The sheriff speaks: Blackburn discusses community policing, budgets and more

Although the topic was community policing, longtime Big Horn County Sheriff Ken Blackburn engaged in a wide-ranging discussion covering a variety of topics at the February 16 general membership meeting of the Lovell Area Chamber of Commerce at the Mustang Café.

Also attending were Sgt. Craig Shidler and sheriff’s assistant Natalie Wardell.

Blackburn announced his retirement in December and will wrap up his career in March.

“I’ll be retiring in 29 days (at the time of the meeting), but I’m not counting,” he said with a smile. “I’ll probably start figuring the hours and minutes here pretty quick, too, but I’ve served as your sheriff for over 19 years. I’m actually the longest serving sheriff in the history of Big Horn County.

“This is a bittersweet thing for me. I love serving you guys. I love serving this community. I truly love what I’ve been able to do. … I think we’ve lost a lot of Mayberry in our world. It’s become quite a situation where law enforcement officers are pushed, and budgetarily, they’re pushed. And a little bit of what I’m going to talk about today is where we’re headed budgetarily.”

Blackburn said there are surely mixed feelings in the county about his retirement, but he said he has always tried to do what is right.

“If I’ve done anything right, I followed, first of all, the Constitution,” he said. “I very emphatically believe that I was here to enforce the Constitution of the United States. And that’s not on the people. That’s for the people. I’ve had a motto on several of my campaigns. I’ve served in five terms as your sheriff, and my motto has always been, ‘I’m not looking for you, I’m looking out for you.’ And as far as the Constitution goes, that is a wonderful document.

“I’ve taken (citizen rights) very seriously and become a student of the Constitution, but more importantly, on how those things protect you. And a lot of times, we do investigate crimes, but part of my job is enforcing on law enforcement officers that are not respectful of the Constitution and that are trying to take advantage or use unethical methods to do what they need to do. … When an officer doesn’t follow the rules, there’s somebody that needs to be willing to step up and say that.”

Blackburn described community policing as involving the community in what the sheriff’s office is doing and enlisting the community’s support. He noted the success of neighborhood or community watch programs in several communities, though he said the program ebbs and flows, depending on the situation.

In Byron, for instance, the community had a very active program that has run for years but has waned a bit in the wake of the shootings just over a year ago. Blackburn said many in the community are still healing from the trauma of that murder-suicide on February 10, 2025, from law enforcement officers to school staff members and the community in general.

“I know a lot of my law enforcement officers are still healing,” he said. “I still feel a responsibility and a lot of emotion when I think about that situation, because I was intimately involved that day as one of the first people through the door. It’s a very deep thing that law enforcement officers have to witness and be a part of. … Likewise, it was really difficult for the Byron community watch people, and it’s just a good time to take a short break, and we’re expecting to get that involved again.”

The sheriff noted that people sometimes “get cranky” when a state championship high school team (varsity only, he noted) rides through town on a fire truck at 1 in the morning, escorted by police and sheriff officers, but said the experience is something the young people will never forget.

Resource officers

Blackburn defended the expansion of the sheriff’s office force with the addition of school resource officers over the years, noting that there are now four SROs in the county operating in Lovell (two), Cowley and Burlington for school districts one and two. District No. 4 uses the Basin Police Department, and Greybull is considering a program, he said. 

“What better place to put our resources than with the kids?” Blackburn asked. “We’re there day to day. We’re spending time with the children. … They can approach us. The teachers approach us about difficulties that they’re having.

“We’re not there just showing up (as people) nobody knows. They’re eating lunch with them. They’re playing sports. They’re in a counseling role, not that they’re counselors, but a lot of times kids open up to them.”

Blackburn said police departments and sheriff’s offices always come under scrutiny about how well they do their jobs, but he noted that while “we know who’s doing just about everything, we have a responsibility (for a crime) to be proved beyond a reasonable doubt. So that’s like 98% sure and 2% doubt that something occurred. That’s the standard. The reality is, there are problems creeping into this world every day, and crime is getting more serious. It’s getting more insidious.”

The sheriff said his office has been very tough on crime in one important area.

“Sadly, one of the legacies that I will leave behind when I retire is that my administration and my team have prosecuted successfully more sexual offenders, multi-generational sexual offenders, than any of the sheriffs combined in the history of Big Horn County,” he said. “That’s what we deal with. How do we change that so the next generation has a chance?

“We’re not looking to make anybody’s life miserable. We are looking to improve other people’s lives. And how many generations have been ruined? And if you had any idea the families that have been impacted from this, you would be shocked, and it would be more than humbling to you.”

