Broome County Sheriff David E. Harder will be running for re-election in November. The sheriff sat down with Pipe Dream to discuss his work as a sheriff, his interaction with Binghamton University and about his opponent, Raymond Schaffer.
Pipe Dream: What are your interactions with BU students?
DH: I haven’t had as much action as I used to. It used to be an awful lot. Mostly negative. Before I became a sheriff, I spent 25 years on narcotics, so I did a lot of search warrants on campus. I had to smuggle Henry Kissinger in one time. There were a bunch of protesters and he had to give a lecture [on campus]. Over the years people have changed at the University. They used to be very nice, and then as the “hippy days,” [ended] with the [start of the] Vietnam War, they stopped going like this [waves hand] and started going like this [sticks up middle finger]. And that’s reversed. Now they start waving again, and [they] speak nicely.
PD: Has your life ever been at risk throughout your history in law enforcement?
DH: Yes. I remember a number of years ago, I went to serve a parking ticket on a guy and he pulled a shotgun on me. Never thought to draw my gun, I was so peeved at him. I started yelling at him and screaming [laughs]. But, you know, you take risks all the time. Trying to sneak up on a building when someone’s burglarizing it — you take a risk when you’re going out on a domestic, those are small risks.
PD: What is your philosophy about law enforcement?
DH: Law enforcement is there for a purpose: the purpose is to protect the laws that the government sets up. Do I agree with all the [laws]? No. If I catch you for speeding, do I write that ticket for speeding or not? I might say, “Look, don’t do that again.” Other times I may write that ticket and hand it to you. It depends on the attitude of the person who I stop. Sometimes it depends on the violation. How bad was the speeding?
[With drugs, I would arrest them.] In fact, by arresting them you are actually helping them. Trying to force somebody to get help won’t work, but you have to try somewhere along the line. Maybe once they get into a program, they’ll accept it, but most people don’t want to accept that they have a problem.
PD: Many people have compared the rescue in Broome County during the summer to the recovery of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. Why do you think the recovery over here was so much more successful than in New Orleans?
DH: Maybe it’s because we were a little more organized. We got a lot of help from fire departments all over the state. We had other sheriffs’ offices come in and help us with traffic situations. We had to close down roads and they helped us stay there the whole night. We worked 12-hour shifts, so maybe that was it. I always refer to it as a mini-Katrina. We were very lucky. We had no injuries, no fatalities. We were prepared to look for bodies within a day after it occurred. We had a situation where body bags were brought in, we had undertaker associations prepared to help us take care of the [potential] bodies, but we didn’t have that situation, thank goodness, to take care of. We had a lot of property damage. There were over 100 homes that had to be destroyed in Conklin itself.
PD: What separates candidates in an election for sheriff?
DH: What their experiences have been over the years. Where they come from and what they do. A sheriff does not have to be a law enforcement officer to get the job. It’s up to the people of the county to determine who they want.