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    • Big Oakland County, Michigan has a strange candidate for county sheriff
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    Big Oakland County, Michigan has a strange candidate for county sheriff

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    To be a police chief in Michigan, you need years of experience and tons of training.

    Same for a county sheriff? Not. Just be chosen. Michigan has no requirements for county sheriffs. And neither do most states, according to the National Sheriffs’ Association.

    Despite the low bar, voters usually see through candidates who won’t cut it, said Pat Royal, a spokesman for the sheriffs’ group.

    “It’s rare that candidates with no law enforcement experience get elected,” Royal said. Still, it’s happening — and in metro Detroit, in one of Michigan’s largest counties, it could happen in next week’s election.

    In Macomb County, it won’t happen. Longtime Democrat and career cop Sheriff Anthony Wickersham faces off against a Republican with law enforcement experience — Terence Mekoski, a former state lawmaker and retired deputy patrol commander with the Oakland County Sheriff’s Office . Whoever is elected or re-elected, has the experience.

    In Wayne County, it probably won’t even happen. Another Democrat and career cop, Sheriff Raphael Washington, is almost certain to defeat his challenger, a Republican named TP Nykoriak. In heavily Democratic-leaning Wayne County, Washington was elected in 2022 to a partial term with 81 percent of the vote. Nykoriak, meanwhile, was sentenced to 16 months in federal prison after pleading guilty to stealing U.S. Savings bonds from a Hamtramck church in 2015, according to earlier Detroit Free Press reports.

    In Oakland County, Careful. On Election Day, left-leaning Oakland County could oust longtime Republican Sheriff Mike Bouchard and elect a Democrat with no police experience. Amrit Kohli of Ferndale is a computer software entrepreneur, peace activist and aspiring folk singer. He recently released a very listenable CD. On it, he plays acoustic guitar and sings a dozen songs he wrote, including one protesting police brutality called “George Floyd, Say His Name.” (The song and more from Kohli can be streamed by searching online for “Amrit Kohli”. Mother.”)

    George Floyd was a black man whose name became synonymous with racist police brutality when Floyd was killed by a white police officer in Minneapolis in 2020. This happened when Floyd resisted arrest, according to videos shown in court, after a clerk suspected Floyd of using a counterfeit twenty-dollar bill. Kohli’s song is not one the cops can enjoy.

    In 1999, Oakland County was ruby ​​red, run by Republicans. That year, Bouchard was appointed, filling a vacancy created by the death in office of John Nichols, a former top Detroit cop and former Farmington Hills chief. Since then, Bouchard has become a stunning political paradox. He was elected six times, even as the county went from bright red to bright blue, even as the county gave increasing margins to Democrats, up and down the ballot.

    In 2016, Hillary Clinton won the county by 54,000 votes. In 2020, President Joe Biden took 108,000 — 56 percent of the vote, to Trump’s 42 percent. Both times, Bouchard was victorious. He is the only Republican in county office. Can he win again? The answer depends on whether he remains popular among enough independents and ticket-splitting Democrats to overcome a potential wave of straight-party Democrats led by Kamala Harris — thus automatically endorsing Kohli for sheriff.

    In August, Kohli was the only Democrat running for sheriff on the primary ballot. So even though he said beforehand that he was withdrawing from the race, he won the nomination. With his name on the November ballot, the man whose business card says “Professional Musician” has changed his tune. Last week, Kohli said that if elected, he would serve.

    “If I had the choice, I would. But I don’t want to be chosen. I think I can do good things in other ways,” he said in an interview at his home, adding, “This has always been an experiment. I wanted to learn about politics.”

    He uses the songs he writes, recently recorded with musicians, to promote his key goals: promoting peace in the Middle East and reforming the police in the US, as he explains artistically generous website. Bouchard declined to comment for this story, but said before the primary that he was concerned whether hard-line Democrats might unwittingly support Kohli by voting quick and easy “live party”. on their ballots.

    Bouchard also declined to comment on a campaign flier mailed from a Midland political action committee to Oakland County residents that reads, “Oakland County Democrats: Don’t Vote the Party Line.” The flyer goes on to make three claims about Kohli that it attributes to a Free Press article, one of which is seriously wrong: “I didn’t know he had to be a police officer to serve as sheriff.” This is contrary to Michigan law and contrary to the Free Press article, which stated that any Michigan resident, with or without police experience, can run for county sheriff. The political action committee, Safe Michigan Communities, did not respond to a Free Press request to discuss the flier error.

    Bouchard said he supports a bill in Lansing that would require sheriff candidates to have at least five years of police experience. This bill passed the Michigan House last fall by a landslide. It has since gone to a state Senate committee where it “walked into a quagmire,” said state Rep. Tom Kunse, D-Clare, one of the sponsors of the House bill. “It’s up to Senate Democrats if they want to move it out of committee,” and so far they haven’t, apparently because that would help the bill’s Republican sponsors, Kunse said. He added: “We are not blameless. The Republicans did it.”

    Kohli is affable, easy to talk to and absolutely transparent. He is well known to members of the Oakland County Board of Commissioners, before whom Kohli and other peace activists have often spoken about their desire for a cease-fire in Gaza, sometimes taking 90 minutes of the commission’s public comment period. The commissioners are listening politely, but feel their auditorium in Pontiac is the wrong forum to discuss U.S. foreign policy, said Commissioner Dave Woodward, D-Royal Oak, who chairs the board.

    Woodward said he was surprised when a reporter told him last week of Kohli’s recent decision to resume running for sheriff. Asked if he voted a straight Democratic ticket this fall, adding to Kohli’s tally, Woodward laughed and begged to answer. Then, with a big smile, he talked about how easy it was to split one’s ticket, voting for almost all Democrats, but maybe picking a Republican from Oakland County — clearly, that meant Bouchard.

    However, if Oakland County goes even deeper this election and enough of its residents vote a straight Democratic ticket, Kohli could get away with it. The candidate said he doubted that would happen. Even his own parents will probably vote for Bouchard, Kohli said, explaining, “They live in Bloomfield Hills. They are republicans”.

    Contact Bill Laytner: [email protected].

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