From Christopher Boardman, candidate for Harford County Sheriff:
When I first contemplated running for Sheriff of Harford County, one of the first things that occurred to me and to others was why I thought I could do this job when I’d never before been a policeman or sworn law enforcement official. That is a legitimate question, and it deserves a good answer.
First of all, Harford needs a good sheriff, something the county does currently not have. The incumbent has been more interested in getting a good pay raise for himself before he even settled the long-festering problem of adequate compensation for the deputies who have waited for years. The question of gun violence is one that I have long argued in The Dagger and other publications. Sheriff Gahler made a sarcastic proposal without any sincerity that if we had a gun buyback program it would be something that I would have to pay for with my own funds; I do appreciate that he has overestimated my personal wealth, but his proposal was not serious and he is not interested in finding ways to make Harford County safer. I forwarded him some links to contacts in Australia who were involved with solving their gun violence problem and offered to come in and talk to him. But he is not interested in this.
He would rather be promoting gun sales and raffles for semi-automatic weapons. He also fashions himself as a super-politician interested in acquiring power on the state and federal levels rather than tend details in a county jurisdiction. So it is clear Harford needs a new and better sheriff.
Why me?
In the late 1970’s I got a job as editor for a statewide newspaper called The Police News. I traveled all over the Maryland and interviewed police and sheriff officials from all the jurisdictions and wrote articles how the different departments did their work. I learned a lot about police and sheriff work in that job.
Then when I was in Harford County I talked to Gary Fulker, a deputy then whose father Raymond Fulker was a previous sheriff. He told me about a ten-year-old murder case solved by Deputy Sergeant William “Bill” Van Horn, nicknamed “The Bulldog” because he wouldn’t give up when maybe others did.
I spent a lot of time researching that case, reviewing court transcripts and records and writing the article. I sent the article to the New York offices of The Official Detective Group of Magazines, the publisher of six true crime detective magazines. The article languished on their slush pile for several months. But when their editors finally looked it over they loved it and ranked it as one of their cover stories.
Next, the editors wanted me to write a profile of Sgt. Van Horn as Master Detective Magazine’s National Police Officer of the Month. I was glad to be a part of this effort to honor one of Harford County’s finest, and Sheriff Bill Kunkel and I presented Sgt. Van Horn with the magazine’s certificate of recognition.
From there I went on and wrote regularly for the Official Detective Group and a rival magazine publisher, Globe Publishing in Montreal, Canada.
In all I published 450 true crime articles about homicide investigations in Maryland, Pennsylvania, Delaware, District of Columbia, New Jersey and Virginia over a period of nearly 20 years. I researched cases in big city departments such as Philadelphia, Baltimore, Wilmington, Richmond and Washington D.C., and in many rural areas such as southwestern Virginia, the anthracite coal region of Pennsylvania and the rural Eastern Shore. Many articles were reprinted in Zebra Books’ true crime collections and more recently I published my own collections of true crime titled Crimes of Passion, Kinky Killers and Cold Cases.
If anyone is interested in any of these titles they should contact me and at a small price they will be made available.
I learned a lot about the criminal justice system, including the courts, during this career. Not only how criminal cases are handled in different places in the mid-Atlantic area, I also got to know a lot of accomplished and interesting people. This is experience that I bring to the job.
But that’s not all. In the early 1980’s a new program established by NASA, NOAA and agencies from the British French and Soviet governments was established to find victims of small airplane crashes and maritime accidents. Only a few years earlier the U.S. House Majority Leader Hale Boggs and Alaska Congressmen Nick Begich were lost during a small airplane flight in Alaska. Their bodies and airplane were never recovered and the U.S. Air Force and state and local authorities spent millions of dollars in their fruitless search. These agencies devised a program by which satellites could monitor beacons on the airplanes, boats and ships that could carry them.
Because I wanted to help and was very interested this program, I wrote a series of articles about this program to help people in commercial fishing, boating, private aviation, marine shipping and other sectors understand and coordinate with this new system. SARSAT-COSPAS as the program was named has saved thousands and thousands of lives by assisting search and rescue authorities locate and rescue people in the U.S. and throughout the world. One of my proudest achievements was when an article I wrote for SAIL Magazine was reprinted in RESPONSE!, the magazine published for search and rescue authorities. This helped sheriffs in remote counties in the U.S., the Coast Guard and aviation authorities work within the system. I have been very supportive of people working in search and rescue as have the originators of this program from the various governments involved.
Being a freelance writer has not been a great income and I had to find another way of making a living. I went back to school for five years and became a registered nurse. For 21 years I have worked in various hospitals, but for the past eight years I have worked in the downtown Maryland prison infirmary where the inmates are prisoners. This has been a good job for me because it has given me valuable experience working in the correctional system where a sheriff must be knowledgeable, and it also dovetails with much of my time writing about criminal justice. My experience also includes some work at the Harford County Detention Center medical unit.
My experience as a nurse is also valuable because I have worked with people recovering from alcohol and drug addiction, gunshot violence and mental health issues. The current opioid crisis is one that calls on responders to have wide experience. My work as nurse is valuable because county jails are repositories of offenders with many medical and psychiatric problems.
Some negative comments have been made about me as “an old guy.” It’s true I’m not as young as I used to be, and I’m not as physically active as before. But I’m selling knowledge and experience. I don’t have to leap over fences and dash 100 yards to make an arrest. There are plenty of others who can do that better than me. But there are some things that I do a lot better than others that will help me be a very good sheriff.
