Sheriff Mark Essick releases investigation into allegations he bullied Supervisor Lynda Hopkins

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The court should unveil its copy of the complete report as soon as Friday.

In an interview with The Press Democrat Monday, Essick maintained his court fight in part because he felt the results would affect other peace officers. He declined to say how much was spent on his legal defense, and whether any law enforcement associations helped bear the cost. No public money was spent on his defense, he said.

Essick did not run for reelection this year. Assistant Sheriff Eddie Engram was elected in June and will replace Essick in January.

The contentious phone call began after a public meeting to discuss the Walbridge Fire, which was burning into its third day and had driven evacuations in Guerneville and West County.

Hopkins texted Essick after the call, asking for an opportunity to discuss whether her constituents might be able to return to evacuation zones to care for and look for pets.

In his response, Essick accused Hopkins of deliberately leaving law enforcement officers out of a public thank you she had made to firefighters during the public meeting. How about you quit with the crap and come together for our community? he wrote.

A subsequent phone call appears to have been contentious from the beginning.

Essick said he regretted his language and attitude during the phone call. He described it as borne of exhaustion during a severe wildfire and fueled by long-running disputes with Hopkins over big political issues facing the county like its pandemic response, homelessness and law enforcement oversight.

Certainly the public interest was not well served by my breakdown (in communication), Essick told The Press Democrat.

Essick said he did not intend to threaten any loss of law enforcement service to Hopkins and her family. He denied any suggestion his response to Hopkins was driven by sexism.

Ive never ever had that come up in my 28 years as a cop, he said.

I do think (the incident) has been made more of than it actually was, Essick said.

Essick said both he and Hopkins resorted to insults. In the report, the two offered the investigator differing versions of what Hopkins said, though both parties agreed she told the sheriff she thought he was sexist. Hopkins did so only after Essick had attacked her at length, she said.

Essick told investigators he recalled Hopkins calling him a small man with a fragile ego who is afraid of women, and also a bigot and a misogynist. Hopkins disputed his recollection both in an interview and his subsequent letter to Oppenheimer.

She did tell Oppenheimer she called Essick arrogant and sexist, during the August 2020 call.

In her early morning email to her staff, however, Hopkins described personal, hateful attacks during the phone call that she said began from the onset.

He immediately began mocking me and treating me like I was stupid, she wrote. The sheriff went on to call her manipulative and carried on a hateful, derogatory, disdainful and dismissive personal verbal attack, Hopkins wrote.

Essick told Oppenheimer he did not remember calling Hopkins manipulative.

In her email to staff, Hopkins wrote she intended to contact county human resources, but said she did not welcome the scrutiny that would occur. She feared a whole messy public opinion court where my motives and integrity and honesty are questioned, she wrote, but felt she had to take action.

In the report, which contained interviews with Essick and Hopkins as well as input from Hopkins husband, who listened to part of the call, Oppenheimer found that neither elected official was blameless for a dispute.

Hopkins had criticized Essick publicly in recent days and in the phone call used insulting and inflammatory language that would reasonably be expected to get a reaction, the investigator wrote.

Hopkins contested that assessment in her response to the Oppenheimer report, stating that she only called Essick sexist after being insulted for some time and did not see her comment as insulting.

Oppenheimer also wrote that the investigations effectiveness was stymied by relying on two recollections of a phone call Hopkins husband heard only the end of the conversation.

It is likely that each of them has mis-remembered and/or exaggerated in their own minds what the other said, she wrote.

Oppenheimer interviewed eight people in her investigation, but most of their names are redacted.

The other incident she outlined came during the February 2020 meeting about a homeless encampment. Essick described the meeting as a discussion about how to approach a sprawling Joe Rodota Trail homeless encampment, but declined to identify the person he addressed.

Essick made the comment sarcastically, and in jest according to the observations of others in the meeting that are documented in the report, but it was considered inappropriate by both the recipient of the comment and others present.

The recipient of the comment told Oppenheimer she took it as a statement intended for intimidation.

There was energy behind it and the point was for me to be taken back, the recipient of the comment said.

The investigator said the statement could not reasonably be considered a threat in the context of the conversation, and said it was evidence of Essicks carelessness with words that can be incendiary more than a tendency to threaten people.

You can reach Staff Writer Andrew Graham at 707-526-8667 or [email protected]. On Twitter @AndrewGraham88

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