Blackburn said enforcing the law sometimes makes some people angry, even to the point of threats against him, but he added, “I am grateful to be the guy that people have put their anger toward the last 19 years, and have it focused on me so that other people can go ahead and survive and get on with their lives and hopefully heal, and more importantly, that my grandbabies and your grandbabies or your children can have a chance at a normal life. And if having people mad at me and threatening me is the price that it takes to be able to have that for somebody else, let me tell you something. I’ll take it all day long.

“I have to admit, I’m tired and I’m ready for a break, but that is what a lot of your law enforcement officers do.”

He told about the horror of walking into that home in Byron a year ago, officers not knowing if there was still an active shooter, then dealing with the horrors of the situation they discovered. Cases like that affect officers greatly, he said.

“I want you to be aware that when they put on this body armor every day, it’s real,” he said. “Every time we put this vest on, we could be receiving those rounds. That’s what they do for you. They’re not caring about the politics of the nation. They’re not caring about what is going on in Washington, D.C., or Minnesota or anything else. They are trying day to day to make lives better here for people in Big Horn County.”

Tight budgets

Blackburn said looming budget cuts from the state level could greatly harm the sheriff’s office, noting that while everybody likes property tax reduction, including himself, there must be some backfill from the legislature to keep already understaffed departments like his from having to cut even further.

“We’re currently looking at cutting up to five positions out of the sheriff’s department that will cripple your response, that will cripple your community policing, he said. “This is not the Big Horn County commissioners’ fault. This is a legislative issue that needs to be left at the legislature’s feet. They are providing unfunded mandates for Big Horn County that they are making it very difficult for us to fulfill. … I’m all for smaller government, but there are certain things that have to be maintained at a certain level in order to protect people. And the reality is, if you take any standard funding model for law enforcement agencies, we are already less than half of what a minimum staffing standard is currently in Big Horn County; that’s how small we are. We’ve gotten away with it because we are a fairly low crime area. It is increasing, it is becoming more real, and it is becoming a bigger problem.”

The sheriff noted the controversy surrounding whether his office and the county should enter into a contract with ICE for immigration enforcement, noting that he’s not entertaining the idea because of the financial benefits but because the arrangement would allow him to maintain local control in the county and address growing concerns he has regarding crimes like the Venezuelan gang that stole tens of thousands of dollars from local ATM machines or the growing problem of undocumented long haul truckers who don’t have proper training or a valid CDL, drivers that could take lives in a crash.

“I took it for granted that people would understand that I would only do things in the best interest of Big Horn County, and I didn’t take into consideration how divided our politics are right now,” he said. “And boy, did I get an earful, which is fine. But the reality of why I took this on was because it’s always been about us maintaining local control in Big Horn County. We’ve always found out it’s better to have local control than having outside people come in for governance.”

He noted that he has battled the Forst Service or the Park Service over the years in the name of local control, and he said he was acting in the best interests of the people of his county.

“We’ve always tried to do the right thing. It’s a tool in our chest that can help people,” Blackburn continued. “I gave a lot of details (in a recent newspaper story), but I didn’t give the right details, and I didn’t couch in the right direction, and what came out of that was the people’s interpretation, and the reality of what we’re doing here is building a safety net for our people that are driving on the road. And I hate to prophesy, but I’m here to tell you we are not far away from an accident that’s going to involve some of our residents that are going to be harmed as a result of somebody.

“It’s not their immigration status that I’m worried about. That’s the tool I’ll use to get them off the road. It’s their skill level, their ability. They’re handling a 48,000-pound missile going down the road, facing off with my wife, my kids, my grandkids, your family that I’m more concerned about, and that’s what I was trying to accomplish with this.”

Sgt. Shidler also spoke about the School Resource Officer program and the many positive benefits of officers interacting with students, including a cessation program enacted by Cowley SRO Shane Brost, which allows a student to voluntarily seek help instead of facing a citation and fine for vaping, tobacco use and the like.

“We want to do what’s best for these kids and provide them with some wellness and some direction,” Shidler said. “I think our SRO programs with our school districts here have just been invaluable thus far, and we’re continuing to grow them and continuing to advance them.

“Our SROs attend most varsity events, ballgames, track meets, basketball, football. They come in on their Saturdays or their Friday nights, stay at the ballgames and provide a security element there. We’ve had some issues with some different teams where they get a little rowdy with the fans on one side, get a little rowdy with fans on the other. And I think having that officer presence has really de-escalated some of the issues that we’ve had in the past.”

Shidler also touched on the value of providing courtroom security in the county, which he said judges have very much appreciated, noting the work of Deputy Jason Beal.

Blackburn also touched on the Big Horn County Visual Observation Specialist Program, which works with people experiencing a mental health crisis to get them medical help rather than a jail cell.

Finally, Shidler passed out information on the Department of Homeland Security Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Agency Protective Security Advisor Program that allows churches, schools, industry or businesses to work with Homeland Security in a process to evaluate a facility’s security and identify options for owners and operators to mitigate threats.