Rock Island County Sheriff serves East Moline, Moline, Rock Island, Silvis, and nearly a dozen villages consisting of a population of over 144,000 people.
Current incumbent Sheriff Darren Hart announced he will not seek re-election. Voters will decide between Republican Jamie Shoemaker, a detective with the Geneseo Police Department, and Democrat Marcus Herbert, deputy sheriff at the Rock Island County Sheriff's Office.
WVIK interviewed both candidates. You can find their full interviews at the bottom of the page and their responses transcribed below.
Introductions:
Jamie Shoemaker: So my background, I guess we should start previous before working at Rock Island County, I worked at Annie Wittenmyer. I was a boot camp instructor for juvenile delinquent boys. I did that for a couple of years. And then I also worked at Annie Wittenmyer as a crisis interventionist at the school prior to its closing. So I have got firsthand knowledge of dealing with juvenile delinquents and some of the, I guess, the challenges that comes with working with juveniles. So I did that, and then all of my— I have background in also personal training and meal nutrition. So wellness is a huge part of my life as well. Then I worked in the jail. I started in 2015 at the Sheriff's Office in Rock Island County. I worked as a correctional officer for a short time. And then I was promoted quickly to the road as a deputy. And I worked as a third-shift deputy for approximately 6 years. And then I made a transition to Geneseo and have been out there for 5 and a half years. And so in Geneseo, I have really expanded my career. So I currently run our IMPACT team, which is Integrated Model Police and Crisis Team. We've helped individuals with mental illness, substance use, and crisis services. I also certified Geneseo as a dementia-friendly community, doing an application process and working with multiple agencies to make us compliant as a dementia-friendly community. And I'm proud to say that we actually fundraise and raise money not only to help our impact program and getting people connected to services with mental use— or sorry, mental illness, substance use, and also crisis, but we also provide dementia tracking bracelets for individuals in the community at no cost. And what our task force does is we come together, and this is— our task force is compiled from people from the city, the police department, banks, churches, library, the food pantry, so we can collaborate and get people the care that they need. And sometimes with caregivers with dementia, they need more help than what I think has been previously available. So our community prides ourselves on being able to help them. On top of that, I am— I sit on the executive board for the Illinois Crisis Negotiators Association. I help train officers throughout the state in crisis negotiations. And so I sit on that board and I am a Phase 3 crisis hostage negotiator as well as an FBI-certified crisis negotiator. I'm a CIT officer and I also work for the Illinois Training and Standards Board as a CIT evaluator. So I actually help train officers throughout the state to handle and respond to psychosis and mentally ill crisis episodes that police officers often have to respond to. I also am a de-escalation crisis expert. I'm currently working a wrongful death case as a legal expert in de-escalation and crisis intervention in a wrongful death suit out in Oregon currently. That is, I think, a total of what I do right now.
Marcus Herbert: Yes, absolutely. So I started my career at Rock Island County Sheriff's Office in 2005. I started off as a correctional officer and worked my way up to deputy. In 2010, I became a deputy. And then in 2014, I was selected to be a member of the Quad City Bomb Squad, which I received all my training down at the prestigious Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, Alabama. And that's a cross-training between the FBI, the ATF, and the military. And they just train you how to become a bomb technician. You bring all that information you know, back home to protect the citizens of wherever you are from, which, you know, in this case would be Rock Island County. After that, I worked patrol again for, for a couple years after that and then became a warrant/transport officer. That position quickly became more or less like a juvenile transport officer because we had so many kids getting in trouble here in the Quad Cities. So we are transporting juveniles all across the state. You know, we do not have a juvenile facility here in Rock Island County. So we are transporting kids from, you know, Galesburg up until they closed, Adams County, Kane County, McLean County, Peoria County, all over the state. I got promoted to sergeant and served as the second shift— first I served as first shift patrol sergeant, then second shift patrol sergeant. And, you know, that's just supervising deputies. And now, currently I'm an administrative sergeant, which I handle budgeting issues, personnel issues, and several other things down there at the sheriff's office.
Why are you running for the position?
