Dave O’Malley no longer Sheriff of Albany County
Once hailed as progressive reformer, O’Malley decries ‘anti-cop rhetoric’ of local activists in resignation letter
Dave O’Malley resigned from his elected post as Albany County Sheriff this week, more than a month before his originally planned retirement and almost two years before the end of his term.
The resignation was made official Monday during a meeting of the Albany County Commission and comes after two years of intense and sustained public scrutiny over the handling of a police-involved killing in 2018.
“I fully realize that there is a sector of our community who believes I have made some poor decisions,” O’Malley writes in his resignation letter. “I also understand that there are many who remain supportive of me and our Office. I have enjoyed an exemplary career until recently and much of that is fraught with misconception and misinformation.”
On Nov. 4, 2018, Albany County Sheriff’s Deputy Derek Colling shot Robbie Ramirez three times, twice in the back, following a traffic stop. Ramirez, who battled mental illness, was not the first person Colling killed.
Formerly with the Las Vegas Police Department, Colling was one of many officers involved in the shooting of a domestic violence suspect in 2006, and the sole officer who shot to death a 15-year-old boy with bipolar disorder in 2009. Both shootings were ruled justified but Colling was fired in 2011 after another violent incident, having beaten a bystander who was filming him.
O’Malley was aware of this history of violence when he hired Colling in 2012, later defending his decision despite public criticism. Following Ramirez’ death, O’Malley again defended Colling. O’Malley said he had no regrets, but did begin discussing retirement with his wife in the days after the shooting.
Colling remains employed with the Albany County Sheriff’s Office and a grand jury failed to indict him in 2019.
Meanwhile, the group Albany County for Proper Policing (ACoPP) formed to demand consequences for both Colling and O’Malley while pushing for reforms such as the implementation of a civilian oversight board.
Karlee Provenza, representative-elect for Wyoming House District 45, was one of the group’s early leaders, and said the sustained public scrutiny of O’Malley played no small part in his decision to leave.
“I do think that ACoPP’s role and the community’s resentment of some of the things that have come out of that sheriff’s office has driven Dave O’Malley to want to not finish out his term and go to Florida,” Provenza said.
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“I leave my profession with my head held high and the knowledge that I have mentored many young men and women throughout the years,” O’Malley writes. “I implore you to not hold feelings about my tenure against the women and men of the Albany County Sheriff’s Office. They don’t deserve that. Our Office needs to move forward with confidence and continuity. Our people need to have a Sheriff that they can have confidence in, who is collaborative with staff and outside entities, and who are competent in the myriad of functions of the Office of Sheriff.”
The matter of O’Malley’s replacement is a hotly contested issue in Albany County, an issue that has brought the county commission and the local Democratic Party to court.
As a registered Democrat, O’Malley’s early resignation triggered an internal party process of nominating new individuals to take over for the remainder of the sheriff’s four-year term.
The county party will ultimately select three finalists and present them to the Albany County Commission, which then selects O’Malley’s replacement from among the three finalists.
Deadlines for the various parts of this process have been a point of debate between the party and the commission. Originally, the party was tasked with presenting finalists within 15 days of the county’s acceptance of O’Malley’s retirement, which would have been in September.
Busy with heated local races for State House, County Commission and other seats, the Albany County Democrats argued that since no vacancy currently existed — and wouldn’t until early January — the party should have more time to identify finalists.
District Court Judge Tori Kricken agreed and granted a preliminary injunction.
“We’ve used that additional time granted by the preliminary injunction to proceed with a thorough screening and selection process,” said Carrie Murthy, chair of the Albany County Democrats. “We were able to really listen carefully to what we were hearing from the community and invite and solicit public input about the qualities that they would like to see in a new sheriff.”
That thorough process is essential for preserving democratic ideals, Murthy said, since the position of sheriff is publicly elected. An upcoming candidate forum on Dec. 2 will further that goal, allowing for more public input before the party narrows its field of nominees to three finalists.
“We’re trying to give the public that opportunity that they would normally have in an election,” Murthy said. “A candidate forum is something we would typically see in an election year and so this will mimic that to the extent that we can.”
