Benton sheriff commander quits, citing Hatcher ‘consumed with hostility, anger and lies’

A top Benton County sheriff’s commander has quit because of “threats, anger, lies and in general horrible working conditions.”

Commander Tom Croskrey was considered by many to be Sheriff Jerry Hatcher’s right-hand man.

When Hatcher took a 2-week leave of absence last fall after being accused of domestic violence and witness tampering by his estranged wife, the sheriff put Croskrey in charge of daily operations of the law enforcement agency.

But eight months later, Croskrey said Hatcher’s “horrible leadership and fraud” and “anger and hostility” had affected his own health and well-being greatly.

Croskrey didn’t have enough vacation time or sick days to cover a break. So, on June 2, he submitted a “hostile work environment” complaint to the county’s human resources manager and left. He’s worked in law enforcement in the Tri-Cities for 28 years.

“Working for Jerry has broken me,” Croskrey ended his three-page complaint. “I am done.”

Now, Croskrey’s allegations of his former boss’ treatment and actions are included in a union vote to recall Hatcher and in Hatcher’s divorce file on behalf of Monica Hatcher.

Croskrey was the liaison on a recent administrative review of the Benton County Sheriff’s Office, which has three commanders. The investigation was conducted by the Franklin County Sheriff’s Office at Jerry Hatcher’s request.

Taped statement

A copy of Croskrey’s March 2 taped statement in that investigation was leaked to the Tri-City Herald.

On the 1-hour recording, Croskrey talked about how employees had become physically stressed and anxious by Hatcher’s behavior, both relating to the criminal allegations against the sheriff and the cache of nearly 14,000 county-owned ammunition later found at his home.

“I specifically told him that there is an issue with you having an affair and people see that as unethical, immoral, and that’s causing the angst in the entire department,” he said.

Croskrey said that last fall, Hatcher admitted to him that he’d had an extramarital affair in 2017 and had grabbed his wife by the neck when the two were arguing about it.

Croskrey said he had been training in Yakima when a Tri-City Herald story was published Oct. 7 on the allegation of Hatcher’s affair with then-city council candidate Lisa Thomas. He immediately drove back to the Tri-Cities to confront his boss and find out what was going on.

Hatcher said Monica Hatcher was “getting in my face, so I just grabbed her by the neck and moved her out of my way,” Croskrey recalled in the interview. “When he said, ‘I grabbed her by the neck,’ he made his right hand into a C-clamp type shape and said, ‘I just had to move her out of my way. ... She’s small, you know. I had to do that.’

“I became alarmed at that admission.”

Croskrey said he was under the impression that Jerry Hatcher was going to be prosecuted for the domestic violence assault and a charge of felony witness tampering.

But the Benton County Superior Court case ended up dismissed while Spokane County prosecutors waited for further investigation to be done by the Washington State Patrol. It can be refiled if more evidence comes to light.

Croskrey said he served as acting sheriff when Hatcher left town after the allegations became public and Hatcher was forced to turn over his guns and concealed pistol permit as part of a protection order in the couple’s divorce case.

The now-former commander said he followed department policy to create a safety plan since “we’re talking about ammunition, we’re talking about firearms and we’re talking about a victim of domestic violence who is a spouse of a law enforcement officer.”

Croskrey said he took Hatcher’s alleged admission as “very critical,” spoke with Monica Hatcher as part of his safety plan, and then changed the locks and turned off the sheriff’s key card access to the department’s firearms room.

Once the sheriff returned to work a couple of weeks later, Croskrey said he informed Jerry Hatcher of the changes implemented under the safety plan. “He was extremely angry with me,” he said.

“Sheriff Hatcher is consumed with hostility, anger and lies,” Croskrey said in his declaration filed June 29 in the couple’s divorce case.

“It is clear from me being in law enforcement for over 27 years, and because of her husband’s affirmations that he did it, that Mrs. Hatcher was a victim of domestic violence,” he wrote in the declaration.

Hatcher disputes claims

Hatcher disputes Croskrey’s claims and recently told the Herald he is willing to take a polygraph at his own expense, along with Croskrey, “asking very specific questions about what (Croskrey) said.”

Hatcher continues to emphatically deny ever touching his wife or trying to get her to change her story during the criminal investigation, and says his employees and other people just don’t want to accept that he has been “exonerated” in that case.

“So I came in and told (Croskrey) that I did this? It’s nothing short of a lie, and that’s the unethical behavior that I cannot have in this organization,” Hatcher told the Herald.

He said, “I have absolutely never done that. And on the flip side, if I admitted to doing that to him,” why didn’t Croskrey report it?

The sheriff said all of these claims by Croskrey are being made just to further the agenda of the Benton County Deputy Sheriff’s Guild, which has returned a “no confidence” vote and followed that up with a push to recall their boss.

A recall petition has not yet been filed and would need to go before voters.

