NPA Report with Guest, Keith Swank, Career Law Enforcement Officer and Sheriff of Pierce County, WA
Hi. This is Sergeant Betsy Brantner Smith with the National Police Association, and this is the National Police Association podcast. I have a terrific guest with me today. I'm gonna guess a lot of you know who he is. He is he is one of our law enforcement leaders who really stands in the gap for not only his law enforcement officers, but for The United States Of America.
Betsy Smith:This is a guy who understands the constitution. He understands what his responsibilities are, and and we just can't appreciate him enough, and we're really excited to have him. Sheriff Keith Swank, welcome to the show.
Sheriff Keith Swank:Thank you for having me. Good to talk to you again.
Betsy Smith:So, gosh, so much has happened since the last time that we talked. Sheriff Swank, you're the sheriff of Pierce County, Washington, which in which the city of Tacoma is your county seat, and you are dealing with a lot of lunacy. There's really no other way to say it, not just in the state of Washington, but, you know, in your own particular county. Tell us about Pierce County.
Sheriff Keith Swank:Well, Pierce County is the sixtieth largest county in America, almost a million people, and it's what we call a charter county. So that means and there's seven charter counties out of 39 in Washington state. So Pierce County has its own, for a lack of a better term, a constitution. And in that constitution has some restrictions that that put in on the sheriff. So even though the sheriff is an independent office by the Washington state constitution, there's some restrictions on the sheriff put on by the constitution of the Pierce County Charter.
Sheriff Keith Swank:And so would I'm dealing with both of those in Olympia, the state legislature, and in the Pierce County itself.
Betsy Smith:So are you forced to be a sanctuary county?
Sheriff Keith Swank:Pierce County is run by an executive, and the executive and county council consider Pierce County a sanctuary county. However, Washington state passed this act called keep Washington working, KWW Act. I call it the keep illegal violent the keep the violent illegal aliens in your community act. And anyhow, that makes the whole state a sanctuary state, meaning that we will not work with or cooperate with ICE and, any other immigration situation like that.
Betsy Smith:So I know you, and you're you're you're a guy that that loves America. You love law enforcement. You love your state. What made you wanna run for sheriff in Pierce County, Washington?
Sheriff Keith Swank:Well, I graduate I graduate. I retired, from Seattle Police Department in 2023, and I had been there for thirty three years. So I plan to I plan to leave the state, actually, to be truthful. I wanted to move to Florida. I was trying to persuade my wife where we should move to, Florida, someplace warmer, someplace free.
Sheriff Keith Swank:And, god told me to run for sheriff, so I did. And so that's that's why I ran for sheriff. I was trying to run away. I ran for sheriff. And he didn't say I was gonna win, but he said I was gonna run, and I ran.
Sheriff Keith Swank:I ultimately ended up winning. Maybe he decided there was some more punishment I needed or something. But, anyhow, I ran for sheriff. I got elected, and I took over being this Pierce County sheriff 01/01/2025. And I am the first person ever elected sheriff from outside of the sheriff's office.
Sheriff Keith Swank:So that right there is a big feat in and of itself.
Betsy Smith:So, obviously, the people of Pierce County believed in you and believed in what you campaigned for, and they wanted your style of leadership. Am I wrong about that?
Sheriff Keith Swank:No. You're right. They they wanted they voted for it. They I was clear. What I believed in.
Sheriff Keith Swank:I put it in the voters' pamphlet. I did interviews. I did mailers. I let everybody know what I stand for, and so they knew it when they voted for me. Yes.
Betsy Smith:So I I get the impression that not only the county administrator, but, again, your state legislature, they don't particularly appreciate your style of law enforcement leadership.
Sheriff Keith Swank:Well, let's talk about the state legislature. That's the most important part here that's affecting sheriffs, the independence of sheriffs itself. So Democrats in Washington state have a supermajority in the state house and state senate. They have 60% plus. There's two super majorities.
