For Republicans, lawman Rush is the right choice
One night in 2013, Lt. Randy
Rush says he showed up for his shift at the Harris County jail and learned a mentally ill inmate had been found many hours earlier festering in a cell smeared with feces, littered with food trays and swarming with gnats.
Rush says he grabbed a sergeant and went straight to the cell block only to find the inmate, Terry Goodwin, was still there in the squalid conditions.
“I’ve never seen anything like this in my career, and I’ve seen the worst of the worst,” Rush told the Editorial Board recently. “I commenced to ripping and tearing. I said: ‘Guys, this ain’t going to happen. We’re not going to allow this. And I will come down on anybody I find who hides or covers this up.’”
Rush kept his word. When he felt higher-ups at the Harris County Sheriff ’s Office weren’t taking the episode seriously enough, he became a whistleblower and went to the media.
Eventually, the horrific treatment led to terminations, suspensions, demotions for jail staff and a $400,000 settlement with Goodwin.
Rush’s willingness to do the right thing is one of the reasons we recommend him for sheriff in the Republican primary.
Rush, 64, is a 40-year veteran of Harris County law enforcement, including 13 years in Precinct 4 and 28 years at the sheriff ’s office, where he has worked in nearly every bureau from patrol to internal affairs.
Before his retirement in November, his duties as night watch commander in field operations required him to make scenes such as homicides and fatal traffic accidents, acting as a media liaison.
As sheriff, Rush says he’d be a “go-getter,” focusing on maintaining a safe jail that meets state standards. He also says he’d reallocate resources, including eliminating some chief ’s positions, to boost enforcement in two areas that plague Harris County but for which resources are vastly inferior to those of Houston’s police department: human trafficking and DWIrelated fatalities.
“I commenced to ripping and tearing. I said ‘guys, this ain’t going to happen. We’re not going to allow this. And I will come down on anybody I find who hides or covers this up.” Randy Rush, recalling an inmate neglect case
To combat the latter, Rush says he’d improve cooperation with other law enforcement agencies: “Divided we’re failing,” he says. “People are dying.”
Rush faces Paul Day, a perennial candidate who also touts decades of law enforcement experience at the Houston Police Department and the sheriff ’s office, where he’s currently a patrol deputy.
A third candidate, Joe Danna, has garnered endorsements from many in the Republican establishment.
He is a previous candidate for constable in Precinct 1 where officials confirm he was fired in 2012 from his job as a deputy constable for falsifying records showing he served a warrant he had not.
Rush’s many years of experience, his willingness to speak out and his ideas make him the clear choice in the Republican primary.