Sangamon County Sheriff’s union endorses David Timm

The union representing Sangamon County Sheriff’s Department deputies, correctional officers and court security staff says its membership overwhelmingly endorsed recently retired deputy David Timm to be the next sheriff over incumbent Sheriff Paula Crouch.

Timm, 50, a Republican from rural Pleasant Plains, is collecting signatures on petitions to challenge Crouch, a Republican from rural Williamsville, in the GOP primary for sheriff on March 17, 2026. Retired Illinois State Police master sergeant Marc Bell of Springfield has announced his intention to run in the Democratic primary for sheriff.

Petitions for sheriff candidates planning to run in the primary can be filed from Oct. 27 to Nov. 3 at the County Clerk’s Office.

The sheriff oversees a department with more than 200 employees, including those in the Sangamon County Jail, and an annual budget of $22.7 million. The sheriff’s annual salary is $175,460.

Timm told Illinois Times that the endorsement from the union he was a member of throughout his 25-year career with the department “shows that the people within want change.” 

However, when contacted by IT, Crouch, who has been in office since September 2024, said she is the one who represents change, while Timm represents the status quo. Crouch said she wasn’t approached by Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 55 before its August endorsement of Timm’s candidacy. 

“Perhaps they don’t like some of the changes that I am bringing,” she said.

Crouch, 52, a retired Springfield Police Department lieutenant, was nominated by County Board Chair Andy Van Meter and approved by the Republican-controlled board in September 2024 to serve the final two years of former sheriff Jack Campbell’s four-year term.

Campbell, a Republican, decided to retire at age 60 after calls for his resignation for his role in the 2023 hiring of Sean Grayson, 31, the former sheriff’s deputy charged with the July 2024 fatal shooting of Sonya Massey, 36, in her unincorporated Woodside Township home.

Crouch has the endorsement of the Sangamon County Republican Central Committee, which interviewed her and Timm.

FOP Lodge 55’s members include three divisions of the sheriff’s department as well as police serving Rochester, Virden, Girard, Pleasant Plains, Leland Grove, Southern View and Springfield’s federal courthouse. Members also include retirees. About half of the members are active-duty sheriff’s department employees, according to Lodge President Travis Koester, a sheriff’s deputy.

Union officials reached out to all 173 members in August and were able get responses from 117, Koester said. When asked their preference between Timm and Crouch, 92% of the responding members favored Timm, according to Koester.

Members weren’t asked about Bell’s candidacy because Bell hadn’t announced his intentions at that point, Koester said.

A majority of the members responding were from the sheriff’s department, and they represent the strong support that Timm has in the department, according to John McDowell, a sheriff’s deputy and chairperson of the union’s legislative committee. 

“We all worked with him,” said McDowell, 46. “He trained almost every one of us.”

Koester, 41, said the show of support from the membership didn’t represent dissatisfaction with Crouch as much as a lack of familiarity with her. 

“I don’t have any bad things to say about her,” Koester said. “I just don’t know her. We all know Dave. We know how passionately Dave speaks about things.”

McDowell and Koester said the union didn’t conduct interviews before making the endorsement. When asked whether the union was being fair to Crouch, McDowell said Crouch hasn’t tried to get to know union leaders informally.

“We thought that spoke volumes about the relationship there at that point,” McDowell said.

The union is in contract negotiations with the county for deputies and correctional officers.

McDowell and Koester said the union resurrected its legislative committee this year after more than a decade of dormancy so the panel could help make endorsements and become more involved in local elections. The union, they said, wants to gain more public influence to improve pay, working conditions and staffing levels in the sheriff’s department.

The FOP legislative committee’s endorsement letter said Timm has “consistently demonstrated exceptional leadership, unwavering commitment to public safety and a deep connection to our community.”

Crouch said the union’s endorsement of Timm was “a little disheartening but not surprising. … I’m sorry that they don’t feel like I have tried to get to know them. My door is always open. It’s a two-way street.”

She said she doubted that the union’s endorsement poll was fair or truly representative of its members. She said it was “a little reckless” for the union to make an endorsement without reaching out to her or Bell.

Bell, 61, who went public with his candidacy in September, said he wished Lodge 55 had waited until candidate filing took place and contacted him. During his 29 years with Illinois State Police, he was a member of FOP Lodge 41 and then the Teamsters, he said.

“I do have a long history of being pro-union,” Bell said. 

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Improving the sheriff’s department

Crouch said she is trying to improve the department in the wake of Massey’s death. Grayson, who was fired by the department after the fatal shooting, has pleaded not guilty to charges of murder, official misconduct and aggravated battery with a firearm. He is scheduled to go on trial later this month.

She noted that the union, represented by the Illinois FOP Labor Council, initially filed a grievance seeking reinstatement of Grayson and 12 days later said it would drop the grievance. The union faced public criticism for filing the grievance.

