Spokane sheriff biography
Spokane sheriff biography
Washington state liquor enforcement...
Passion defined Sheriff Ozzie Knezovich’s tenure in Spokane County, for good and for ill
During his more than 16 years running the Spokane County Sheriff’s Office, Ozzie Knezovich remained aware that county commissioners put their political capital on the line naming him sheriff.
“You know, I was not the frontrunner,” Knezovich said earlier this month by phone from his home in Rock Springs, Wyoming.
“As a matter of fact, the party had chosen somebody else.”
Spokane County Commissioners Todd Mielke, Mark Richards and Phil Harris emerged from that closed-door session in April 2006 and named a then-43-year-old sergeant their pick as the county’s top law enforcement official.
“It added an extra dimension of pressure, if you will,” said Knezovich, who on Dec.
31 ended his last term as sheriff. “It was always important that I lived up to that trust that they had put in me.”
He has consistently received overwhelming support at the polls and had earned national recognition for th