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Wesley Mallary
Wesley Mallary is a former US Army Ranger, and he has plans to reshape the Cibola County Sheriff’s Office. For Mallary, whose family was the victim of an unsolved crime on Zuni Canyon, the sheriff’s office has failed to protect the people of Cibola County, and he wants to change it to be more productive and efficient.
In the Army, Mallary served as a Financial Liability Officer. As an FLO, Mallary was responsible for ensuring that soldiers paid their dues, from rent to other financial responsibilities they had, it was Mallary’s responsibility to ensure soldiers stayed in line. With his time as an FLO, Mallary has a strong understanding of the justice system, he would manage investigations of soldiers, and would write recommendations – after his investigation – to the lawyers, as a lieutenant he would handle several investigations a month. This was not his only responsibility in the Army, however. He spent much of time managing assets in Afghanistan, and was responsible for keeping the sky clear of enemy aircraft. Mallary said he has extensive experience managing large quantities of assets and deploying them strategically.
“I was boots on the ground, I would be with an infantry unit and go door-to-door and we would collect the bad guys. In the 75th Ranger Regiment, we would go after high-value targets… as an officer your primarily in an admin role. We would seek out resources for our team and develop plans. We’re not really subject matter experts – we would seek out the subject matter experts and go from there,” Mallary said.
Mallary said that, if elected as sheriff, he will work to rebuild public trust. He said that it seems to him that people don’t trust the local police, and they’re afraid to reach out to them for fear of retaliation. To Mallary, CCSO is not a transparent department and the “citizens do not have a good pulse on what is happening in their community.” As sheriff, he wants to be transparent and open the department to the public.
Mallary does not believe that the department properly manages its resources, he questioned why the deputies are usually in Grants, and taking extra time to respond to out-lying communities in the unincorporated parts of Cibola County. Mallary wants to create a new system that would keep deputies across the county at all times so that the whole county is covered, rather than staying in the Grants-metropolitan area.
“There are 5,000 square miles, we simply can’t be everywhere. I get that, its practically impossible to be in all the communities, but if you strategically pace the officers, they will have a response time, and that response time is key,” Mallary said. “You have to keep constant communication, and that’s where I feel there is a lot of failure – currently – between agencies. That is a significant focus I will have is ensuring the safety of our officers, and our communities.”
Mallary declared, “All the candidates except Ward have a lot of experience, but if you aren’t willing to do what needs to be done, nothing will get done. I’m going to bring a new perspective to the sheriff’s office.”