O’Malley has so far been disgusted by the party’s efforts to name his replacement, according to his resignation letter, alleging that none of the candidates he has seen so far are worthy of the office.
“The process also struck me as a bit incestuous,” O’Malley writes. “One of the candidates is a co-founder of Albany County for Proper Policing. Another candidate is a former intern who alleges our Office has a culture of racism and homophobia, and provided a video of the same for ACoPP … one of the persons on the selection committee is another co-founder of ACoPP. Does anyone see a conflict there other than me? The anti-cop rhetoric is real and counterintuitive to meaningful communication and mediation.”
That former intern, now candidate, alleging a culture of racism and homophobia is Alexander Simon. In a video interview with ACoPP, Simon describes an environment at the Albany County Detention Center in which deputies allegedly called inmates of color “monkeys” and the “n-word,” while joking about an “impending race war.”
“It wasn’t just jokes,” Simon alleges in the video. “There were different instances where the conversation and the tone was much more serious.”
Simon also alleged differential treatment between inmates of different races, the use of solitary confinement as a punishment for trivial matters, and even a deputy using homophobic slurs while discussing Matthew Shepard.
“I don’t think Dave O’Malley is going to change anything,” Simon states in the video. “I think he’s made that pretty clear through the whole Robbie Ramirez thing. I mean the fact that Colling was hired in the first place is just a travesty. Like, anybody with a brain wouldn’t have hired him.”
Simon’s description of the sheriff’s office stands in stark contrast to the image it has held for decades. Following the murder of Matthew Shepard in 1998 and the national spotlight that incident put on Laramie and Albany County, O’Malley became a voice for hate and bias crime legislation — a fact he touted in his resignation letter to the Albany County Democrats.
O’Malley, who began his career in law enforcement as a Republican, lobbied alongside Shepard’s parents and the Human Rights Campaign for what became known as the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crime Prevention Act. O’Malley and his wife were even present when President Barack Obama signed that act into law in 2009.
The former sheriff also highlights his advocacy among and interaction with high-profile figures such as Democratic National Committee Chairman Tom Perez, former President Bill Clinton, and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris.
“I am trying to illustrate that when there are extremely important issues that are close to my heart, I work hard to garner the support to address those, whether I am a Democrat or a Republican,” O’Malley writes. “I cannot and will not buy into blind partisanship. If our national and local leaders don’t start working together across party lines, I am confident the divisiveness will continue and quality of life will further degenerate.”
The perception of police, the attractiveness of law enforcement as a career and the zeitgeist surrounding issues such as the War on Drugs, hate crimes, and police brutality have changed dramatically throughout the years that O’Malley helmed the Albany County Sheriff’s Office.
While it has been more than three decades since the release of N.W.A.’s classic track “Fuck tha Police,” and nearly as long since the filmed beating of Rodney King, many Americans — especially white Americans — have only just started to demand police reform in the past year.
Following the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, marches and protests erupted across the country, including in Wyoming. Whether it was for civilian oversight boards, termination of violent cops, defunding the police, or abolishing the institution of policing altogether, people marched in every major city in the United States and countless smaller communities.
In Laramie, daily marches on Grand Avenue — with crowd sizes occasionally topping 1000 participants — voiced the national cry for police accountability in explicitly local terms, chanting “Fuck Derek Colling!” alongside more generalizable chants like “Black Lives Matter!” and “No Justice, No Peace” — chants that echoed out across the country.
The Laramie Human Rights Network, which organized the marches, is still active and has drawn the ire of militia groups touting unfounded fears about outside agitators. While tensions run high, weapons have been drawn, and individuals — including Boogaloo Boys — have shown up to marches heavily armed, no one has been seriously injured during a Laramie protest.
The Laramie City Council passed a resolution in June to consider a civilian oversight board and identify calls during which a mental health professional, rather than law enforcement officer, could respond. But both the city council and county commission have faced criticism, alongside the Sheriff’s Office and Albany County Prosecuting Attorney Peggy Trent, for their handling of the Colling incident.
The Albany County Democrats plan to select their three finalists a few days after the Dec. 2 forum and commissioners expressed a desire during the meeting Monday to decide on O’Malley’s replacement soon after.
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