Sheriff Keith Swank:That that one, they can initiate any legislation regarding money, any finances. But the 67%, which is a super I call it super super majority, then they can change the constitution. So they're close to having a super, super majority in both the houses, then they can change the constitution. But in the meantime, they can't change the constitution. However, democrats have every statewide elected office.
Sheriff Keith Swank:Every single one of them is a democrat's in position. The only thing democrats don't have control of in Washington state is the office of sheriff. So they want to pass legislation. They call it modernizing policing, but it's a qualification legislation for sheriffs. And in it, sheriffs would have to go through their a background check, polygraph check, social media check, all kinds of different checks, and then they would allow you the legislature a bureaucracy by the legislature would allow you, if they deem so, to be able to run for sheriff.
Sheriff Keith Swank:So that way they can weed out whoever they don't want to have in running for sheriff. In addition to that, they have mechanisms to decertify you as a police officer and then remove you from office because you're decertified, and that would be run by a political group, this criminal justice training commission. And people like me who are outspoken, they could say what I say on social media, things such as transgender women are men. That's hate speech. They could decertify me and remove me from office.
Sheriff Keith Swank:They already have a complaint with the criminal justice training commission saying that since I posted that, that was hate speech, and I should be decertified. That's how crazy it is here.
Betsy Smith:So let's explain to people the office of sheriff, which has a long and storied history. You can go back, you know, the reef of the Shire and and, and and then, you know, when we come into, American history, the role of the sheriff has always been, and you said it very well, an independent an independent person with an independent office, who is you know, it's I mean, of course, you are elected, but you're elected by the people, and you're supposed to do the people's bidding. And in, you know, in certain different, states, you know, there's there's very specific rules about what the sheriff, can and cannot do, what their responsibilities are. But none of it none of it that I know of in The United States is, is is controlled by politicians of one party or the other. I find that, extraordinary, and I find it dangerous.
Sheriff Keith Swank:Yes. And in our case, since Democrats control everything in the whole state, it's super dangerous because all they're gonna do now is remove shares of office that they don't agree with, put people in there that they agree with, and then all these crazy laws that they passed, they will impose. Like, right now, people like me are standing in the breach saying, no. We're not gonna go with that gun confiscation law or this other, law that violates the constitution. But when they get the right people in place, they can do that.
Sheriff Keith Swank:And I tell people this all the time. I was not elected police chief. I was elected sheriff. There's a difference. Police chiefs are appointed, and they do the bidding of the person who appointed them.
Sheriff Keith Swank:That's fine. But I was elected by the people. I'm speaking for the people. And being the sheriff is much more than just enforcing the law. I have people come to me to talk to me about property line disputes.
Sheriff Keith Swank:I had a guy just come talk to me the other day about he's a gold miner and about how the government's infringing upon his right to gold mine. I mean, who would think that they'd come talk to they don't talk to police chiefs about that. They come talk to the sheriff about it because they wanna come to me and say, this is what's going on. And sheriff, can you help us out?
Betsy Smith:Right. The role the role of sheriff is a lot more than just going out and, you know, having deputies, you know, go to calls and things like that. You have to run a correctional institution Right. You know, which I wanna talk about that. You you do you you deal with things like property rights, and and you serve all kinds of papers, and and you have court responses.
Betsy Smith:I mean, it's a huge, huge responsibility to be the sheriff, especially in, in a largely populated area like you have. I want you to explain to to the nonlaw enforcement people watching. When you are as a sheriff, when you cooperate with ICE, explain to people what that looks like and why it's safer for everybody.
Sheriff Keith Swank:Well, first off, I wanna let everybody know that we don't cooperate with ICE in Pierce County. And the only and I do wanna cooperate with them. But the reason why we don't here in Pierce County or any place in Washington and I would be the first one that would probably that would do it. Most sheriffs wouldn't do it. Maybe there's one other one that would do it.