The council’s general counsel wouldn’t say why the grievance was dropped.

Timm, whose campaign slogan is “Trust Restored/Voices Heard,” said he agrees with the union that improving pay to attract a bigger pool of applicants and improving training are needed to improve the sheriff’s department’s performance.

Timm said he also would work to upgrade surveillance cameras in the jail to promote more “transparency” and awareness of conduct by inmates and correctional officers.

“I will go to the County Board with a list of things that the employees need to fix the disconnect with our community and our department at the same time,” he said.

Timm said he would work with Republicans and Democrats on the board, and, if necessary, rally the public to put pressure on the board to allocate more money for the department’s budget.

“The safety and security of the county is not what it used to be, and one of the reasons is lack of manning,” he said.

Timm said the sheriff’s department had about 75 deputies when he was hired in 1999 and an average of eight patrol officers on the street at any given time. The number of officers on patrol now averages four, and there are 52 deputies, he said.

It’s hard to recruit candidates because of the department’s relatively low pay compared to the Springfield Police Department and some other local law-enforcement agencies, he said.

Crouch said the department has 59 deputies, and she is working to increase that number to the authorized total of about 70. She wouldn’t comment on the average number of officers on street patrols.

Disciplinary actions against Timm 

Timm said he wants to change a culture of internal squabbles and personal disputes within the department that led to some disciplinary actions against him over the years.

“Who you are affects how your file looks in the department,” he said. “In all my career … there wasn’t excessive force. This is little, petty nonsense that’s going on. I’m not perfect. I’m not a politician. I won’t be controlled by a party. This is what has to stop.”

Former sheriff Neil Williamson, a Republican who hired Timm, issued a letter of reprimand against Timm in June 2005 for a disciplinary issue that isn’t specified in the records obtained by Illinois Times through the Freedom of Information Act.

Timm told the newspaper that he thinks the reprimand either involved $60 worth of personal calls he made through the department phone system or his use of coarse language in a computer message he sent to another deputy. He said he repaid the county for the call.

In October 2006, records indicated, Williamson suspended Timm for three days without pay for “conduct while participating in an investigation of a stabbing near Loami.” Williamson wrote in Timm’s disciplinary letter that he recommended Timm receive anger-management counseling through the county’s employee assistance plan. Timm’s union negotiated the suspension down to 1½ days.

Timm told IT the alleged conduct involved a conversation between him and a supervisor. He said he got upset with the supervisor because she was repeatedly calling him on his personal cellphone while he was trying to locate the stabbing suspect.

In June 2008, Williamson fired Timm after an internal investigation found Timm violated seven sheriff’s department rules and regulations when he tried to get a Leland Grove police officer to release a man being arrested for driving under the influence.

The man being arrested, according to The State Journal-Register at the time, was a friend of Timm’s who would send customers to Timm’s side business building custom vehicles.  Timm told IT that the man wasn’t a friend, and the man didn’t send customers to Timm’s business.

Timm was reinstated in December 2009 after an appeal by the FOP Labor Council. Williamson declined to speak to Illinois Times on the record for this story, saying he didn’t want to get involved in political campaigns.

Illinois Times reported in 2015 that the arbitrator in the case called requests for leniency between police officers handling individual arrests “repugnant” but were “widespread and commonplace and seem particularly prevalent in the law enforcement community in Sangamon County,” so Timm couldn’t be fired for such behavior.

Timm told IT that “professional courtesy” among police officers is common. “In law enforcement, it’s not just black and white,” he said. “There’s a lot of gray area. You don’t have to go after everybody.”

In April 2023, Timm received a letter of reprimand for violating “performance of duty.” The letter isn’t specific about the violation. 

Timm said the violation involved his failure to be at a non-emergency patrol location in Illiopolis at one point during one shift. Timm said the reprimand was unfair because he properly notified a municipal official of his location and his delayed presence. 

In 2020, Timm sued the county in federal court for discriminatory treatment and retaliation after sheriff’s department officials, beginning in 2017, refused to allow him to wear special boots and be assigned a certain type of vehicle.

Timm’s request came with a doctor’s recommendation for accommodations to reduce further risk of injury after a work-related injury and three hip surgeries. The lack of accommodations led to a fourth hip surgery, court records said.

Timm won the case in 2023 after a jury trial and received compensatory damages of $278,721, as well as $119,268 for attorney fees and reinstatement of 38 sick days.  

Dilpreet Raju, a Report for America corps member through Illinois Times, contributed to this story. Dean Olsen is a senior staff writer with Illinois Times. He can be reached at dolsen@illinoistimes.com, 217-679-7810 or www.x.DeanOlsenIT.

This article appears in October 9-15, 2025.