~ By Chuck DeSocio
Cecil County Sheriff candidate Al Michael
The Examiner recently had the opportunity to speak with Mr. Alan Michael who is a candidate for Cecil County Sherriff. This race has a packed field with 5 candidates currently on the ballot. The current sheriff is Barry Janney and he is the incumbent in this race.
Mr. Michael was very informed of the issues and of criminal justice in general and it was a pleasure to speak with him. Mr. Michael has been a Cecil County resident for 33 years. He has been married to his wife for twenty eight years and has three children.
There is no doubt that his qualifications and experience qualify him to be Sheriff. Mr. Michael holds a Bachelor of Science degree from Wilmington University in Criminal Justice. He served his country in the United States Air Force from 1971-1974. In 1977 he joined the Maryland State Police where he served as a First Sergeant/Detective Sergeant before retiring with 25 1/2 years of active service years in 2002. During this time he also served in the Delaware Air National Guard from 1978-2002, retiring as a Chief Master Sergeant. He has also been on the adjunct staff at Cecil College since 1980 as an instructor for all law enforcement related courses.
Mr. Michael then moved on to serve as an investigator in the States Attoney’s Office before becoming the Chief of Police for the town of Rising Sun where he served until 2008. He currently works as a Detective Lieutenant for the Department of Public Safety and CorrectionalServices in the Internal Investigation Unit.
“I am entering this race because I know that I am highly qualified to be your Sheriff in Cecil County” says Michael. “As your Sheriff I would be keenly aware of and be involved in all the inner workings of the Sheriff’s Department.” My qualifications and [the] experience that I would bring to the office of Sheriff would benefit Cecil County. I intend to lead the Department into the future and raise the quality of law enforcement in Cecil County.” he continued.
When asked about the increasing trend of violent crime in the county he stressed the need for more manpower. “In comparison to other counties in the state we are behind in the number of officers we utilize. Harford County for example, has 300 sworn deputies and 150 correctional officers and, although they have a higher population, we are far behind them” he said. “This is mainly due to budgetary shortfalls. Police work is like a business in that there has to be a proper budget in place to fund it which is why I would be a strong advocate in lobbying county officials for a budget increase” he said.
When asked for his thoughts on the contributing factors to the high increase of violent crime in Cecil county (a nearly 12% uptick), he attributed it to two factors: drugs and the poor economy. “Drugs are prevalent all over the county. Most of the crimes in the county whether it be theft, burglary or violence are drug related” he said. “Education and training are also crucial factors in combating the drug problem” says Michael. We need to not only have more deputies out on patrols but we need to have better trained deputies so they are more knowledgeable in the latest techniques.”
Communication is also an important factor in fighting local crime according to Mr. Michael. “Overall cooperation between state, county and local jurisdictions is just not where it should be and information is not flowing between agencies as it should” he says “I have personal friends in all of the local law enforcement agencies and it would be a priority of mine to use these relationships to build a strong county wide network of agencies to assist the drug task force in getting narcotics off county streets” he said.
When asked about gang violence he points out that gang activity is not to the point where it is out of control in Cecil County yet but he advocates for a strong proactive approach. “We need to get ahead of this because we could find ourselves in a situation similar to Harford County where certain areas like Edgewood are becoming focal points for gang activity” he said. “If we don’t get on top of the drug problem in this county we will find ourselves in a very similar situation where gangs will begin to move in more and more and set up shop. This is why we need more manpower now before it’s too late”
While The Examiner will not endorse any candidate we strongly encourage readers to take a closer look at this candidate. Mr. Alan Michael is well informed with fresh ideas and has extensive experience in law enforcement making him fully qualified to lead the counties’ law enforcement efforts.
We have reached out to all the candidates in the race for Sheriff and will report further as they make themselves available. The Cecil County Examiner aims to provide fair and balanced coverage of this election to residents and we thank Mr. Alan Michael for making himself available for our questions.
Cecil County Examiner 