2024 Primary Election Preview: Highland County Task Force Chief Investigator Randy Sanders candidate for sheriff

Randy Sanders, one of two Republican candidates for Highland County sheriff appearing on the March 19 primary ballot, recently sat down with The Highland County Press to discuss his 40-year career in law enforcement. 

Sanders is currently the Chief Investigator of the Highland County Task Force, working with the Highland County Prosecutor’s Office with a focus on drug investigations. His career has also included serving with the Hillsboro Police Department, Highland County Sheriff's Office, Southwest Regional Drug Unit, Ross County Sheriff's Office and U.S. 23 Major Crimes Task Force.

A graduate of Hillsboro High School, Sanders is the son of the late Hubert Sanders and the late Betty (and Lee) Bishop. 

Sanders and his wife, Debbie, have been married for 45 years. They have three adult children, Craig, Molly and Ashley, and eight grandchildren.

Although Sanders said that he is involved in the community, he wanted law enforcement to be the focus of this profile.

“Law enforcement is not just what I do, it's pretty much who I am, and it has been for years,” Sanders said. “I still think I’ve got several years working left, and I have no plans for retirement at this point. I just want to keep doing it.

“My career is pretty much an open book. Anything you want to know, you can almost find out.”

Sanders added with a laugh that since he has spent most of his career working undercover, even his own family members have been surprised to learn about some of his stories throughout his campaign.

Sanders said he got his start in law enforcement because his father was a policeman for the Hillsboro Police Department, and he decided to take the test to follow in his father’s footsteps and join the HPD.

Sanders remained at the Hillsboro Police Department for six years, advancing from serving as a patrolman to later being promoted to a sergeant and a detective.

In 1986, Sanders joined the Highland County Sheriff’s Office, under then-Sheriff Earl Mahaffey. During his first 12-year stint at the HCSO, Sanders served as road sergeant, while also working on drug investigations. After Tom Horst was elected sheriff, Sanders was assigned to the Southwest Regional Drug Unit, where he did undercover investigations in a nine-county area.

“While I was with the task force, I'd taken some tactical training, where we actually did tactical entries for search warrants and stuff like that in several different counties,” Sanders said. “I was a part of that, and then we came back together and put together our own group to get training for the tactical stuff.”

Around 1993, Horst promoted Sanders to lieutenant, at which point Sanders investigated a number of different types of felony cases, including “drug trafficking, homicides, kidnapping, burglaries, sexual assaults” and other cases.

Sanders also obtained his pilot’s license as part of an aircraft program at the HCSO during Horst’s tenure. 

“While I was still at the sheriff's office here, I designed a database where we could track the money we used and spent for drugs,” Sanders said.

Thanks to that database, Sanders said that in at least one case, they found a safe with thousands of dollars that they could track back to multiple past drug buys.

After over a decade with the U.S. 23 Major Crimes Task Force (more on that later), Sanders returned to the Highland County Sheriff’s Office in 2012, where he served as a detective under then-Sheriff Ron Ward.

“We talked, and [Ward] always knew when I was ready, I wanted to settle back and do what I was started out doing, to work my own cases, and not have to deal with OCJS and federal agencies,” Sanders said. “I came in and started doing regular cases and then started some drug cases, too, and then it just evolved. As the sheriffs changed, it changed a little bit here and there, as different people came in to work with me.”

In between his service at the HCSO, Sanders worked in Ross County with the U.S. 23 Major Crimes Task Force, from 1998-2012.

“I knew there was the opportunity there for me to learn a lot more than I had, because I'd seen part of it when I went to Franklin County, that there was lots of other stuff,” Sanders said. “I knew there was more stuff than we could do here in small departments.

“I went down there with a few goals in my head of what I wanted to do, and I went clear through the ranks down there. I started as a sergeant, was promoted to lieutenant, then captain and then major. I was director of the task force down there for a few years, and part of that time, I was also in charge of the detectives at the [Ross County] Sheriff's Office down there.”

