EXCLUSIVE – Newly elected Sheriff Wesley Doolittle talks with Woodlands Online

THE WOODLANDS, TX – After a hotly contested, protracted primary season which included a runoff election to determine who would eventually lead the Montgomery County Sheriff's Office, incumbent Rand Henderson was defeated by challenger Wesley Doolittle, cinching a victory in the unopposed general election last November. At the beginning of this year, Doolittle took his oath of office and assumed the duties of sheriff.

From the early days of the election when there were three men – Doolittle, Henderson, and co-challenger Kenton Ford – who took the stage in a debate that Woodlands Online co-moderated, through the too-tight primary Election Day where the incumbent missed gaining the majority vote by 0.04 percent, into the runoff election that saw a surge in support for the remaining challenger, and through the swearing-in ceremony of the new sheriff, Woodlands Online was there to chart the race and eventual victory of Doolittle.

Recently, Sheriff Doolittle extended an invitation to Woodlands Online to sit down to a one-on-one interview. After meeting with his newly assembled inner circle team, which included familiar faces like Lt. Scott Spencer and new names like Chief Deputy Jonathan Zitzmann, we sat with the sheriff for a candid, conversational question-and-answer session.

Tell us about your personal upbringing and what brought you to your current office.

I'm married. My wife Sherry and I have been married for about 22 years. I have four children – three boys and one girl – and they're all grown for the most part. You know, my wife and I are almost empty nesters. We still have the youngest one that's still at home, and the other three are out doing their thing.

I grew up in Splendora and did my schooling there from about the third or fourth grade through elementary, junior high, and high school there, and then I transferred to Cleveland and I graduated there in 1992.

I started cutting logs and working pipe fit out of high school, stuff like that. I went back to school – nowadays it's Lone Star College but back then it was North Community College – and I wanted to go into law. So I went to the police academy there in 1998 at Lone Star. I did the basic reserve Academy and got enough college credit hours to apply to DPS. So yeah, as a pipe fitter and welder it was a pretty easy task. But you know, taking that step shows you how your trade can benefit you not only in your future, but in all other endeavors. So I went to college again, took online classes, and got my bachelor's degree in criminal justice administration in 2011 from Bellevue University with some more stuff with Lone Star College. In 2017, I went back and got my master's degree at Sam Houston in criminal justice, leadership and management.

So I believe in education and it really does benefit you, in my opinion, to go back when you're older and to have a little bit of life experience when you go to college. I kind of have studied pretty much my whole lifetime to make myself better educated, to take advanced training in my field to be a better policeman.

Next came your journey from college and the Department of Public Safety to becoming a Texas Ranger.

Starting in 2000 I worked for DPS as a highway patrolman. And then I worked in narcotics as a Sergeant. And I always knew I wanted to be a criminal investigator early on. I think when you work patrol, you apply your skill sets and interviewing skills on every traffic stop you make. And if you are good at patrolling, you talk to people when they're the most at risk. You come across people doing all kinds of things that are driving on the highways and streets. So I found out early on that I was a pretty good interviewer, and then through my narcotics background and stuff like that found that I had a real affection for investigations. And I still do, actually. I love interrogating, I love talking to people. What's going on? Where they come from, where they're going, what they've done, you know, to get at least a marginalized truth out of them, to give us enough information to go on to work on our clues and things.

So after working in narcotics as a highway patrolman for about four years or so, I had some buddies in the Rangers and I used to help them a lot, like the scene security or arresting people, or booking people in the Harris County Jail because it's quite a monster down there. So I wound up helping the Rangers a lot. And got to know a couple of them, but particularly Freeman Martin. He's the director of DPS. He's been a friend of mine for a very long time. And when I thought I might test for Ranger, he actually chaired the board that I went to. I didn't just have to prove myself to them. One of our old chiefs, Tony Leal, said, “Rangers aren't made by the Texas Rangers division. You're already a Ranger doing the work of Ranger, having the character of a Ranger, the tenacity and integrity of Ranger in your current position. They just give you the badge and the title.”

I've sat on Ranger interview boards and things like that with DPS and, yeah, you look for those people that you want to work with, the person that you can call at two o'clock in the morning in the worst at times, and know that they're similarly trained. That they have the same initiative, the same tools, the same things that you have to help you succeed in an investigation. So it's pretty cool to be able to rely on that. And know that you've got 165 people trained just like you, that you can call a drop of a hat and it'll benefit any community that you're working in at 254 counties in Texas.

What inspired the run for Montgomery County Sheriff? Was it the next logical step in your career path?

I'll tell you that I was stationed in this office as a Ranger. I did four years here and had an office in the basement here at the Sheriff's Office working with Tommy Gage and Chief Deputy Randy McDaniel. I got to work with the District Attorney, work with the County Judge, work with different people like that in the community, more especially the Sheriff's Office and then the smaller police departments, the constables and things like that. And when I think of the time that I spent here, I look at Tommy Gage. He's the epitome of a Texas sheriff. He's kind, he's social, he's intelligent, and he treats his people well. He knows how to recognize the successes of others and is not ashamed of publicly saying it.