Sheriff Keith Swank:But the attorney general there's been laws passed, and the attorney general would would enforce it where they could go after deputies individually and hold them accountable civilly and sue them. So I don't want my deputies to be sued. So because of that, I don't enforce anything with ICE or cooperate with ICE. Now if they just sued sheriff, everything will be fine, and we would do it. And my wife and I have had this conversation.
Sheriff Keith Swank:We're okay with them suing us because we wanna bring attention to it, and we're warriors. We'll fight for it, but I don't want my deputies risking losing their house and and things like that. Right? So but the way it should work is this. We work together.
Sheriff Keith Swank:We find people. We arrest them for a crime, and there are illegal aliens that booked into our jail for the crime we arrest them for. And then to make things safe, what we would do in a sane world is we let ICE know that we have this illegal alien here in our facility. And since the facility is safe and secure and sterile, we could have the ICE officers come to our jail, as an example, and pick up the suspect right there, but without having them for me to release them back on the street and have all the danger of the person back on the street to society plus the danger of contacting them and arresting them. So that would solve everything.
Sheriff Keith Swank:That's what sane sheriffs do and sheriffs of states that want to work and cooperate with the US government and US governmental agencies.
Betsy Smith:Thank you for that explanation. And for example, here in Arizona, in our largest county, which is Maricopa County, our sheriff there, he actually made an office for ICE in his jail so that when they have someone in custody who has an ICE detainer, very safely, when that person is getting ready to be released from the jail, that person is handed over to the ICE agents. Nobody ever sees the outside, so there's no protest. There's no having to, serve search warrants. There's no having to do traffic stops, and it's much safer for everybody, including the illegal alien detainee.
Betsy Smith:So I just want that to be clear for everybody. So, Keith, you came from Seattle PD, a a police department really near and dear. Personally, to my heart, I know so many people on that agency, one of the best agencies, the most educated, the best trained, and you left kind of at the height of the whole George Floyd riots and all that, but but Seattle PD has been dealing with Antifa, reclaim the streets. I mean, you know, occupy Wall Street. I mean, probably for most of your career.
Betsy Smith:Right?
Sheriff Keith Swank:Yeah. I've been working riots in in Seattle since Rodney King. Right? I worked in for years. So, you know, World Trade Organization, WTO, right, and n thirty and May Day and any other type of any other type of protest or riot that you want to have.
Sheriff Keith Swank:And we were very, very well trained in crowd management at Seattle in the nineties and early two thousands. But then when I came to that to the 2020 in the summer of love and the Chaz Chop Zone, it was really an embarrassment to be a part of that organization and how the command structure just let the people take over the street and whatnot. So, you know, I was a captain there. They didn't put me in charge of very much there, just an overnight shift there. But, ultimately, they got ready to when they finally said the politicians finally said, let's clear out the CHAS chop zone.
Sheriff Keith Swank:I was the commander of the SWAT team. We got it all together, did it early in the morning, and went through there. And once they show saw us show up in force, meaning business, they all left just like what happened to begin with if they we would have been allowed. So when I became sheriff, I said, I'm not gonna let politicians tell me how to run the sheriff's office. Right?
Sheriff Keith Swank:So I don't allow them to do it. They get mad about it because they wanna tell me how to do it, but I don't tell them how to run their office. I don't tell elected politicians what what they do, but they believe that they can tell me because they think I'm their chief of police. They don't like the fact that that I'm the sheriff, but they still think that they have the authority over me like a mayor or a county council or city council would have over chief of police, but they don't have that.
Betsy Smith:You know, do you see, or did you at least start to see and I would have to say because you were elected, you probably saw some of this. The pendulum starting to swing from 2020 where people started started to realize in 2024 and 2025 that that they needed police officers in their neighborhood, that that, unlike what Kamala Harris said, you know, less cops means, less crime. It's actually, more cops equals less crime. People started to realize they needed us. Were you seeing that as well?