Sanders said that while he was director he oversaw “at most at one time, around 15 people” on the Task Force, while there was also a BCI agent and an Ohio Natural Guard officer assigned to the Task Force. His role also included grant writing and budgeting.

“Probably the hardest thing is we use cash every day, and we still do here [with the Highland County Task Force],” Sanders said. “While I was with the [U.S. 23] Task Force, because we were going through so much cash in all these different counties, at the end of the year, every year, I would sit down with the auditors. 

“Everything was always in order, and of course we had to turn in monthly reports, and still do, with all of our stuff, everything that we do, so the statute, OCJS, can keep track of the drugs and the money.”

During his service with the Task Force, Sanders said the investigators accomplished “some awesome things,” as they used sometimes unconventional means to break open challenging cases.

“I’m OK with doing innovative things,” Sanders said. “If there's no way that everybody's already doing something, let's figure out some way to do it.”

As an example of that creativity, Sanders said that there were multiple arrests as a result of him setting up a secret alarm system to alert investigators when suspects were stealing from anhydrous ammonia from tanks on area farms to manufacture methamphetamine. That system was used by the Task Force and later loaned to other agencies. 

“You'd sit there sometimes for days to catch them,” Sanders said. “Well, I put together an alarm system. We set seismic sensors around the tanks and hooked them up to a repeater system, so it would relay a signal to us when somebody was near the tanks.” 

Another example of a case that stood out to Sanders was a special investigation into individuals making meth using red phosphorus, which resulted in finding 17 meth labs in Fairfield, Jackson, Pickaway, Ross and Vinton counties.

“There was a place up in Pickaway County that carried tincture of iodine, and we got a call that they were just selling tincture of iodine like crazy,” Sanders said. “We had to get something to see if we could figure it out, so I started sending stuff to different universities.

“One university had done a study on tincture of iodine and gave me information on how many head of cattle that a gallon of tincture of iodine would treat.”

Sanders said that led to them executing a search warrant, “using that as probable cause,” and found the suspect with several gallons of tincture of iodine. 

“Just doing stuff where you have to figure it out is really cool,” Sanders said.

Sanders also told a story about tracking a suspect believed to be bringing drugs from Texas into Ohio.

“We set up a deal with him for five kilos of cocaine in Franklin County,” Sanders said. “I took all the money we had and put it in a bag, and we took it to Franklin County because we knew this was a major source of cocaine coming into the area. 

“Franklin County’s tactical team made the arrest, and thank goodness, we recovered our money.”

Sanders added that a search warrant was executed at the place where the suspect was staying, and “13 more kilos of cocaine” were found. The suspect was eventually sentenced to federal prison and is also suspected of being involved in other crimes in Texas, Sanders said.

His years with the U.S. 23 Task Force have assisted him on his most recent stop in his law enforcement journey: the Highland County Task Force, where he has been employed since 2019 and is lead investigator.

“I’m still sworn in at the sheriff's office, and I still work for the county,” Sanders said.

Seven years into his second term with the HCSO, Sanders was approached about starting the Highland County Task Force, and he was “all in.” Through the HCTF, Sanders has continued similar work from his years with the U.S. 23 Task Force, investigating suspected drug traffickers from Highland County or those believed to be bringing drugs into the area.

“That might be the coolest thing that I’ve done,” Sanders said. “We're basically starting a law enforcement agency.
 
“All the departments in the county got on board, and we set up a fund. Everybody put money in it to start, a little bit so, we could get started.”

In addition, Sanders said they “immediately” connected with the U.S. 23 Task Force for funding as well as other resources.

“The task force just took off and got overwhelming real quick,” Sanders said. 

With the help of local law enforcement officers, Sanders has overseen several wide-scale drug investigations in the county, and in 2021, the county agreed to fund another full-time position for the agency (Investigator Chris Bowen). 

“Our main focus is on people bringing dope into Highland County, whether it's Highland County people getting it and bringing it back or whether it's people from somewhere else bringing it down,” Sanders said. “Those are our main targets.

