the Democratic Party’s nominee for the fall general election.

His selection at a meeting of party insiders puts him on a path to remaining sheriff another two years as only Democrats have held the job in modern Jackson County history.

Forte beat out two rivals for the nomination in a vote that wasn’t even close. Fifty-seven of 88 committee members eligible to cast ballots supported Forte, who retired in 2017 as Kansas City police chief after a three-decade-long career with the department. Mike Rogers, a captain who has spent his entire 28-year law enforcement career with the sheriff’s office, came in second with 17 votes, while Lee’s Summit Police Sgt. Rick Inglima got 14.

Portraying himself as an outsider who has uncovered “chaos” and mismanagement within a sheriff’s office whose previous leader resigned amid scandal last spring, Forte stated his bona fides succinctly: “I’m the one to fix it,” he told the packed jury room at the Jackson County courthouse annex in Independence.

Forte and Rogers were to square off at the Aug. 7 Democratic primary, along with a third candidate, retired Kansas City police Sgt. Ramona Arroyo. But the vote was canceled by a court order that called the election illegal.

Jackson County Circuit Judge David Michael Byrn’s ruling left to regulars in both the Democratic and Republican parties the decision on who their nominee would be in November.

Republicans quickly chose Dave Bernal over Randy Poletis as their best choice to end the Democrats’ decades-long hold on the sheriff’s office. After 13 years with the Kansas City police department, Bernal went on to a 24-year career with the FBI, where he was part of the teams that investigated the 1995 bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City and the Sept. 11, 2001, attack on the World Trade Center.

Democrats put off their choice until Tuesday’s quarterly meeting of the county committee. Arroyo’s name was not entered in nomination.

Inglima, who heads the Missouri Fraternal Order of Police union, made it a three-person race again by announcing his candidacy a week ago. As president of FOP Local 50, he represents officers in all area police agencies in Jackson County, except for members of the Kansas City Police Department.

But while he had the support of one of the area’s most politically influential unions, International Association of Fire Fighters Local 42, his late entry denied him his own union’s official endorsement. That belonged to Rogers, who also received support from the Kansas City local.

Labor support, which normally carries a lot of weight within the party, wasn’t enough for either of them.

Forte carried the day with support from the African-American political club Freedom Inc. as well as local political leaders, including Jackson County Executive Frank White and the mayors of Kansas City, Independence, Blue Springs, Raytown and Grandview.

The winner of the general election will go on to complete the final two years of former Jackson County Sheriff Mike Sharp’s term.

Sharp resigned in April after court documents revealed a pattern of favoritism shown a department employee who was also his girlfriend. White picked Forte to fill the job through the rest of this year until voters could decide on a permanent replacement.

He and the four others who filed to run in the primary had to suspend their campaigns when the county Democratic Party committee sued the clerk of the County Legislature, claiming she should not have opened a one-week window in May allowing candidates to file for office.

While Tuesday’s vote was a mostly friendly affair, there was one moment of tension after Democratic committee chairman Paul Wrabec learned that the Republican nominee for sheriff was at the back of the room.

Bernal told a reporter earlier in the day that he planned to attend as a silent observer. But Wrabec wasn’t interested in allowing outside observers, other than the news media, to watch the proceedings.

His message to any Republican in the room was “get the hell out.”

Bernal obliged without protest, but said afterward that he aims to fight hard for the job.

Should he be successful on Election Day, Bernal’s victory would, like Forte’s, be one for the history books. Not since Fred A. Richardson left office in 1924 has a Republican served as county sheriff, and he was only the second member of his party to ever hold the office, as far as Caitlin Eckard could tell from searching the files of the Jackson County Historical Society, of which she is executive director.

This story was originally published August 21, 2018 at 10:44 PM.