Anyhow, when I was a Ranger, I was going to retire after my 50th birthday. But right before I turned 50, Constable Philip Cash had a captain's position come open at the Precinct 1 Constable's Office. And I've known him for a very long time. And then through my narcotics days and being assigned here as a Ranger, I got to know him pretty well. And he asked me to come help him, kind of improve some of the things he was working on at his agency, even though he'd been there for like seven years at the time. You're constantly looking to change the culture of your agency to improve it and leave it better than you found it. And when I accepted that position with him, I wanted to go over there and help him continue to improve on what he foresaw for the future of that agency.

Now, to be candid, I mentioned Sheriff Gage and I should tell you that he asked me to run for Sheriff last time, but I decided I just wasn't in a position to do so at that time. For reference, he wasn't happy with the direction of the Sheriff's Office, so when he asked me, I started looking at it as a researcher. I started looking at things inside the agency, started talking to people that work here. And it was my belief that it was time for change in the Sheriff's Office. And what I learned about leadership and organizational success is that if you want to change the culture of an agency, you have to change the leadership.

So I decided to run against Rand and bring about my philosophies and the ideas that I might have for this Sheriff's Office that I believe would make it just a little bit better. I don't think it was broken. I believe it needed to have the tires rotated and balanced to be tweaked and put back on the road and get back to work. And since I've been here, that's what I've tried to do.

I can tell you that without good people you cannot be successful. I relied on Scott and Jonathan these guys early on, even before I took the office, even before I swore in I was working with them to get background on our staff, to reach out and get processes and implement change where we could, where we had enough influence with the people working here to go ahead and start changing from the way it's been done to how I might see the future of the agency. It was pretty cool to work with those folks.

How has the reception been from the community concerning the fact that ‘there’s a new sheriff in town?’ Any feedback?

I think it's been good. We can talk about it, but you know, I genuinely think people are happy. I’ve been around a lot and I'm, you know, not a guy that sits in his office. I like to get out and see what's happening in the agency and talk to people, and I've done that a lot over the last several years.

I’m looking at the printout of a new organizational chart you’ve put together. Can you go into details?

Yeah, we redid the organizational chart. You know, I saw that with the old org chart, we had too many people and a lack of accountability throughout the bottom to the top of the agency. So I reorganized the agency and created assistant chief positions that have never existed in the agency prior to my administration; I also did away with the major positions because I don't believe we're there yet. Yet my vision for the agency is to set it up to be sustainable with this model, and at some point if it grows, we can add another chief and another bureau or whatever we need to do to continue to grow and be successful.

In order to limit your span of control, you can only have so many people that work for you before you lose sight of what they're doing on a day-to-day basis. You have to be able to have daily interaction with your people and be able to manage the work that they're not not only producing, but be able to have oversight over them too. In order to do that, you need a span of control. So I wanted to reorganize the agency to add some accountability and extend control so we can start to break things down.

I added or am changing the CID division and taking detectives out of patrol that were answering to patrol supervisors, and am putting them back underneath a criminal investigations division so we can use what we call case management in order to review cases that are there coming in and being assigned. One of the things I talked about in my campaign is the solvability rates of crimes, and one of the problems, I believe, is that we weren't using the case management system on all cases. So when a crime was reported, they weren't being followed up on. And we were leaving a lot of that to patrolmen who worked 12-hour shifts. So they might have two days on, two off, three on, two off, and as their schedules were changing, they weren’t here every day, or they may work nights, and you need to interview people when it's convenient for them. Whether it be victims, suspects, or witnesses, we have to be able to track them down and find them. And if your schedule is not conducive to that environment, it makes it a little bit tougher for you to accomplish that task. So I’m redoing the CID division so by March we'll have that done and it'll be functioning in persons and property crimes and things like that.

[EDITOR’S NOTE: The organizational chart document given to Woodlands Online by Sheriff Doolittle contains the following aspects: Under the reorganization, Majors are reclassified to Assistant Chiefs and are now over Bureaus; Captains / Directors are now over Commands / Services; Lieutenants / Managers are now over ‘Districts,’ ‘Shifts,’ or ‘Divisions;’ and Sergeants are now over ‘Teams,’ ‘Units,’ ‘Squads,’ ‘Groups,’ or ‘Sections.’

From the top down, the organization consists of the Sheriff, then Chief Deputy Zitzmann, then three Assistant Chiefs – Robby Sells for the Support Bureau, Eric Hensley for the Justice Bureau, and Rick Bass for the Operations Bureau. Under Sells, Director Chad Jamieson will lead Logistical Support Services; Assistant Director Michael Holbrook will head Information Technology Services; Captain Johnnie Whiteley will head Staff Support Command; and Captain Jesse Razo will head Homeland Security Command. Under Hensley, 333 staff will handle jail command, shift divisions, courts and security, and special activities divisions. Under Bass, Captains Rhyan Droddy, Tim Holifield, Brian Alms, and John Schmitt will handle the commands of South Patrol, West Patrol, East Patrol, and Criminal Investigations, respectively. Between the three Assistant Chiefs, Financial Services and Internal Affairs will also be covered jointly.]

