DOVER — Democrat Mark Brave defeated Republican Paul Callaghan in the race for Strafford County sheriff in the Nov. 3 general election.
Brave’s win makes him the first Black sheriff ever elected in New Hampshire at a time when people and protests across the country call for steps to address racial injustice and under-representation in law enforcement.
“I feel humbled that county residents chose me to move forward going into this next phase of law enforcement,” said Brave, 35, of Dover, a lieutenant at the Strafford County Sheriff’s Office who oversees professional standards and training. “We’ve got a lot of work to do, but I feel good.”
Callaghan, 56, a SCSO lieutenant and Rochester resident, conceded as unofficial results Wednesday morningfrom 12 of Strafford County’s 13 communities had Brave ahead 36,857-29,611, a difference of 7,246 votes.
Brave won seven of the 12 Strafford County communities reporting, according to the unofficial results. Those communities included a 2-to-1 victory in Dover (12,903 votes to Callaghan’s 6,078), a nearly 3-to-1 victory in Durham (5,043-1,769), and a win of almost 600 votes in Somersworth (3,160-2,583).
Brave said Wednesday morning the results “just (hasn’t) sunken in yet.”
“I just want to thank the Strafford County voters and I also want to thank my opponent, Paul,” said Brave, who grew up in Lawrence, Massachusetts. His 12-year law enforcement career includes positions in Massachusetts and Maine, as well as time in the Rochester Police Department. “We ran a clean race and we showed you can still get your point across in a respectable manner.”
Callaghan won five of the 12 reporting communities: Rochester (9,051 votes to Brave’s 6,862), Farmington (2,009-1,211), Strafford (1,464-1,150), New Durham (1,129-614) and Middleton (632-338).
Barrington had the closest unofficial results, with Brave sneaking out a 272-vote win, 2,973-2,701.
Results for Milton weren’t available at the time this story was published.
Callaghan serves as the prosecutor for Strafford County’s small town police departments and oversees SCSO’s investigative unit. He is a 34-year law enforcement veteran whose career has included time as a Rochester police captain and prosecutor and a police chief in Kittery, Maine.
Callaghan said he conceded the race after Durham’s results came in late Tuesday, taking the town’s 3-to-1 margin as an indicator it was time to get some sleep before he had to bring his adult son to the airport early Wednesday morning.
“I’m proud of the race I ran and I enjoyed meeting so many people,” said Callaghan, who like Brave put in significant time campaigning door to door throughout the county. “I just wish Mark the best in running the sheriff’s department for the next two years.”
The sheriff’s office is mostly involved in transporting prisoners, serving warrants, and assisting smaller towns in the county. Deputies also transport immigrants being detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement at the county jail — an arrangement the sheriff has authority to refuse, but that Brave and Callaghan both support.
Brave has described SCSO as a “top-notch law enforcement agency,” but also that it has “plenty more” it must do to resolve systemic issues. To resolve such issues, Brave has said the office must involve the community as a whole and address shortcomings in the diversity of the office itself, among other things.
“Now it’s time to get to work and start trying to implement some of the ideas I have,” Brave said Wednesday.
Brave will assume the sheriff’s post Jan. 1. He will succeed longtime sheriff Dave Dubois, D-Rochester, who is retiring.
Dubois has informed Brave the transition process will begin Thursday, with a heavy focus on getting the budget process started with Chief Deputy Sheriff Joe McGivern and Strafford County’s commissioners and administrators.
Brave has said his top three priorities will be to: open the dialogue with the community and the social services the office can help provide; increase transparency through things like implementing body-worn cameras for the office’s civil unit, which he’d then use as a community response team to support local school resource officers and community policing efforts; and “bringing back a sense of community between law enforcement and the community we serve.”
To accomplish some of those goals, Brave has said he would “right away” recruit people of different races to join the SCSO, including members of the region’s large Indonesian community, as well as women, other people of Asian descent and Latinx community members.
“Right now, there’s a mistrust,” Brave said after winning the Democratic nomination during September’s primary.
Brave also wants to make the sheriff’s office the centralized resource Strafford County’s cities and towns look to for bias- and accountability-focused practices.
Brave has said the county sheriff’s office can and should lead local efforts to close gaps between law enforcement and social service-based supports, as well as provide the types of trainings police departments will have to offer in accordance with the commission’s recommendations.
Those trainings includes several progressive techniques Brave said SCSO already teaches its deputies, including heart-focused breathing training designed to help law enforcement officers slow down during a high-stress situation and think through the situation before taking action.
“Even in a gunfight — how do you slow it down so you’re seeing the whole picture, and not just that tunnel vision?” Brave said last week. “We do different trainings here they don’t do anywhere else.”
Brave has signed the list of demands created by the Seacoast chapter of Black Lives Matter because he wants more accountability and transparency, even though he doesn’t agree with all of the items on the list.
Those items include school resource officers and qualified immunity. He has said he doesn’t support removing police from schools — he’d like the sheriff’s office to help small towns add their first school resource officers — and he only wants qualified immunity “reexamined,” not eliminated.
“I don’t want us to see us nurture that ‘us against them’ mentality where law enforcement becomes defensive and thinks everyone’s against them,” Brave said last week, bristling at dog-whistle allegations that local BLM chapters are terrorist or militant organizations working to destroy America. “Law enforcement organizations have disconnected themselves from domestic violence groups because they’ve (expressed support) for Black Lives Matter. That’s not what it’s about — it’s about having that conversation and being transparent.”
Callaghan said he will continue on at the sheriff’s office and he doesn’t see his role there “changing at all” as a result of the election. Callaghan and Brave have worked together for several years and ran a clean campaign.
“I still look forward to serving the county the best way I can,” Callaghan said.