Hatcher said he has never seen Croskrey’s hostile work complaint, but added that the commander didn’t show up for work for 10 or so days and no one knew where he was before he ultimately resigned.

“What he also doesn’t say is ... there’s other statements that he’s made that have been proven to be untrue and I think that he knew this is potentially turning him into a Brady officer,” said Hatcher. “You have to tell the truth.”

A “Brady cop” refers to a law enforcement officer whose credibility, honesty and integrity has been called into question, and must be disclosed to prosecutors, defense attorneys and other law enforcement agencies. It can be a career-ending designation.

Croskrey, in his own complaint, said he was concerned Hatcher may try to give that designation to Croskrey’s son, who is a Benton sheriff’s patrol deputy. He said the sheriff had talked about starting an internal affairs case on his son with no complaint or accusation to back it up.

The sheriff followed that “direct threat” by asking Croskrey to call the Herald and express his positive support for Hatcher, he claimed.

Croskrey said he refused to make the call.

28-year career

Croskrey first worked for Benton County as a patrol deputy from 1992 to 2004, when he moved to the Richland Police Department. He retired from Richland in February 2019 as a lieutenant.

Hatcher then hired Croskrey in March 2019 as commander of the Benton County jail. When the county commissioners took control of the jail away from the sheriff last October, Hatcher asked Croskrey to stay on as commander and moved him over to the patrol side in the sheriff’s office.

Croskrey was in charge of the civil division and clerical staff, but recently also had been assigned to check operations across all areas of the department as part of the sheriff’s push to get accredited, he said.

When Hatcher asked the Franklin County Sheriff’s Office to handle the administrative review, Croskrey was made the intermediary between the two agencies.

Ethical, legal issues

He met with Franklin Capts. Adam Diaz and Monty Huber. The two agencies and Croskrey all had recording devices in the interview.

Diaz, who did most of the questioning, told Croskrey the intent of the review was “to gather facts surrounding potential allegations of ethical and legal issues of the sheriff as declared by Lt. Jason Erickson” in his Feb. 14 letter requesting a demotion to sergeant.

Diaz later clarified on the recording that it included the discussions with Hatcher that happened before and after Erickson submitted his letter.

The investigation also was intended to look into “any other criminal allegations, violations of any ethical standards or standards, and (to) report these facts in a fair and impartial manner.”

In the first half of the interview, the investigators asked Croskrey a lot of questions about Erickson, including what led up to his being declared a whistleblower and if he’d had any problems in the department.

Even though Erickson had been a lieutenant, he reported directly to Hatcher instead of the commanders because his job was to “manage the sheriff’s calendar, find activities for the sheriff to participate in, take pictures of the sheriff and put it on Facebook, things like that,” said Croskrey.

Erickson is an “exemplary employee” who gets the job done, Croskrey added, but he started feeling anxious about promoting Hatcher after the allegations surfaced because his boss and friend was no longer the person he’d known in the past.

In his hostile work complaint, Croskrey said he asked to be promoted to undersheriff so he could take care of the department’s morale issues.

Hatcher refused the request, reportedly saying Croskrey had missed seeing the conspiracy against the sheriff and thus was not deserving of the new title.

“He truly believes that there is a secret group of people trying to take his position, but there is not,” wrote Croskrey. “He has brought so much shame and embarrassment to our office that nobody wants to take his place. He basically destroyed everything.”

“… The stress and anxiety put on me by Jerry Hatcher is too great and it goes against my moral compass to work for someone who is using their elected office to cover up and conceal criminal activity,” he added.

The final report from Franklin County’s administrative review has been turned over to Hatcher, who says he wants to write an executive summary before releasing it to the public.

Hatcher told the Herald his peers across the river did not find any wrongdoing or violations of either county policy or state law, but did make recommendations regarding training and the lack of proper controls with some policies and procedures.

Croskrey accused Hatcher of obstructing that investigation and secretly changing the course of the investigation.

He said while Hatcher told people it was to look into the ammunition found at his home and the department’s policies, the sheriff really wanted investigators to find out who had been talking with his wife as part of the criminal case and divorce proceedings.

Last week, the temporary protection order was extended again by Superior Court Judge Federspiel, who is presiding over the Hatchers’ divorce case.

Hatcher had to turn over his service pistol as part of the court order and cannot carry a gun until it is lifted.

Federspiel, a Yakima County judge, was assigned because the Benton-Franklin Superior Court bench was recused due to the conflict with Jerry Hatcher as another elected official who closely works with the judicial system.

Mason Pickett, Jerry Hatcher’s lawyer, said in the telephonic hearing, “This protective order needs to be resolved and it needs to be resolved with an evidentiary hearing.”

Both Pickett and Pat Chvatal, Monica Hatcher’s attorney, said they plan to call a number of witnesses. The hearing will be scheduled this summer and is expected to last up to one week.

This story was originally published July 5, 2020 at 2:05 PM.