When Woodlands Online co-moderated the debate, you stated one of the priorities of MCSO was combating the fentanyl and crime coming through our own county borders. Is this still a priority, or has actually assuming the office shifted the vision?

No, they're still high priorities. We've been in the drug war, if you will, for many decades now. I tell you, I’ve worked narcotics. In the course of my business, I’ve bought and offered to sell drugs, busted countless people, conducted undercover operations, done federal conspiracy investigations, and testified in federal court on those types of cases, and you have to have a balanced approach to working narcotics. That means to me that we’re listening to the community, addressing their issues and working not only street-level narcotics to improve quality of life in neighborhoods, but also working up the chain to find out not just who our drug dealers are, but who is supplying them with narcotics, then invoking our federal partners or state partners, working with them to take our investigations further, because a lot of these are going to exceed the borders of Montgomery County.

And I also look at the other things that we need to figure out. This jail was designed to hold 600 people. We have 1,253. We just asked for a variance to add another 60. So put us to 1,317 beds and the same 320,000 square feet that we had since 1987. I’m looking to our County Commissioners Court and to the people in our community to see how we can either mitigate the number of folks in our jail or build out to accommodate the future needs of this agency.

Dispatch is another priority. So we have 73 dispatch employees. And we were 100% full my first month in office. With dispatch being full, being able to address some internal issues with dispatch not just the way that we answer 911 calls, but the way we answer our non-emergency calls as well. We're adding equipment and changing our phone trees so people get a hold of who they need to in the agency without just calling a generic number. And that is something that I'm passionate about. If we can answer people's phone calls, we can help them.

[EDITOR’S NOTE: Since the time of this interview, MCSO has announced its new non-emergency dispatch phone number for law enforcement calls: 936-538-5900.]

Over the past several weeks, it seems that MSCO is announcing near-daily captures of most-wanted criminals and fugitives. Have the number of arrests increased, or just the number of press releases?

No, it’s the arrests. We've stepped it up and we have the US Marshals in with our warrant team, if you will. I met with the District Attorney, talked with about the jail and about approximately 2,700 unserved felony warrants. So we've made it a priority for our warrant team to go out and find those offenders to bring them to our jail so they can be held accountable for their crimes. It's definitely something we're passionate about. I'll do everything I can legally in my power to make sure we're staying safe. One of the ways we can do that is through task force operations. Entering into memorandums of understanding – MOUs – with partner agencies kind of like we do with our auto theft task force. It truly is a force multiplier when you bring other agencies in to assist you. You have to work with them. You have to execute and not just talk about them; plans are great, but if they don't work or if you're not committing to them, it's hard to succeed.

I want to work diligently on holiday operations and things like that, work with our County Commissioners, get funding for additional traffic units. You know, with us being the 7th largest sheriff's agency in the state of Texas, I would expect to see a full time Traffic Unit here for us to be keeping up with. I want to work diligently toward addressing the traffic issues to help us clear accidents, to help people get where they're going to get to their ball games, to get to their date nights, to do things that they can to enjoy this community.

I've already done away with some internal policies where dispatch could only call a Sheriff's Deputy crisis intervention unit and open that up to where any county unit – the closest county unit to someone in crisis – can pick that call up. I did this same thing with canine calls. Instead of it just being a Sheriff's Office canine, it's any canine: County, City, State, whomever is closer to that police officer, that situation that needs to render assistance. I want them to immediately pick that call up and get to those folks to help them without delay.

We also opened up our firing range. We have an indoor firing range here on the complex that historically hasn't been opened up to the constables. So we invited all constables to utilize that range to save money in their budgets and to utilize this range to its fullest potential. Under the last administration, we built a basic Peace Officer Academy here and we're running jail academies there now, which have never been allowed before. We’ve opened it up to some outside agencies to send jailers to when they can't afford to train them. Our neighbor in San Jacinto County is sending some people to our jailer academy, and we would hope to start back to training more police officers in our academy and possibly opening that up to the constables as well.

Montgomery County is a big place. What can Woodlanders expect to see from your new Sheriff’s Office?

I expect to have a great working relationship with The Township. We have a large contract with The Woodlands to provide law enforcement services there. We're looking at expanding those. I've already been to a Township board meeting to talk to them about some of the things we're doing. [Newly elected County Commissioner] Ritch Wheeler and I had a meet-and-greet at his office recently with about 50 people from The Woodlands Economic Development Group down there and I was able to spend several hours with them.

Is there anything else you’d like to have known by our readers?

I would just like to thank the residents of Montgomery County for trusting me with this office. This agency’s existed for 188 years and the people of Montgomery County have entrusted the sheriff, who covers right at 80% of this community, with keeping us safe with answering calls and being involved in the community, and we want to continue to embrace the community and to continue to answer their calls.

I want to be a sheriff of the people that they will see me out in the community and be able to express concerns to me to bring back to these guys so we can work on those concerns, to make it just a little bit safer and to be transparent and efficient in the work that we do. To be responsible with the money that the court gives us. So we use every bit of it efficiently to implement processes to buy equipment and pay our employees to do the job that we expect them to do. I would tell folks that we'll be here and I hope to be here for a long time serving this community. I'm excited about it.