Sheriff Keith Swank:Well, I believe that's what the citizens believe out here. However, in the twenty twenty four election, Washington State is the only state that became more blue. Out here in Washington State, if you even mention that you maybe even like anything that president Trump did at all, that is a death knell to your campaign. Right? Even if you it's Republicans, unless there's just some certain areas where it's okay.
Sheriff Keith Swank:So president Trump is disliked, hated out here on the left, disliked by the people on the right. So this is a a really crazy place. Right? The whole thing is crazy. And so, therefore, just because ICE is associated with him, the people around here hate ICE.
Sheriff Keith Swank:Even though Barack Obama with ICE deported more people than president Trump has. And Tom Homan was his was his guy. Right? And Tom Homan now is a person that they hate. So they they just hate this out here in Washington State because they hate president Trump so bad.
Sheriff Keith Swank:And there's and you can't talk to them. There's no sense to be made about it at all. It doesn't matter what you say. You try to reason with them. You can't reason with them at all.
Sheriff Keith Swank:So I've decided the only thing to do is to just push back against it then and go out here and get like this. Get my voice heard so people can hear it and they join in and, and join them. Just join the sanity. Right? Like, hey.
Sheriff Keith Swank:We're out here. We wanna have our sheriffs elected. We don't want you to interfere with it, and then encourage them to get a hold of their elected officials and go to their meetings and tell them about it.
Betsy Smith:Are you supported by other sheriffs in Washington State?
Sheriff Keith Swank:Well, there are a couple that support me. I don't know if you saw the video of me giving my speech to Olympia. So that got the sheriff's association and the Washington Association of Police Chiefs and Sheriffs. They wrote a they wrote a a letter, a strongly worded letter to tell me that they didn't like what I said and that they're gonna have a meeting, and they might throw me out of the club. Oh, no.
Sheriff Keith Swank:I let the citizens know about it, and I believe that all those people on the executive board who signed off on this, I believe their phones are blowing up, their emails are blowing up, and all kinds of things are going on. So they're gonna have a meeting supposedly to determine if they want to kick me out of the club. And I believe if they kick me out of the club, that's a good thing. I believe that they keep me in the club, it's a good thing. Because either way, I'm gonna let people know this is what happened.
Sheriff Keith Swank:If they keep me in the club, it's because the people spoke and said you are not gonna get rid of them. There's too much pressure on them. If they throw me out of the club, I'll let the people know, and the people will pressure them again and say, what are you doing? And we're gonna run somebody against you for sheriff then because we don't want you there. We want you to support sheriffs.
Sheriff Keith Swank:Here's the thing. The people who run WASPIC, the Washington Association of Police Chiefs and Sheriffs, and the one that run run the, sheriff's association, many of them are from small agencies, and they're from small counties. They don't know what real politics is about. And I was speaking to them one time. I'm a sheriff of a of a million county, million population county.
Sheriff Keith Swank:And these guys were lecturing me, and eight or 10 of them all combined don't have the population or the or the sheriff office that I have. And they wanna tell me because they've been a sheriff longer than me that they're smarter than me, but they don't understand politics. Don't understand what the democrats are doing. So I told them, we need to not compromise. We should push back.
Sheriff Keith Swank:And the only compromise bill we should have in Olympia say, if you have a qualifications bill for us sheriffs, that sounds great. Have a qualifications bill for all you politicians too. All of you legislators have the same do a background check, social media check. Right? Let's check out your credit score.
Sheriff Keith Swank:All that stuff like that would happen to me. Right? And, of course, they would vote no on that because they have convicted felons who are state representatives in this state. So that's what I say, need to push back. I think the people are with me.
Sheriff Keith Swank:I think that video that I of me speaking to them, to the senate in Olympia has over 5,000,000 views. And just real quickly, somebody interviewed me and said, do you wish you would have said something different? And I said you know, because they wanna want me to try to say, oh, no. I'm sorry for what I said. I said, I only wish that instead of the ninety seconds I gave, that they would've given me the full three minutes that I was originally supposed to have because I didn't get to I didn't get to say everything I want to say, so I had to publish it instead.
