Both candidates seeking to be Kingfisher County‘s next sheriff agree that more deputies are needed to keep up with a growing population and diverse activities, including marijuana industry concerns highlighted by a quadruple murder at one operation two years ago. But Aaron Pitts and Jonathan Riedlinger disagree slightly on how best to deploy the deputies they hope to add.
Riedlinger was among the first Kingfisher County deputies to arrive Nov. 20, 2022, at a marijuana growing operation near Lacey in the northwest part of Kingfisher County about 12 miles west of Hennessey. Responding to a reported hostage situation, deputies found four people killed and another person wounded. Riedlinger’s bodycam footage was shown on news outlets across the country.
Riedlinger, who was named undersheriff in April by Sheriff Dennis Bantham, said deputies knew little at the time about more than a dozen marijuana operations in the area because the industry is licensed and regulated by the Oklahoma Medical Marijuana Authority and the Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs Control.
“We don’t have the authority to look at those things,” Riedlinger said.
The farm was operating under an illegally obtained license to grow marijuana for medical purposes. The man convicted of the murders was a Chinese citizen, as were all four victims.
The incident shows the pitfalls of trying to cover a county that spans 906 square miles with a short-staffed sheriff’s office, he said.
Riedlinger and Pitts, who is chief of the Hennessey Police Department, are in the final days of campaigning for sheriff. Riedlinger came close to winning the race outright in June’s four-way Republican primary. He received 49.51 percent support (1,322 votes) in the primary, while Pitts finished second with 28.84 percent support (770 votes) to qualify for the Aug. 27 Kingfisher County sheriff runoff.
No Democrat, Libertarian or independent filed for the post, so the winner of the runoff will become Kingfisher County’s next sheriff. Bantham, first elected as a Democrat in 2004 and unopposed in 2020 after a 2016 reelection as a Republican, is retiring after serving 20 years as sheriff. He has endorsed Riedlinger.
‘Guys need to be out patrolling’
Pitts and Riedlinger both say adding deputies is a key priority in a county whose population growth partially stems from more people moving there from the Oklahoma City metropolitan area, about an hour’s drive away.
“I’m wanting to split our county up in two — basically — sectors: a north and a south side of it,” Riedlinger said. “Guys need to be out patrolling, hit those dirt roads more often, you know, out there where the residents are. We’ve got a lot of property crimes that happen, so trying to be a deterrent, be visible and talking with the residents to see if they’ve had anything going on in their areas instead of just being in town all the time. (…) We’ve got a lot of rural area.”
Pitts said he would like to add more deputies so they could be out in the county more. He said he has heard complaints from residents in the north part of Kingfisher County that they see fewer deputies than folks in the southern part.
“First, I would need to look at the budget and make sure that more officers are able to be hired,” Pitts said. “I would try to find a way (…) to apply for grants and stuff like that to be able to hire more deputies and place them more throughout the county and split the county up into quadrants or zones and have a deputy responsible for that zone to cut down on call time. And it’s their job to patrol that zone that day.”
Riedlinger said it’s difficult to attract and retain qualified deputies, a motivating factor for the Oklahoma Legislature’s decision to create a new grant program this year aimed at improving sheriff office pay. Riedlinger said starting pay without benefits is about $43,000 a year for Kingfisher County deputy sheriffs.
“It really is (tough) whenever you have other agencies that are doing $10,000 sign-on bonuses or even just starting out at $10,000 more a year than we are,” he said.
‘Gain people’s trust’
Riedlinger, 42, grew up in the Panhandle and has 19 years of law enforcement experience. He started with the Kingfisher Police Department and joined the Kingfisher County Sheriff’s Office in 2013. He was appointed undersheriff in April.
“I’m committed to public service,” Riedlinger said. “That’s what drives me, to make positive impacts and help lead in our community to make it safer and stronger.”
The Kingfisher County Sheriff’s Office annual budget is more than $4 million, he said. Payroll makes up more than half, with payroll for the sheriff’s office and the jail each running about $1.2 million, he said.
Riedlinger said the Kingfisher County Sheriff’s Office is fortunate to receive some of the proceeds from a half-cent county sales tax. Another quarter-cent sales tax helps fund the county jail, which was built about four years ago. He said the 101-bed facility is usually at about 25 percent occupancy, so it takes in detainees from other counties for a fee.
There has been talk about forming a county trust to operate the jail, something many other counties have established. Both Riedlinger and Pitts said they would like to find more information on how a jail trust would function.
Pitts, 34, grew up in Kingfisher County and started his law enforcement career in 2016 with the Enid Police Department. He joined the Hennessey Police Department a year later and also served as a school resource officer for Hennessey Public Schools until 2022 when he was named HPD chief. The department has four full-time officers and is budgeted to have six.
“It’s very important to me to be able to help people and reach people and be approachable, for people to want to come up to me and tell me their problems,” Pitts said. “The more you’re out in public, the more you’re going to gain people’s trust. And I want that for anybody who works for me. I’m very big on being out in the community.”
Pitts said he believes in outreach programs to help people. He said he wants his officers to treat people fairly and trains them to be stern and knowledgeable about their duties.
“And it sounds cliche, but I only do this job to help people,” he said. “I don’t do it to ruin people’s lives or anything like that, I don’t. And when I train people, I tell them, don’t take what happens or somebody says to you personally. They’re having possibly sometimes the worst day of their life, you know, so just work with people.”
When he’s not at the police department, Pitts can be found this time of year on a football field. He said he also serves as assistant football coach for Hennessey High School. His officers also are involved in the community. One works at school, another is an assistant track coach.
“If I can make a positive impact on somebody’s life and really change their life, I feel like I succeeded no matter how long my career is,” he said. “Of course, I would like to impact more people than that, but really, if you could change somebody’s life for the better, just one person, that’s enough for me.”
If he’s elected sheriff, Pitts said he would talk with Kingfisher County’s sheriff deputies and get their thoughts on their roles and whether they would like to stay on, including Riedlinger.
“I don’t have anything against my opponent,” he said. “I mean, that’s something we could talk about. (…) It’s obviously something I would consider because I don’t think it would be fair to not consider it.”
Riedlinger said his experience in the Kingfisher County Sheriff’s Office, especially the past four months since he’s been undersheriff, helps him know the strengths of the deputies and the operations of the office.
“I’ve been taking on more roles and responsibilities, you know, getting myself prepared for this position (of sheriff),” he said. “I’m excited and I’m ready for the opportunity to serve our citizens.”