Shoemaker: So initially, I was asked to run. I was approached in the lobby. I was getting an accommodation award from Senator Li Arellano Jr. Now, I've received a lot of awards in the state. So when I was nationally recognized in 2022 and 2024, I was Female Officer of the Year, and I was granted that by the Illinois Training and Standards Board, as well as I was recognized in '25 again and received the Lieutenant Aaron Landers Award with my work in the community when it comes to mental illness and substance use and using community collaboration to make things happen. So I was getting an accommodation from Senator Li Arellano Jr. in the lobby, and I was approached by an individual that said, would you consider running for sheriff? And this was in Henry County, and I stated, no, I don't live out here. And they said, no, we'd like you to run in Rock Island County. And so I had to think on this and pray on it, and ultimately we decided to run. And with my work ethic, I don't like to do things halfway, so we dove all in, and I truly think the work we've done in Geneseo to help the community members, I think I can do on a larger scale in Rock Island County and not only go in there and just set the bar low. I believe I can go in there and make things happen with the different collaborations that I have and connections I've have with doing the work that I've already been doing.
Herbert: I have a deep love for Rock Island County. This is— Rock Island County is the only police or sheriff's office I've ever worked for. I care about the leadership at Rock Island County, and I care about the success of Rock Island County. And I believe my plan at Rock Island County continues the success of Rock Island County.
For listeners unaware, what are the daily duties of the sheriff?
Shoemaker: The daily duties, I mean, obviously it's a political office. So you are gonna be maintaining a budget, which you have an administrative captain who does those things. The sheriff is really responsible for the jail, civil courthouse, and then we have a jurisdiction with the sheriff's office. So there is things where the bar is set where you have to maintain those positions. So we have to maintain the court, maintain the jail, maintain civil services, and then also the jurisdiction. So day to day, those obviously need to be maintained. There's over 200 employees. The budget is obviously a multimillion-dollar budget that needs to be maintained and managing all of those staff. So that, what I would say, is the day-to-day. What I want to do is I want to raise the bar on what we're responsible for and the things that we're capable of doing.
Herbert: Yeah. So, I mean, the daily duties of the sheriff is, I mean, you're responsible of the largest budget in Rock Island County. You're responsible for an $18 million budget and also close to 200 personnel, you know, between our 70 sworn deputies, our 60 correctional officers. We have upwards, I believe, of approximately 10 telecommunicators, maintenance staff, bailiffs. You're in charge of that whole operation. You're in charge of the jail. You're in charge of a civil division, patrol division. It is a rather large agency that you're in charge of.
If elected, what are your main issues/topics you want to address?
Shoemaker: Okay. So the main issues, I believe, obviously we know we have an unhoused situation going on in Rock Island currently. And I know what I love to see right now is there's been collaborations from multiple cities and different advocacy groups have come together to support that. Now, with extreme poverty, we also will get— crime will be associated with those things. I think we need to work with the advocacy groups and the different resources that are available to maintain safety for our community members. Now, one of the things that I will be doing when we first come in is one of the things that I did in Geneseo is we had a unhoused, we had a homeless person that came in. He had been living homeless in a hospital, at Hammond Henry Hospital in Geneseo. He came into the police department to turn himself in stating that he has been trespassing there and has been sleeping there as a homeless man. And so instead of taking him to jail, we started having a conversation and I said, well, why are we doing this now? Well, it's freezing outside at the time when this happened and he did not have an ID to go into a homeless shelter, because to get into a homeless shelter you need identification. So we started talking about this, and what we did is we collaborated with Project Now, Christian Care. And what I found was that we have to ID him. So there is a homeless verification sheet that the DMV does provide. And what you can do is, with our LEAD system with law enforcement, we're able to identify someone. So what I did is I identified this individual, we've got it notarized, and I drove him to the DMV to get his identification card. And then ultimately took him down to Christian Care to go into the homeless shelter. From there, he has been able to get services, has his own apartment, is living in society and actually being a taxpayer. So one of the things that I will be implementing is we will be working with Project Now and Christian Care and being able to— people will be able to come and get identified at the Sheriff's Office.
