Sue Rahr began her 41-year law enforcement career as a patrol deputy with the King County Sheriff’s Office (Seattle, WA) in 1979 and worked her way up through the ranks and was elected Sheriff in 2005. She served as Sheriff for seven years, retiring in 2012. She was responsible for over 1,000 employees (700 patrol deputies), a $150 million budget, and contract police services in 12 cities and transit policing for the Seattle/Puget Sound region. She led KCSO to CALEA National Accreditation in 2010 and was awarded “2010 Elected Official of the Year” by the Municipal League. In 2012 she was appointed Executive Director of the Washington State Criminal Justice Training Commission, served for nine years and was responsible for training all city and county law enforcement and corrections officers from over 300 agencies across the state.
She served as a member of the “Executive Session on Policing” at the Harvard Kennedy School from 2011-2014; the “President’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing” in 2015; serves in an advisory capacity with numerous national police reform organizations, including the Council on Criminal Justice, Law Enforcement Action Partnership, Law Enforcement Leaders to Reduce Crime and Incarceration, and the ABLE program at the Innovative Policing Program at Georgetown University.
She has served on many non-profit community and professional boards and held the following offices:
- President – Washington Association of Sheriffs and Police Chiefs
- Commissioner – Washington State Criminal Justice Training Commission
- Executive Board – National Sheriffs Association
- Board of Directors for the National Police Foundation
She graduated Cum Laude with a BA in Criminal Justice from Washington State University, is a graduate of the National Sheriff’s Institute, and the FBI National Executive Institute. She co-authored an academic paper about transforming the culture of policing at the Washington State Criminal Justice Training Commission, published in 2105 by the Harvard Kennedy School and the National Institute of Justice. This paper ignited the national dialogue about defining the role of police as Guardians.
She is married to a retired high school teacher, has two adult sons and two grandchildren.
http://www.cops.usdoj.gov/pdf/taskforce/TaskForce_FinalReport.pdf