‘Should’ v. ‘shall’: Why Pierce County deputies won’t face discipline after Major Dickerson’s DUI crash

Two words are all that stood between Pierce County deputies and discipline.

Eight months after Pierce County Sheriff’s Office Major Chad Dickerson was arrested for a DUI collision that injured a family of six, an internal investigation found deputies at the scene may have violated policies on evidence collection, body-cam use, and documentation of any policy deviation.

But Pierce County Sheriff Keith Swank said it comes down to two words: shall versus should. He added that no discipline is warranted.

“The policy said should instead of shall. It’s a policy that was in effect before me. I would never have agreed to that type of policy, but that’s what I had,” Swank said. “Should and shall are two different things. One is mandatory; the other is to use your best judgment. The judgment wasn’t right. They should have turned it on, but I can’t sustain a complaint on somebody for the way the policy was written before.”

“I wish they had left their cameras on, but I can’t hold anyone accountable. I can’t suspend them. I can’t fire them,” he continued. “I can’t do anything with that at all because I would lose in arbitration, and I would set the county up for civil liability.”

Investigation finds no intentional misconduct but flags deviations from standard practices

The investigation also examined whether the involvement of a high-ranking agency member, Dickerson, impacted standard investigative procedures. While no evidence was found of intentional misconduct to alter the outcome of the criminal investigation, it was noted that deviations from standard practices created a perception risk and undermined confidence in the response. But still no discipline.

“The whole thing was not handled the way I would have preferred it to be handled, and so we are making changes to make sure that if something like this comes up again, that won’t happen. Things will be handled correctly,” Swank said. “I do want to hold people accountable, but I was unable to. Had I done something like that, I would have set the county up for civil litigation that could have resulted in millions of dollars in attorneys’ fees and payouts.”

Pierce County deputies undergo retraining after internal investigation

Instead of disciplinary action against any deputy on the scene that day, Swank has initiated what he calls corrective actions, including:

• Targeted retraining on the body-worn-camera policy and evidence documentation.
• Review and reinforcement of supervisory responsibilities at major incident scenes.
• Ongoing evaluation of compliance monitoring systems.

Swank said he’s working with the union to change the wording in policies, so incidents like this can be avoided.

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