“Recently, we've found several people coming back from Dayton, or we followed them to Dayton and back and taken them off the streets.”

Sanders has also been working with Highland County Prosecutor Anneka Collins, Highland County Probation Director of Programming & Clinical Services and Drug Court Coordinator Tonya Sturgill and Highland County commissioners on a plan to utilize OneOhio funding to hire a full-time substance abuse recovery coordinator to help individuals suffering from addiction to find treatment. 

“What we want to do is just have somebody there that can bridge the gap between law enforcement and everybody that's trying to help,” Sanders said. “There's so many different people trying to help, but not the same things work for everybody when they’re trying to get clean.

“We want to try to hook those people up with people with the right intentions, and it's not all about just getting clean for some people.”

Sanders added that finding work and housing for these individuals has become increasingly challenging. He said that he has seen similar programs work in other counties and is hopeful that it can help individuals in Highland County.

And that desire to help make a difference is what has led Sanders to run for sheriff this year. Despite having over 40 years of law enforcement experience under his belt, running for office is not something that has been a longtime goal for Sanders. Instead, he said he is motivated by his desire to make a difference. 

“I totally love the working part of it,” Sanders said. “I love going out to do the work every day, but a lot of guys have talked to me about it over the last several years. I just got to the point where I sat down and took a look and said, ‘Hey, can I make things a little better?’

“I think I can, and that's why I want to do it. I want to make things better.”

If elected, Sanders said he has several ideas in mind for improvements at the Highland County Sheriff’s Office. One of those plans is for the HCSO to play an active role with the Highland County Task Force, as currently there is not an HCSO officer assigned to assist the HCTF.

“I see how good the task force is doing, and I know there's other things they can do, it’s just a matter of having the right things,” Sanders said. 

Going along with that, one of the things that Sanders said the HCTF needs is a K-9, and he would like to “bring back the K-9 unit” at the Sheriff’s Office to assist with investigations.

“If we’re going to stop people on the road, K-9s are a big part of it,” Sanders said. 

Community outreach is also something that Sanders is interested in, beginning with children at an early age and continuing into adulthood. He said that if elected, he would like to “bring back educational programs” that would be presented “in conjunction with the schools,” primarily about drug abuse prevention. Similarly, Sanders said he believed education programs would also be beneficial for the elderly, as senior citizens are often targets for various financial scams. 

“I want everybody to know what's going on in the community,” Sanders said. “Different communities around the county have different problems, and I want them to know what we're doing and let them know that we're available to help in any way we can, to help their problems.”

Transparency with the public is another area in which Sanders said he’d like to make improvements, including with the scanner (which is no longer online), body cameras and car cameras. In addition, he said he wants to continue to maintain and build relationships with other law enforcement agencies.

“I have a good working relationship right now with all the agencies,” Sanders said. “I want that relationship to continue and spread back into the other county agencies, surrounding agencies, everybody. We work with all of them. We help Fayette County, they help us; we help Ross County, they help us regularly. We're all in the task force together down there, so we all know each other and it makes it easy.”

Sanders said he would also like to look into annual training to see if improvements could be made, but in doing so he would “look at the current” data and speak with the officers impacted.

“I don't want to just go in and say, ‘I’m in charge now, here’s what we’re doing,’” Sanders said. “I want everybody to have a say and put their two cents here, because I'm not one of those guys at all. 

“Every change we've ever made, we'll sit down and talk about it. I’m a planner and a thinker too, so I’ll wait a little bit before I say how we’ll do it.”

Along with thanking his immediate and extended family members, Sanders said a humbling part of his campaign has been the support from law enforcement. In early February, a group of 50 current and former local law enforcement officers gathered at the Highland County Courthouse and posed for a photo endorsing Sanders. According to his campaign, the group had a combined 1,094 years of law enforcement experience. 

“I think I have a huge amount of current and past law enforcement support,” Sanders said. “Since I started this, the people supporting me has been overwhelming.”

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