A video shot by the family of former Sangamon County deputy David Timm shows the 25-year veteran of the sheriff’s office being honored by his boss and future political opponent at a retirement ceremony.
The grainy video from the January 2025 ceremony shows Sheriff Paula Crouch getting choked up as she stands next to Timm and recalls benefiting from Timm’s connections when she was in tense situations on Springfield’s east side.
“I could always count on, when it was getting ugly … that Dave was gonna be there,” Crouch said in the video.
Crouch’s words of appreciation now are part of Timm’s latest political advertisement in the two Republicans’ race for the GOP nomination for sheriff that will be decided March 17.
The race has been punctuated by biting criticism of Timm’s background, disciplinary history and temperament by Crouch and the Sangamon County Republican Committee, which endorsed Crouch over Timm.
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Whether the latest ad will help Timm in the primary contest is unclear. But Timm takes full advantage of what appears to be a contradiction in Crouch’s observations about him.
The edited video from the ceremony leads in with the following text: “Paula Crouch talks about David Timm.” And on social media, Timm writes, “Not my words, they are her words!!!!!”
In the unedited video, supplied by Timm to Illinois Times at the newspaper’s request, Crouch says: “When I started working for Springfield PD and I was working patrol, and my area was here on the east side of town, I could always count on, when it was getting ugly and crap was going to happen, that Dave was gonna be there to back me up. … I could always count on Dave when I called him.”
Timm, 51, told Illinois Times that Crouch knew, at the retirement ceremony, that he planned to run against her for the GOP nomination for a four-year term. Timm said he already had told Crouch in his exit interview.
When the newspaper asked Crouch, 52, retired former Springfield Police Department lieutenant, to put the video in context, she said, “Any true leader is not going to say bad things about someone at their retirement.”
Her description to the newspaper about Timm’s assistance was more limited than her words at the ceremony.
She told Illinois Times she was recalling at the ceremony the interactions she had decades ago with an alleged drug dealer when she was a patrol officer. The person said he was friends with Timm through Timm’s side business building custom cars.
Crouch said the alleged drug dealer told her that Timm said she was “OK.” As a result, the alleged drug dealer and his associates wouldn’t “hassle” Crouch or “give me trouble,” Crouch said.
“So I did always appreciate the fact that Dave had told this guy basically to not hassle me. And so that’s what I talked about at his retirement,” Crouch said.
Timm said he interpreted her compliment at the ceremony as referring to multiple situations, not just one, and he didn’t recall the specific situation she described to the newspaper.
“There were multiple instances where I crossed her path,” Timm said, adding that he was “well-respected” on the east side because of his police work.
Crouch said her words at the ceremony didn’t contradict her ongoing criticisms of Timm during the campaign. “Just because someone has some negative stuff in their past doesn’t mean that they didn’t at some point do something positive,” she said.