Sheriff Keith Swank:So, no, I stand by everything that I said. I don't need this job. As a matter of fact, it pays very little compared to I I make a thousand dollars more than my retirement check was, so it's nothing for the hours that I put in here. But I'm here fighting for the right to keep the sheriff's office independent and for the people of Pierce County and the state to be able to vote for the sheriff that they want.
Betsy Smith:Well and I really see this, and I hope and we're gonna talk about where your social media is at at the end of the interview because I want people to go see that that video because it's extraordinary. But where do you see this catching on nationally in in blue states? You know? Have you have you, does that worry you?
Sheriff Keith Swank:Well, what I see catching on nationally in blue states is people seeing my video and the citizens speaking up to the sheriffs and saying, sheriff, have a spine like that man has. Stand up to people and do that. That's why I see it catching on at. The other part about the about controlling the sheriffs, oh, yeah. That's what democrats do.
Sheriff Keith Swank:They want they wanna here they are where there are no kings protests, and they're being the kings here. Right? Gonna gonna subject me to they get to tell me whether I get to run or not, right, or whether I could be a sheriff or not. So it's the hypocrisy of them. So what I think is going on is, hopefully, this video of me speaking out like that will it's gone viral, but will go throughout the country.
Sheriff Keith Swank:People in blue states will see it, and they'll say, hey. We want our sheriff to stand up for us like that too. And that's what I'm hoping is going on with it too.
Betsy Smith:This this has gotta I've just gotta say, this gotta take a personal toll. You know? And I know, you know, you and your wife are you're a team in this thing because you know? And quite frankly, as, you know, as a police spouse, it's teamwork anyway. Right?
Betsy Smith:You know, if you're married to a cop, you've gotta be part of that whole situation and support each other. What is that like to have to deal with this all of this, national attention and all of this angst, you know, coming out of, state government? What's what's that like to deal with on a personal level? Especially when you could be sitting on a beach in Florida enjoying your retirement and, enjoying living in a free state.
Sheriff Keith Swank:Yeah. It's a lot of work. You know? But and and what they do is it's me against a whole bunch of people. Right?
Sheriff Keith Swank:I don't even have any professional help. I don't even have and we'll to talk about some other time. I don't even have legal advisers that I can trust because my my prosecuting attorney is against me, right, and these things. But it keeps me motivated because I wanna make a difference. Right?
Sheriff Keith Swank:I I wanna make a difference. My wife, we just say this, like, every time they do something, we use a new verb. They're trumping me. Right? That's what it is.
Sheriff Keith Swank:They're trying to say that I'm president Trump or I'm I'm one of his guys, and that's why I'm behaving this way at all. And I always just say to him, well, it wouldn't be cool if I was because then maybe you come out here and give me a hand. Right? But I'm by myself, and the Trump DOJ hasn't been out here. And if you're listening, please come out here and give me a hand, right, to fight these people.
Sheriff Keith Swank:So I'm doing this all on my own. I get emails every day. I get hate emails. Right? Because haters always do that.
Sheriff Keith Swank:But I I get emails every day that said, thank you for standing up for me. I hate emails that say, I was gonna move out of the state, but I'm staying now. As long as you're the sheriff, I'm gonna stay and I'll be here for you. I'm I'm gonna fight with you, right, to try to to change this back around. And it's so bad here that maybe if they take away these rights from the sheriff, the people might finally say, okay.
Sheriff Keith Swank:That's it. Because I always thought every year I think, oh, we're gonna hit rock bottom. We haven't hit it yet. They keep voting these crazy cop hating Democrats back in the office, and maybe it'll happen. Then I have people get a hold of me and say, hey.
Sheriff Keith Swank:Will you, will you run for governor? We want you to run for governor. Right? Because we wanna have somebody stand there and fight, you know, and things like that.