Christopher “Krist” Boardman
So basically you are Nancy Drew?
The saddest part about this whole episode, Boardman’s “experience,” his hate speech and his candidacy is that he does not realize just how dumb or lacking he is. Must be hard to look in the mirror and face the truth, so he is living in fantasy land.
Are you kidding me! Did you really call me and my family a bunch of rednecks! Class act!
Signed – Proud Cecil County Resident!
Poor Mr. Boardman. I guess he now knows how Hilliary felt when her true nature was revealed. Election is over. My friends in Cecil will love this.
For a writer that is one the the most poorly worded and grammatically flawed letters that I have ever read.
I guess he also stayed in a Holiday Inn Express last night too.
Are you trolling Harford County? This can’t be serious.
What makes you qualified to run a government agency with a $65+ million budget employing hundreds of people?
I hope you and Sheriff Gahler have a debate. That should be pretty entertaining.
I know I will be there with my family and have a few questions I would like ANSWERED by Boardman!!!
Signed – A proud Cecil County Resident!
Is he really trying to sell books? Lol! Pathetic
“In the early 1980’s a new program established by NASA, NOAA and agencies from the British French and Soviet governments was established to find victims of small airplane crashes and maritime accidents.”
He was colluding with the Russians in the 80’s! LOL, this guy is a clown.
Mr. Boardman, you seem very partisan.
He does make a valid point which is Gahler got legislation written to get himself a pay raise, because 100k wasn’t enough. Some of his deputy’s are close to being on food stamps the way things are going. That’s ridiculous.
The sheriff doesn’t determine their pay…the county council does and he fought hard to get raises…
Correct…. They deserve to have the pay that other’s around the country have…
No doubt but lay blame where it is due…which isn’t on Gahler
Harford County Sheriff’s department was grossly underpaid… By the way the sheriff can not write legislation….
I just asked my 8th grader to edit this article. Making a career change early on was his best decision.
Is this a joke?
Mr Boardman is qualified because he followed cops around and wrote stories about them? Met a prior sheriff’s son?
I’m dumbfounded.
I am still confused on what makes you think that you could be a good Sheriff ?
Writing stories and giving shots to prisoners? Who are you? You have no background, you have nothing to provide to our citizens, hell you can not even write a good background stories for yourself.
You are wasting your talent running for Sheriff. Perhaps you should open a school
KRIST BOARDMAN’S CENTER FOR KIDS WHO CAN’T READ GOOD
AND WHO WANNA LEARN TO DO OTHER STUFF GOOD TOO
This is probably the best comment ever to be posted on the dagger. Kudos!
Mr. Boardman is one of the most partisan individuals I have ever met.
Mr. Boardman may have never heard the famous quote, “Better to not speak and be thought a fool than to open your mouth and erase all doubt.” Wow.
Boardman, since you have no experience in Law Enforcement and are running for Office of the Sheriff, what changes do you think could be made to make your County safer? Would these changes violate the Constitution? Would you violate the Constitution and for what reason would you attest these violations are necessary? Experience or lack of, does not qualify or disqualify a person for any office and if you have a plan I’m sure Harford County would like to hear it. We now know your history and what you have experienced in your past positions. Let’s hear your vision for what you think the HCSO could be under your leadership and what steps you think are necessary to make your county safer.
Will Boardman only hire Democrats as police officers?
Is the job of sheriff an administration job? Does the sheriff ever have a need to perform in the field as an officer, potentially in a mass shooting situation?
Having read your essay, it appears you have a lot of experience analyzing and presenting findings, but how does that equate to managing people, budgets, public relations and yes, being in the field with a gun protecting the public?
Did I miss something in this entire read… Do you actually have any badge carrying experience?? I mean you authored several pieces, but have you actually done the job of a law enforcement officer.
I kind of want the surgeon working on me to have actually been a Physicians Assistant or Resident in the field for some time before he fires up that surgical saw. Just sayin
He doesn’t want to be a surgeon he wants to run the hospital, you need to work on your stupid analogies.
Okay, he want to run the hospital because he wrote a story about something that happened in a hospital once upon a time. C R A Z Y is easy to see, mental heath concerns with disparaging comments is a concern.
Mr. Boardman, what you’ve just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.
Is Partisan Chris going to respond?
Was this the same guy that started that charity, holy shirts and pants?
You know, people helping people.
Wow! It took Gahler something like 24 hours to prove Boardman a liar and a fraud. Claims his is the crown prince of civility while sending hateful emails. The Democratic Party should be ashamed of this clown.
Only thing worth commenting on here is it appears Boardman is taking lessons from the Trump school of public speaking. He’s going to hugely improve things on a bigly scale. From what I’m reading he’s going to do great things on a great scale. Nice things. Everyone will love the things he does. And everyone else will pay for them. Mark his words. He’s going to be phenomenal to his constituents. I mean, he really wants to help them. But it’s like in golf. A lot of people – he doesn’t want this to sound trivial – but a lot of people are switching to these really long putters, very unattractive. It’s weird. They’re scary, and sometimes they’re black. He sees these great players with these really long putters, because they can’t sink three-footers anymore. And, he hates it. He despises your rights. He has so many fabulous friends who happen to support gun rights, but he despises your rights.