Herbert: So one of my main things is, is reducing recidivism. This is the same thing I ran on back in 2022. I was real huge back in 2022 when I originally ran for sheriff of restarting a GED program in our county jail. That was something that I'm very proud that Sheriff Hart was able to get accomplished very quickly. As soon as he became sheriff, he started a GED program in collaboration with Black Hawk College. That's the first part of the plan. The second part of the plan is a job program in which we just recently submitted a grant with the Safer Foundation that does just that. It provides job training and job assistance for individuals who are in custody while they're in custody and when they get out of custody. And currently, we also have a program in which I'm very proud to learn that we have with Aramark. It's called the In2Work Program. And what Aramark does is individuals who are inside of our custody, they teach them food safety courses. And then they have a graduation. And once out, Aramark actually, you know, still continues to assist them, whether if that's assisting them finding grants for college or assisting them, you know, furthering their journey in the food service.
Americans are worried about the prevalence of automatic license plate reader cameras and other surveillance technology in their communities. How would you address these concerns as sheriff?
Shoemaker: So I have been knocking doors since June. I've knocked on over 500 doors since June, and I've talked to a lot of individuals. And collectively, people are not happy with Flock cameras. As law enforcement, I have seen the good with Flock cameras, and we've also seen the bad with Flock cameras. I believe that this should be something that is up to the constituents to decide. And so for me, I want to find a way, and even if at some point in the future we can get this on a ballot to ask the citizens what they want to do. But right now, until I can get into the sheriff's office and see the current contracts that they have with their different Flock cameras, I can't make an ultimate decision on what the future of the Flock cameras will be because I do not know the current contracts that Rock Island County has with those cameras. But what I can say is I have heard majority of citizens are not happy with Flock cameras, and I am definitely listening to that statement.
Herbert: I could tell you that prior to Flock or any other kind of cameras that you can think of, the automatic license plate readers, we were able to solve crimes. And, and I can tell you that as of right now, you know, until we have any kind of legislation that, you know, which this technology has moved a lot faster than, than our legislators, to be honest with you. And we don't currently have any legislation. And right now, I do, I do not support any kind of ALPRs as it stands now.
Why should voters elect you instead of your opponent?
Shoemaker: I believe that I have come through a lot of adversity in my life. I had a father who needle shared in the late '80s. I had a sister who was recently incarcerated, and I've had family members who were incarcerated. This does not qualify me for the job. It is not just a story for that, but what it is, is I know what it's like to work hard to come out of adversity. I know what it's like to work hard to find solutions. My work ethic in Geneseo speaks for itself. We have worked with multiple agencies. We've helped endless amounts of people. I have, I have recently received so many different awards, and the awards don't matter as much as the work does. Today it was just announced Hammond Henry Hospital just received an Innovation Award with their collaboration with my IMPACT Program, making sure that people in crisis, mental illness and substance use crises, are seen at the hospital where they are treated with compassion and respect, and everybody is safe. The person in crisis is safe, the first responders are safe, and also the ER staff are safe. And so they just received an innovation award out of 56 hospitals because of the collaboration with my program. I get stuff done. I'm not saying the things that I want to do. I'm already doing the work that I want to implement in Rock Island County.
Herbert: I mean, we, you know, we both bring good qualities. You know, as of now, I mean, you look at me, I've been, I've been with the sheriff's office for 21 years. I know the sheriff's office. I know the sheriff's office well. I always like to say I'm not, I'm not running to learn how to be sheriff. I've been, I've been learning this for 21 years straight. You know, so I do bring leadership, and I'm currently the only one in this race who's supervised anyone. And that does matter. You know, I do bring leadership. I bring experience, and I bring a willingness to really serve our community well.
Is there anything else you would like to share with voters?
Shoemaker: No, I think that's actually, I guess I am a person. I am not a politician. I understand that we have to run on Republican or Democrat. Ultimately, I am my own person with my own experiences and my background. I genuinely care about people. I think sometimes as a police officer, we talk about how being an empathetic person is bad in this job. I completely disagree with that statement in a sense of every situation and every crisis should be held to the highest standard, and I do genuinely care about the people that I come into contact with, and I want to help them.
Herbert: No, it is, it is your right to vote. It is your constitutional right to vote, and you need to make your voice heard. And I believe everybody should get out there and vote. Vote for experience. Do not vote for a DNR. Please vote for experience. I've said this before, and I'm gonna say it again, that we are a bipartisan position.
Early voting is underway at the Rock Island County Clerk's office and its satellite locations on weekends. Find more information on the clerk's website. Election Day is November 3.
