Alexandria Sheriff Sean Casey likes his job so much that he doesn’t want another one, ever.
Casey’s perch seems secure. Even though he faces no opposition for the second time in his upcoming reelection in November, the Alexandria native says he’ll be knocking on doors and shaking hands to get votes in the months ahead.
“I try to think one term at a time, but my goal is that the Sheriff’s Office and being sheriff is the last stop, the last job that I’m going to have,” Casey told ALXnow in a recent interview.
Casey’s campaign promises include expanding a body-worn camera program for sworn staff and securing higher pay for his deputies.
He joined the Sheriff’s Office in 2017 after a 14-year stint with the Alexandria Police Department. He considers retired Sheriff Dana Lawhorne to be his mentor, and served under him as the commander of the office’s Administrative Services Division.
Casey lives within a block of the home where he grew up on the West End with his wife, Amanda, and their two children. He grew up in the Seminary Valley neighborhood in the West End. He’s a 2000 graduate of T.C. Williams High School and received a degree in psychology in 2004 from Virginia Tech. He joined the police department shortly after graduation and first met Lawhorne, who was then a detective, while working an off-duty job to keep the Hoffman parking lots safe along Eisenhower Avenue.
ALXnow: How have you changed over the last four years?
Casey: I can tell you that I definitely feel different, because I’m in a different role. I don’t think you can really understand the weight of responsibility in that role until you sit in the chair. Dana (Lawhorne), being the outstanding mentor and leader that he was, let me get as close as I could to the chair, but ultimately, I couldn’t sit in it until I ran and became the sheriff. Now that I’m sitting in the chair, I feel I have immense responsibility to my employees, to the people in my care and custody, and to the people in the community. But it’s a good thing. I enjoy every single day that I come to work. It’s challenging, sometimes it’s difficult, sometimes it can be a lot of fun, and it’s exactly what I hoped it would be, and what I hope it continues to be.
ALXnow: How do you deal with the pressure? What are the sheriff’s coping mechanisms?
Casey: First and foremost, I’ll tell you that I couldn’t do it without my wife, Amanda. That support system at home is the most important thing in the world. She’s been so supportive of me ever since we met 24 years ago. But I knew she was a keeper when she got the phone calls in the middle of the night in 2005 that I’d been stabbed several times and was going to Fairfax Hospital. She showed up, she was there for me, she continued to be there for me every day since. That’s number one, knowing I have someone at home who will support me through thick and thin. Number two is my two daughters. They like me being the sheriff, and they love that it’s a cool thing. They also remind me how many gray hairs I have, that I’m not cool, or that I’m silly, or that I’m not as important as I think I am, which is great.
ALXnow: You face no opposition in November. Are you still going to campaign?
Casey: My plan is to knock on a few doors between now and November, just to get out there and meet folks and let them know who their sheriff is. I think that’s important. It’s an opportunity and it gives me an excuse to be there, right?
ALXnow: You just endorsed Abigail Spanberger for governor. What does having a Democratic governor and potentially a Democratic legislature mean for a Democrat sheriff?
Casey: What it means for me is that I know that the folks in Richmond will be aligned with my views and values up here in Alexandria, which is nice. That’s good to know. It’s good to know that you have friends down there who understand and believe in what you’re doing up here. That’s not always the case, right? There’s definitely some conflict, and there’s definitely some differences of opinion between the folks in other parts of the state that are part of the Republican Party and the Democratic Party. But I think that having a legislature and Senate and a governor all Democratic is good for me. I think it’s good for the city. I think it’s good for the state, because we’re going to be aligned, and if we’re aligned, I think we’re going to have the real opportunity to get things done in all different facets of state government and local government.
ALXnow: What do you want to see movement on at the state level?
Casey: The thing that comes to mind is pay and compensation, because as a sheriff’s office, there is funding that we receive from the state through the State Compensation Board, but we also get a big supplement from the city as well to fund the office, because the funding from the state is not enough. Some argue that the state should be funding the office completely, some argue that the city should be funding the office completely, but regardless, there are mechanisms in place right now that require the state to provide some level of funding to the Sheriff’s Office. That level of funding really is inadequate to fund the office effectively. That’s why I rely on the city for a pretty hefty supplement, and I appreciate it at the end of it, because it really keeps the office up and running the way that it has been, the way that it is right now… Our starting salary up here is $60,000, which isn’t as competitive as it could be with everything that we have going on up here in Virginia.
ALXnow: I saw on your website that you want to start a body-worn camera program for sworn staff. What’s that going to look like?
Casey: We have successfully implemented a pilot body-worn camera. We just did it last week. We have deputies now who are on the street serving civil process, wearing the cameras. What I’m waiting to see is, from a workload standpoint and a technology standpoint, what is the burden on the Sheriff’s Office for those six or seven cameras? Based on that, I will be able to decide, okay, if I expand this program, what’s it look like from the funding standpoint, staff resources, and I will have to examine that closely. I’m hoping that this program will give me that insight, and I’ll be able to decide whether it’s something we expand to the detention center, to the courthouse?
ALXnow: What is the agreement between the federal government and the Alexandria Sheriff’s Office on holding inmates? Does your office detain inmates with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement?
Casey: We have a contract with the United States Marshals Service to house federal pre-trial inmates in our detention facility, and that contract has been in existence since the jail was first constructed back in 1985, and it was in effect in 1987 when the jail opened. The jail was built to be a federal and a local jail. The federal government gave a city $2.2 million to make the jail bigger when it was being constructed, so they could enter into this agreement… As law enforcement professionals, we have maintained and managed our relationship in a very positive way through every administration that’s come through since 1987, and that good relationship continues.
In 2007-08, ICE was added to that contract. ICE was allowed to hold individuals who were arrested on immigration violations inside the detention center. During the first Trump administration, Dana (Lawhorne) was the Sheriff. We had a number of community conversations on this, and he made the decision that I supported at the time that we’re not going to allow ICE to use our facility to hold individuals when arrested on immigration violations. In 2022 when I took office… we removed ICE from the contract. Now, anybody who’s held in our jail is via the United States Marshals Service, which is the sheriff for the federal government. If the FBI, DEA, and ATF arrest somebody in this Eastern District, they send them to us as a Marshal’s prisoner. So, the individuals ICE is arresting for immigration violations in the community are not coming to our jail.
ALXnow: How’s staffing and recruitment?
Casey: We’re at a 10% vacancy rate for our sworn staff. I currently have 17 sworn staff vacancies. With professional staff, I have one vacancy. So, 18 total vacancies in the office… Right now we’re getting lots of applications, thousands of applications, but unfortunately out of those thousands of applications, we’re only able to pluck out a very few number of people because of their backgrounds, criminal issues, job performance issues, and that shrinks our pool of applicants.
ALXnow: How long do you want to do this job?
Casey: I try to think one term at a time, but my goal is that the Sheriff’s Office and being sheriff is the last stop, the last job that I’m going to have. So, for a long time to come.
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