Tim Steller's column: Nanos' anger arises as Pima County sheriff campaign issue

The item appeared on the Pima County Board of Supervisors agenda on a Friday last September.

It raised the idea of calling for an outside investigation into how the Pima County Sheriff's Department handled an alleged sexual assault by a sheriff's sergeant of a deputy. 

By Sunday evening, two days before the vote on the item occurred, the supervisors had already received their retaliation from Sheriff Chris Nanos.

"Effective immediately, the Sheriff’s Department will no longer be responsible for Board security," Nanos said in an email. "I believe existing contracted security is available at a lesser cost to taxpayers."

Over time, the two sides worked it out, and sheriff's deputies still staff the board meetings. But critics of Nanos, who is running for re-election, point to the episode as representing a harmful tendency: He gets angry at people who cross him and retaliates. 

Most often, they say, the retaliation went against employees of the department, often through transferring them to shifts or jobs they don't want. 

Nanos, in an interview Friday, acknowledged his threat to pull deputies from the board meetings resulted from that item being put on the board's agenda. 

"That’s making a political statement, because that’s all that was on their part was a political statement," he said. 

"But that’s not disciplining anyone," he noted. "I get mad, yeah, but I never discipline when I’m mad."

More broadly, he said, people who are complaining they were retaliated against through job transfers just aren't seeing the big picture of major shifts that were required all over the department at the beginning of his term. With around a dozen members of the command staff leaving and stagnant units needing change, many people were moved to new jobs. 

Break with chief deputy

Among those speaking out against Nanos on these grounds now is his one-time chief deputy, Rick Kastigar, who left in March 2023 after 46 years in the department. The two of them had worked together for decades when Nanos asked Kastigar to serve as chief deputy in the current term, beginning January 2021.

"I learned within a couple of months, he would become a tyrant, a micromanager, and one of the most vindictive individuals I have ever encountered as a boss," Kastigar told me Thursday. 

He likened working for Nanos to being in a family with domestic violence. In the case of Nanos, Kastigar said, it's metaphorical violence, verbal attacks. 

"He will beat you up, beat you down, then apologize and expect you to be loyal," Kastigar said. 

Kastigar left, he said, after intervening in what he called "a red-faced, sweat on the brow, profane rant" against another chief.

"As I attempted to calm this down, Chris turned on me and effectively ordered me out of the building."

This is not, as you might expect, the same way Nanos recalls the episode. Nanos said Friday that Kastigar had been causing problems among his bureau chiefs for a long time.

"Rick said it was like domestic violence in the office," he said later in a text. "I'm sure at time it was, but my sense is he was the biggest provocateur."

This argument, Nanos said Friday, was simply when his patience with Kastigar ran out. 

"I said, 'Rick, this is not going to work,' " Nanos recalled.

Retaliation alleged

The idea that Nanos retaliates, intimidates and employs favoritism based on loyalty was one of the themes of a press conference held Tuesday by supporters of his challenger, sheriff's department Lt. Heather Lappin.  

Sgt. Aaron Cross, who is president of the Pima County Deputies Organization, appeared at the press conference and in a later interview related how he thinks he was a victim.  The union he heads opposes Nanos and supports Lappin, whereas a competing union, the Pima County Deputy Sheriffs Association, supports Nanos. 

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In early 2023, when he assumed his role with the union, he took a survey of members that found low morale and low support for Nanos, he said.  After he shared the results with the sheriff, he was transferred from working overnight patrol shifts to working Monday-Friday daytime shifts in the department's civil unit.

This might seem like a good change to most people. But working nights was a way for Cross to take care of his young children in the day while his wife, who works in the daytime, took care of them at night. With the change, they couldn't do that anymore. 

"It was done to publicly embarrass me," Cross said. "Everyone knew I didn’t want to go to civil."

It also forced the family to pay for additional childcare for their kids.

Nanos said the transfer wasn't punishment at all. It was a way to expose Cross, who had worked midnight shifts in the San Xavier District for a long time, to new duties and give others exposure to that busy area. 

Many officers have challenging family situations, he noted. "That doesn't mean you get to lock down a shift for 14-15 years." 

Depletion of trust

Sgt. Michael Walsh said he went to Nanos in April 2022 with concerns about getting needed training for the SWAT team he led. But while he was there, he also expressed his objection to the firing of a part-time medic who worked with SWAT.

He thought the conversation went well. 

"I thought we cleared the air a lot," Walsh said Friday. "I had learned some things he needed from me."

But what got back to him, eventually, was that the sheriff didn't like the way he questioned the medic's firing. In January 2023, he was removed from the leadership of SWAT and put into a patrol division. He finally left SWAT altogether. 

Walsh thinks the transfer was retaliation and that such moves have depleted the whole organization of trust. 

"Commanders are scared to step up and defend their guys because they know there’s going to be retaliation," he said. 

Nanos called Walsh "a good man and a good cop" but said he wanted to open up opportunities for others.

"Some of these jobs are really cool jobs," Nanos said. "There's other people who also want a chance to shine and do those jobs. You shouldn't be able to lock them down."

Support for Nanos

The rank-and-file isn't unified in viewing Nanos as a raging retaliator. Eric Cervantez, president of the Pima County Deputy Sheriffs Association, ranked Nanos above his predecessor, Republican Mark Napier, whom his union sued twice, including over retaliation.

"There is no retaliation," Cervantez said of the transfers and changes other deputies have complained about. "No, it’s part of training. It’s part of growth. It’s part of change that needs to happen."

I can see the argument. As Nanos put it to me, "Some of those people who are going to be moved are not going to be happy with Chris Nanos. But I’m not here to make them happy. I’m here to serve a community and oversee a department."

But I can't ignore the flashing anger. It was evident, I thought, when Nanos and Lappin debated. Nanos' seething was so plain that Lappin, at one point, said, "I'm sorry if I upset you."

The retaliation claims may not be as clear as they first appear, but the anger is real. And even if it didn't come into play in the many transfers and changes Nanos made, it clearly gets in the way of relationships. 

Of the four Democrats on the Pima County Board of Supervisors, only one has announced his support for Nanos — Rex Scott. Part of Scott's reasoning, he said, is that he won't vote for any Republican who doesn't publicly reject Donald Trump.

Another Democratic Supervisor, Matt Heinz, said he's supporting the Republican, Lappin. "I don’t think he’s fit for the position. That’s why I’m supporting someone who is," Heinz said.

The other two Democratic supervisors, Adelita Grijalva and Sylvia Lee, haven't endorsed either candidate, and neither has Pima County Attorney Laura Conover, also a Democrat, who said she's staying neutral since she must work with whoever is elected. 

Getting mad and lashing out, even if the conflicts get worked out later, just isn't a great way of working with people.