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MODESTO, Calif. — There's a new Sheriff in town in Stanislaus County.
Sheriff Jeff Dirkse was sworn in Monday afternoon with other newly elected county officials. He's replacing outgoing Sheriff Adam Christianson who is retiring after 12 years in office.
Today, though, on his first full day in office, he says he has big plans for the future of Stanislaus County.
"We are staffed with some incredible people that do great work everyday," Dirske said. "The number one problem is we don't have enough of those great people — our staffing is our number one challenge."
Dirske is coming into office at a time when the nation is watching. It's only been two weeks since Newman Police Corporal Ronil Singh was shot and killed in the line of duty, an investigation Dirske's sheriff's department has been leading.
Outgoing-sheriff Adam Christianson blamed Singh's death on SB54, California's sanctuary state law which prevents local law enforcement agencies from sharing information with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
"We can't ignore the fact that this could have been preventable," Christianson said in a news briefing the day Singh's suspected killer was taken into custody.
Dirske said he believes the law is "counterproductive to public safety."
"It just prevents us from doing our job when we have a great relationship with all of our federal partners, all of our state partners, all of our local partners," Dirkse said.
Dirske's department has been no stranger to tragedy, facing six line of duty deaths in six years. So Dirkse says he's working on a new officer wellness program.
"We have to address things proactively and help our staff to be as well as possible, as healthy, both physically, emotionally, spiritually, relationally as possible," he said.
Hoping to beef up his staff within the next 12 months and he's also planning to roll out body cameras across the department in April and he's changing his department's uniforms over to tan and green.
"Of course I would like to leave Stanislaus County safer," Dirkse said. "I would like to leave this community better, but what I would really like to see, especially internal to our department is, I would love to see that we have created a team of deputies that have been able to go out and do more than any other team."
Before coming to the Stanislaus County Sheriff's Department in 2007 and serving as the Patterson Police Chief for the past three years, Dirkse served in the U.S. Army in a number of different roles, completing multiple tours overseas.
"It is both honoring our tradition and really setting ourselves apart," he said.
And to bridge the gap between law enforcement and the community, he's planning to hold quarterly town hall meetings.
"I'm excited for the future, the team that we have and the good things that we can do," Dirkse said.
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