EP Sheriff-Elect Touts Civilian Social Services Unit

El Paso’s new sheriff, Oscar Ugarte will take office in January.  Ugarte, a Democrat, defeated his Republican opponent with 59% of the county vote.

The El Paso Times ran an article describing Ugarte as El Paso’s “Progressive” new sheriff.  The word “progressive” has become a verboten word in the new American right wing.  Ugarte was featured front-and-center on a pro-Collin Allred television commercial (Allred lost to Ted “The Blizzard Dodger” Cruz).

So? He’s a Democrat in a democratic county who supported another Democrat. What else makes Oscar Ugarte “progressive”?

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Let’s discuss his plan to form a “Civilian Social Services Unit.” The plan is to dispatch social workers to scenes with strife but nothing criminal.

“When deputies go out an there’s a broken family but it’s not criminal, I want to send out social workers”, Ugarte told The Times.  This is the exact kind of policy that Fox News and others pillory as part of the “woke” agenda. I can only imagine the Maga reaction the first time a social worker is injured or killed in the line of duty.

But I think Ugarte is right on this issues. In Blue states as well as Red, there is a disturbing track record of police going out to a family squabble or a family member having a mental health issue. The results are sometimes fatal, and not usually to the officer.  An elderly Las Cruces woman was shot and killed in Las Cruces in 2022 for holding a knife in her own home. She was suffering from dementia and when her family called for help, the last thing the imagined was that their mother would be dead. Las Cruces ended up settling a nearly $3 million lawsuit with the family.

You’ve heard, I’m sure, the analogy about the hammer. When all you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail. The same goes for a gun, sadly. The officer returned to the force because, apparently, he followed protocol.

Ugarte is wise beyond his 41 years. He knows that the presence of an armed officer is warranted in some cases but not in others. Ugarte says social workers with the Civilian Unit would, unarmed, get at the root issues (elder-dementia, mental health, etc.)  and offer solutions that don’t require gunfire.