Tim Steller's column: New info justifies recall against Sheriff Nanos

Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos says he'll take the slings and arrows from the public and news media if that means his employees are left alone.

"I'm glad they throw rocks at me, not my team," he told Bill Buckmaster and me during a radio interview Friday. "I'll be your bad guy. I'll be your villain."

The thing is, as time passes, it becomes clear some of the criticism is merited, and it belongs not to his team but to him alone. 

I'm not talking about the fact that he went to the gym four days on a recent Friday-to-Tuesday span while only going to the office twice, according to the New York Post. I'm not talking about him going to a U of A men's basketball game six days after the investigation of Nancy Guthrie's disappearance began.

These are little inanities brought up by people looking for something new to say about an agonizingly slow investigation. It began Feb. 1 and has still not turned up any signs of the 84-year-old Catalina Foothills resident who is the mother of NBC Today Show host Savannah Guthrie.

What I'm talking about are the legitimate problems raised by his oversight of the investigation, his public comments and his newly revealed background. Things like Nanos: 

— Saying at first there was no broader threat to the public, then weeks later saying there could be, then clarifying people should take normal precautions.

— Speculating publicly about the case, talking about scenarios and his "theory" as if he were a true-crime podcaster instead of the sheriff overseeing the investigation.

— Releasing the crime scene to the family, which allowed people to traipse up to the home, before resealing it days later.

— Obscuring the fact that he was asked to resign or be fired at the El Paso Police Department before he was hired in Pima County in 1984.

— Testifying just three months ago that he had not been suspended from his job when in reality it had happened eight times in El Paso.

After spending nearly an hour with Nanos and Buckmaster at Bustos Media studios Friday, I'm not prepared to call for him to resign. What keeps me from that is the fact that he has a four-decade record in Pima County that came after his tempestuous time in El Paso. That's largely what we voted on when he ran for sheriff in 2016, 2020 and 2024. 

But Nanos, a Democrat, only won by 495 votes when he defeated Republican Heather Lappin in 2024. It's easy to imagine he would have lost if voters knew of Nanos' rocky record in El Paso and the way it was obscured by official bios suggesting he had transitioned seamlessly from El Paso to Pima County in 1984. 

That's why I'm supporting the idea of a recall, even if I have severe doubts that it can be accomplished. Daniel Butierez, the Republican congressional candidate, pulled the petitions and is leading the effort. It requires 120,000 valid signatures in 120 days. That's a hard task for anybody, and Butierez hasn't shown great aptitude in campaigning. 

So far, for example, there is no web page for the recall, something that should have been done before the petitions were pulled, so that people could know how to sign before the clock started counting down. 

'Betrayed the trust'

Pima County Supervisor Matt Heinz has long been a critic of Nanos, even though they are both Democrats. Heinz supported Lappin, the Republican, in the last election.

Now Heinz says Nanos "has perpetrated a fraud on the people of Pima County for four decades," and he wants Nanos to resign. He's considering asking his colleagues to use an old territorial law to call Nanos before the supervisors to testify under oath, a law recently used by the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors with Recorder Justin Heap.

Heinz's current critiques center on the way the sheriff kept from view his record in El Paso. That record, revealed by the Arizona Republic, shows he was suspended eight times in six years for a total of 37 days.

That record should have prevented him from being hired by Pima County as a corrections officer in 1984, Heinz said, and from being promoted to deputy months later. Nanos' whole career, in that sense, is fruit of a poison tree, Heinz argues.

What makes it worse is that Nanos was asked during sworn testimony in a December deposition whether he had ever been suspended. He answered "no." Potentially, that amounts to perjury. Heinz questioned how many times Nanos, who has held numerous positions throughout the sheriff's department, has testified the same way when asked that same routine question by attorneys over the years.

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"He can't continue," Heinz said Thursday. "He's betrayed the trust of the community."

The Pima County Deputy's Organization, the bargaining unit for deputies, also voted in favor of a no-confidence resolution, with 241 voting for it, 65 abstaining, and none voting against it. 

Nanos said Friday that he interpreted the question as referring to his time in the Pima County Sheriff's Department.

"When they asked the question… I'm thinking of right here in Pima County, 42 years back. I can't think of ever being suspended.

"But I also said throughout the entire interview — because it was six hours — throughout the entire deposition, I told them, 'Look, if you're going to use this and you have documentation or you find something, go with that, because that's going to be a lot more accurate than anything I can recall, I guarantee you.'"

Heart on his sleeve

Police chiefs, sheriffs and federal special agents-in-charge can be annoyingly programmed and dull in their public statements. Nanos is not that.

He has always worn his heart on his sleeve. It's not uncommon to see him tear up, as he did Friday when revealing that his older brother died during the first week of the Nancy Guthrie investigation, in the days before he attended the U of A basketball game.

Sometimes, though, what the situation calls for is the airline-pilot demeanor, the one that is boring, calming and sticks closer to the script. For example, in the early days of the Guthrie investigation, he said in an interview, "We know she was harmed at the home," then walked that back.

He apologized for spelling out scenarios in interviews and said he wasn't used to being held "accountable for what I say." Even Friday, he referred to his "theory" of what happened to Guthrie, something he'd touched on in an NBC interview. 

"The conversation I had with NBC News was about theories, and I gave my theory. Others have given their theories. Maybe it was a burglary gone bad, all those things."

It's strange to hear a sheriff discuss "theories" when it comes to an ongoing criminal investigation he is overseeing, as if he were a podcaster or streamer. It verges on speculation, which is not helpful coming from the authorities.

Dupnik heir apparent

Nanos is not, as he has often said, a natural politician. He only came into the office because he was the man longtime Sheriff Clarence Dupnik picked as his heir apparent before retiring. 

After losing to Republican Mark Napier in 2016, Nanos won twice, but underperformed other Democratic candidates in this increasingly Democratic county. In 2024, when Nanos won by less than 1/10 of 1 percentage point, little-known Democratic candidate for county treasurer Brian Johnson beat his Republican opponent Chris Ackerley by eight percentage points. Nanos' campaign had only about 45 donors outside his family. 

That shows something that Nanos acknowledged Friday — he doesn't really have a political support base. 

"I hope it's the average Joe citizen," Nanos said.

When I asked Sgt. Aaron Cross, who has been Nanos' nemesis as head of the Pima County Deputy's Organization, whether Nanos has a political base, he suggested it's just in the upper ranks of the sheriff's department.

"Unless they have a rank that pays six figures, I don’t think you’re going to find them," he said.

Joe Average may have slightly favored Nanos in 2024, but I question whether that Pima County citizen still supports him after seeing his performance in the Guthrie investigation and learning of the sketchy way his past was obscured.

A new election is the best way to find out.