Former jail administrator officially enters sheriff race
Web Posted: 11/15/2007 09:53 PM CST
Amadeo Ortiz talks like an insider who wants to mend frayed relationships at the Bexar County Sheriff's Office, but circumstances have recast his campaign as the reform candidate voters should trust.Ortiz on Thursday announced he is seeking the Democratic party nomination for sheriff.
The retired jail administrator has long eyed the top slot, but he waited for years as his boss, former Sheriff Ralph Lopez, breezed to re-election repeatedly.
Lopez had said he would not run again. Then he surprised Ortiz, who had begun making preparations, by saying he would. But Ortiz stayed in the race.
On Aug. 31, Lopez resigned while being investigated for his handling of the jail commissary contract. Four days later he pleaded no contest to misdemeanor charges.
One change that Lopez's shifting fortunes have wrought on Ortiz's campaign is in the rhetoric, now taking shape as a call for reform.
In his speech, Ortiz used the language of a longtime insider. The biggest problem in the Sheriff's Office, he said, is the conflict between detention officers and law enforcement officers.
"I will be fair to both sides while steering the organizational ship forward," Ortiz said.
But he reserved his warmest thanks for the endorsement of Combined Law Enforcement Associations of Texas, or CLEAT, whose spokesman framed the campaign issues in broader terms of betrayal and renewal.
"Things that seemed sure and upright now seem not so sure, and shaky, and unseemly," said Charley Wilkison, CLEAT public affairs director.
Wilkison said sheriff's employees "have had their hearts broken. They've been colored with the same brush as those who have intentionally or knowingly broken the laws."
Ortiz, he said, "can shoot and think."
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