‘It Comes Down to Experience’

Phil Byrd retired from the Guilford County Sheriff’s Department in 2014 after a 30-year career. Now, he’s making his second run for sheriff.

Byrd ran against Sheriff Danny Rogers in 2022, but lost 44% to 56%. To get a rematch in November, Byrd will need to best Billy Queen in Tuesday’s Republican primary.

“I wouldn’t be running if we had a good sheriff,” Byrd said in a recent interview with The Assembly.

“I’m not running to have my name on a badge,” he said. “I’m not running because I won’t be a career sheriff. I’m running because I think the citizens of Guilford County deserve a lot more than what we got. And I know that the staff of the sheriff’s office deserve a rock-solid Sheriff to provide the leadership and professionalism they deserve.”

Since Rogers took office in 2018, Byrd said, he’s observed a slow degradation of the department. There are more unfilled vacancies not just at the Guilford County jail, and the department is having a harder time recruiting and keeping good deputies. Fewer people are having the long careers Byrd did with the department, which he said makes for a command staff with less experience. Starting salaries haven’t kept pace with other departments in the region. Most worryingly, Byrd said, are serious budget overruns.

Last year, the department overshot its personnel budget by nearly $4 million.

“What you’ve got now, because of these shortages, is them trying to fill in with overtime,” Byrd said. “Now I dare say I don’t believe the whole overrun of $3.9 million is because of those shortages, at the jail or elsewhere.”

“I’m not against overtime,” Byrd said. “I will give overtime any time it is necessary. But that’s the keyword — ‘necessary.’ You can’t abuse it, and you can’t run your whole department that way.”

After seven years in office, Byrd said, Rogers still has had the time to work with county government to address recruiting problems, proper budgeting, and staffing.

“I think if you look at the ballot this year, there’s a better and more experienced option,” Byrd said.

But November ballot predictions are a bit premature. Byrd will face Queen in Tuesday’s primary, not Rogers. In that face-off, Byrd said, it again comes down to experience — and the right kind of experience.

“Billy Queen is a nice guy,” Byrd said. “But the majority of his career was with the ATF [Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms]. The majority of my career was with the Guilford County Sheriff’s Department.”

If you were looking for an accountant to work in a hospital, Byrd said, you wouldn’t hire one who had only done people’s taxes.

“You have to look at the kind of experience, and I think that’s what you have here,” Byrd said. “The ATF is the ATF, but the Guilford County Sheriff’s Department is a full-service law agency.”

The Assembly has reached out to Queen for an interview, but he has not yet responded. His campaign has been more nakedly partisan than Byrd’s. His website and campaign materials feature a Guilford County Sheriff’s badge draped in the American flag with an elephant — the symbol of the GOP — at its center. Byrd’s website, by contrast, displays no overtly partisan imagery or language. Its campaign bio does not even identify him as a Republican.

That may be a reaction to a Democratic wave in last year’s Greensboro City Council election. While technically non-partisan, party affiliation played a larger part than in any council race in living memory.

The council’s only Republican — council veteran Zack Matheny — was defeated by first-time candidate April Parker. Robbie Perkins, a former Republican mayor looking to return to that office, was soundly defeated by Marikay Abuzuaiter, a Democrat. Both said they believe they suffered from being associated too closely with the Republican Party and President Donald Trump’s moves at the national level.

“I believe we’re seeing a lot more partisanship, and I do think people are thinking about Trump at the ballot,” Byrd said. “That’s probably one of the questions I get most out at the polls or campaigning — they want to know if I’m a Trumpster.”

While not shrinking away from his Republican affiliation, Byrd said he believes the nation — across the political spectrum and from local politics to federal — needs to “turn down the temperature.”

With concerns about increased Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) presence in North Carolina and the possibility of a detention center in Greensboro, Byrd said he believes an experienced sheriff can make the difference in potential conflict.

“When you see what’s happened in Minneapolis and some other places, those people should not have been shot,” Byrd said. “But protesters can’t interfere with federal agents, either.”

Should he be elected, Byrd said, he will deal with ICE-related protests or conflicts the way he did throughout his career with the sheriff’s department.

“I can’t tell the federal government not to come to Guilford County and conduct operations here,” Byrd said. “But I’m going to protect people’s First Amendment rights too.”

“I have a lot of experience dealing with federal operations, joint operations, and protests in my years with the sheriff’s department,” Byrd said. “Like so many other things, it comes down to experience.”