Benton County Sheriff's race draws familiar foes

BENTONVILLE -- Benton County voters may feel a sense of deja vu when they come to the Republican primary for sheriff, with the same two candidates who faced each other in the 2016 general election.

Shawn Holloway and Glenn Latham are both running for the Republican nomination for sheriff. The winner has no opposition in the November general election. The primary election is May 22. Early voting begins Monday.

The office has an annual salary of $100,555.50, and the term will increase from two years to four years beginning in 2019.

Holloway and Latham also were on the ballot for sheriff in the 2016 general election, with Holloway running as a Republican and Latham as an independent. Holloway won with 72 percent of the vote.

Latham said he has always been a Republican, but decided to run as an independent candidate in 2016 after seeing how crowded the party primary was going to be, with four candidates in addition to himself.

"My heart told me to run as a Republican, but my head told me something different, so I ran as an independent," Latham said. "Law enforcement is nonpartisan."

Latham said his focus as sheriff would be on serving the rural areas of the county. He said deputies spending time inside cities, which have their own police departments, are not available to rural residents who have no other law enforcement agencies. He said deputies in cities are slower to respond to calls in rural areas.

"I have talked to people in the rural areas, and they're telling me they have a two-hour wait for a deputy to respond on a burglary call," Latham said. "Some are not getting a physical response at all, they're getting a phone call.

"The sheriff's office primary responsibility is to the citizens who live in the rural areas," Latham said.

Holloway said he has increased the number of deputies in the field and increased the time they spend patrolling in rural areas. He noted deputies must routinely travel through cities because of the county's population growth, He also said the deputies have law enforcement responsibilities while they are inside those cities.

"We have moved deputies out into the unincorporated areas," Holloway said. "I have also told the deputies that when you see a possible crime in progress or a serious traffic problem you have to act accordingly."

Holloway said one way he is working to keep deputies in the field is by opening substations throughout the county. The sheriff's office has substations in the Prairie Creek area, Avoca, Siloam Springs and Gravette and is looking at other locations, he said.

Holloway said he has worked to restore the office's credibility and rebuild the relationships with other law enforcement agencies in the wake of former Sheriff Kelley Cradduck's resignation. Cradduck resigned in 2016 after he was charged with tampering with public documents, a felony; and tampering, a misdemeanor. Cradduck later pleaded no contest to the misdemeanor.

"We work hand-in-hand with all of the police departments in Benton County," he said. "That includes offering training and assistance to the smaller departments. We worked with Lowell police on the recent homicide they had because they didn't have the resources we had."

NW News on 05/06/2018