Leanna Lehman
Campaigning for Churchill County sheriff has put Michael Davis in the unfamiliar position of having to make his own case to voters.
“The hardest part about this whole thing is — I don't talk about myself,” said Davis, a sergeant with the Churchill County Sheriff's Office. “I let my work speak for itself.”
Ask who he is away from the Sheriff's Office, however, and the answer comes a little easier.
“I'm kind of a ‘what you see is what you get type’ guy. Gym shorts, gym shoes, you know?”
Davis has 18 years in law enforcement and has earned Category I, II, and III law enforcement officer certifications through the Nevada Commission on Peace Officer Standards and Training (POST). Additionally, Davis was named Deputy of the Year for the Churchill County Sheriff's Office in 2019 and was recently endorsed by the Churchill County Sheriff’s Deputies Association and the Churchill County Dispatchers Union.
Born and raised in Gardnerville, Davis moved to Fallon in 2009 and joined the Churchill County Sheriff's Office in 2013 after four years as a corrections officer at Lovelock Correctional Center. His career has since included time with the North Central Narcotics Task Force, patrol, and supervision.
Outside of work, Davis said much of his time revolves around his family.
“I love my family first and foremost,” said Davis, who has raised three children with his wife, Shannon, of 28 years. “When I'm off spending time with them is — that's one of my big things.”
The gym is another part of his off-duty life and a place to decompress. He also tries to play golf when he has time and enjoys working in his yard, which he described as another source of quiet time, taking care to offset the stress of a job that requires constant hypervigilance.
Asked who or what had most influenced the person he became, Davis said he found the question difficult to answer. He described himself instead as his own worst critic. “I've always wanted to be that person that didn't want to let anybody down. So, whether that's my family, whether that's a team I coached, I always wanted to do the best by people. That was my driving force in everything that I did. I just never wanted to be the weak link in the group.”
Davis also spent time with the North Central Narcotics Task Force, an assignment he loved and excelled at. “During that time, we were recognized as the highest-producing narcotics unit in the state. ... I was pretty proud of that.”
While he enjoyed his tenure in narcotics, he returned to the Sheriff's Office at the request of then-Sheriff Richard Hickox, who died in April. According to Davis, morale was low, which he said is not uncommon in law enforcement, and Hickox had said he needed Davis's positive attitude in the ranks.
“Cops do get cynical and jaded,” Davis admitted. “You get to this point where you think like everybody's out to get you, everybody's bad, you know, because you're dealing with the 1% of society. But 98% of people are good people. They're nice people ... You have to remind yourself of that when you go down that rabbit hole of negative things.”
Now, Davis hopes to continue his work in a leadership role. He has ideas for new programs that could improve operations, primarily addressing the chronic understaffing plaguing the department.
Davis noted that several programs put in place by Hickox are working well. “I'm not reinventing the wheel. If it's working, it's working,” he said. “But there are also some things that need to be done, and they need a different set of eyes and a way of thinking to fix those things.”
Staffing and morale, which have been areas of concern for some time, continue to challenge the department. “Staffing right now is the worst I've ever seen it. It's on patrol, and even in the jails,” Davis said. “We lost two, and that's concerning to me because both of them were 15-year cops. So, we just lost 30 years of experience in the span of a month. They were field training officers — those are the guys you don't want to lose.”
“One of my goals is to increase staffing, because something's got to change. We can't keep doing business like we did 40 years ago. It's not working.” Staffing levels have remained largely unchanged since the 1990s, despite population growth within Churchill County.
Davis said deputies are exhausted. “We're mandating overtime right now. People are working five, six, seven 12-hour shifts.” The patrol division is supposed to have 12 deputies, and with one out on leave, Davis said the division is down to six. “We're at half staffing on patrol and the jail numbers are similar.”
Some of his other ideas include motorcycle speed enforcement, which Davis said would cost roughly one-third as much as a new patrol truck, and adding programs that provide deputies with opportunities beyond their regular assignments. “Speed is always one of the biggest complaints we have in the county. Speeders, speed, traffic,” he said.
“A lot of people are leaving because we have lack of programs,” Davis said. “They come here for four or five years ... and they get the training and experience, and they go somewhere that has a SWAT team or a motorcade.”
The Sheriff's Office previously participated in a joint tactical team with the Fallon Police Department, something Davis would like to revive. “That kind of just faded away … I want to get that back up.”
Davis, an active-shooter instructor for the past five years, also wants to increase training opportunities. He said the department has obtained equipment through grant funding, but staffing shortages have limited the time available to train with it.
He believes additional programs and training could help the county retain deputies. “I want Churchill County Sheriff's Office to be an agency where people want to work and build a career. And I want them to raise their families here. I want them to do 30 years here.”
“You have to invest in people that invest in your agency,” Davis said.
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