Betsy Smith:You can announce it right here.
Sheriff Keith Swank:So, yeah, so people people you know, it's giving people encouragement. Right? When I get these emails saying, I had a guy just recently sending me an email and he said, I'm gonna move to Pierce County so I can vote for you. That's pretty cool. Maybe he was moving there anyhow, but but maybe not.
Sheriff Keith Swank:Maybe he said he said, I'm gonna go there. I'm in Washington State. I'm gonna move to Pierce County. I'm gonna vote for you. I'm gonna be there when you know, I told the I told the, senate state senate, I said, hey.
Sheriff Keith Swank:Listen. If you try to remove me from office, thousands of people will surround the the County City Building where my office is, and they won't allow you to do it. They're gonna protest. Right? And and so I have people saying, oh, I'm there.
Sheriff Keith Swank:If that happens, I'm not gonna allow them take my sheriff. Right? So it's a big movement. I think it's gonna be good. A lot of the police chiefs around the area are scared because they're appointed, and they they're kinda backpedaling.
Sheriff Keith Swank:I don't know if I wanna be with Swank or anything like that, but, you know, I'm encouraging them and telling them, have courage. Stand up. Do the right thing. If we all stand up and do the right thing, what are they gonna do? Fire all of us?
Sheriff Keith Swank:Fire all of you guys at one time? I mean, I have people threatening me to, like, we're gonna recall you. I said, well, do it. Go ahead and do it. If you think you can gather enough signatures, enough people to recall me, go right ahead and do it then.
Sheriff Keith Swank:Right? I mean, that's your that's not what democracy is about. That's what our republic's about. Right? You have the ability to do that.
Betsy Smith:I'll tell you.
Sheriff Keith Swank:It keeps me energized.
Betsy Smith:Clearly. And and I'll tell you, you are the epitome of what, doctor Travis Yates calls calls is courageous leadership. And I really do believe you are inspiring people, not just in your state, but I think you're inspiring them nationwide and and will continue to do so. Tell people where they can find you, how they can support you, and learn more about what it's like to be that sheriff standing in the gap.
Sheriff Keith Swank:Yes. Well, I'm mostly on x. So you can follow me at x. It's @swank,swank,thenumberfour,America,atswankforAmerica. But, also, you can you know, if you will support me, you really wanna support me.
Sheriff Keith Swank:What what really shows that support is money. So you can donate to my campaign. It's swank, f o r sheriff. Swank for sheriff dot com. And and go there and then, you know, just search my name on the Internet.
Sheriff Keith Swank:The video that I gave down in Olympia, Washington will pop up. Copy that. Share it with everybody you can. Turn around. I'm not saying this just to just to try to toot my horn, but it's a courageous speech.
Sheriff Keith Swank:I was there by myself. No one else spoke like I did. And I tell people, they say, were you nervous? I go, of course, I was nervous. Right?
Sheriff Keith Swank:Because because I have people tell me they wanna kill me. So, of course, I was nervous about it. Right? And I'm nervous about somebody trying to harm my wife when I'm not at home. Right?
Sheriff Keith Swank:So I'm nervous about it, but we made a commitment, my wife and I, that we're gonna do the right thing. We're gonna stand up and be courageous. And, of course, I don't wanna get harmed or anybody else to get harmed, but we're gonna do the right thing and not allow them to scare us. So at swankforamerica, swankforsheriff.com, and just search my name, find those things, and then share it with other people so they can see what's going on out here in Washington State.
Betsy Smith:And give them encouragement
Sheriff Keith Swank:to have courage to stand up and fight.
Betsy Smith:Absolutely. We've gotta we've if you are fighting for your county and for your state, you're fighting for this country, and you're fighting for American values, and you're you're fighting for the American law enforcement officer, and and that's one of the things that that we love most about you. So we really appreciate you taking time out of your crazy busy schedule to spend time with us today. And if you'd like more information about the National Police Association, you can visit us at nationalpolice.org.
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