Michigan Sheriff Wins Election on Seeking Progressive Reforms

Former social worker and Deputy Sheriff Alyshia Dyer (D) made history as Washtenaw County’s (Ann Arbor and surrounding areas) first female sheriff-elect after running unopposed in the general election after narrowly winning the Democratic primary in August.

Dyer’s platform centered around jail reform, mental health in law enforcement, and public safety. She plans to bring back in-person jail visitation and improve jail safety and staffing. During her campaign, Dyer highlighted the need for mental health support for officers to ensure the community is served effectively. Prioritizing inclusivity and social justice, Dyer plans on addressing gun violence through an unarmed community crisis response team that will deescalate potential threats with trained personnel. 

One of the main issues at the center of the competitive democratic primary centered around the Driving Equality Ordinance, which passed easily in 2023 in Ann Arbor, the progressive college town that often welcomes reform. The measure prohibits officers from pulling drivers over for small infractions, allowing them to send drivers a ticket in the mail instead.

When Ann Arbor City Council member Cynthia Harrison began her initiative to stop police from pulling over drivers for minor violations, she listened to constituents who raised the issue of being stopped and sometimes searched for things like a broken tail light or expired registration. But for her, it was also personal; as a mother of Black men, she knew the feeling of fear and worry that sinks in for many drivers when they see flashing lights in the rearview mirror.

“When I knew my youngest son was on the road, I was nervous all the time. I was on edge. When he called me, sometimes it was like my heart would stop," Harrison said.

Nearly half of the 27,000 stops by sheriff’s officers in Washtenaw County in 2023 happened in Ypsilanti Township, where Black people make up a higher portion of the population than Ann Arbor and the county at large, according to census data. 

Dyer advocated for the Driving Equality Ordinance on non-safety traffic stops and said she would scale the policy across the entire county if elected. “Traffic enforcement can often be a gateway for funneling people into the legal system. And even if you don’t get a ticket, it can cause a lot of trauma for people,” Dyer said. “Blanketing communities by making these low-level stops… I think all it does is criminalize the neighborhood instead of investing in the neighborhood to make it safer.”

 Dyer’s proposal aims to end the indirect quotas by limiting the authority of sheriff’s deputies to pull drivers over for low-level infractions, including many of the same equipment and registration issues. Such a policy would have an immediate effect on traffic stops in Ypsilanti Township, Superior Township, and rural parts of the county where sheriff’s deputies routinely patrol. Shifting the culture within the department is equally important, Dyer said, and that’s something that must be achieved by restructuring the way officers are evaluated.