Ruszkowski, Laureys look to keep climbing the ladder of law enforcement in St. Joseph County

SOUTH BEND, Ind. -- The race for St. Joseph County Sheriff will feature two experienced, yet new faces as Democrat candidate Scott Ruszkowski will be taking on Republican candidate Rod Laureys.

Bringing 37 years of experience at the south bend police department, serving the last 12 of those as Chief, Democrat candidate Scott Ruszkowski says his top issue remains gun violence.

"If people don't think you're affected by it, you are sadly mistaken because if you don't know somebody involved in that firearm violence, you hear about it on social media, you hear about it on media, so it does affect us all," Ruszkowski said. "And you don't get a do-over once that trigger is pulled. So, if we can stop that, we can fix other things."

Opposing Ruszkowski is Republican candidate Rod Laureys who brings 15 years of experience with SJCPD, and 10 of which were as a federal alcohol, tobacco, firearms task force officer (ATF).

Laureys says reestablishing a metro drug unit will have a domino effect in getting guns off the streets.

"I'm going to reestablish a metro drug unit in this county," Laureys said. "What that does establishes proactive police work and getting in the street, finding out where the drugs come from, stopping that, getting the people that are dealing the drugs where there's drugs, there's guns, and when you start taking those people off the street, you're being proactive."

But, on the top of Laureys' list of issues he wants to tackle, is the St. Joseph County Jail.

Laureys says if he is elected, that bringing in an outside agency for an assessment will be at the top of his list.

"The Indiana Department of Corrections has a team that will come in and do an assessment inside the jail, and in that first 30 days, they're going to do that assessment, and it covers a variety of things, medical, you know, finances, all these different topics within that first 30 days, and then they're going to provide me a report, and they'll give me recommendations what should be done," Laureys said.

And for Ruszkowski, when asking him about the St. Joseph County jail, transparency was the common theme.

"This position is CEO of a company and as the community's company," Ruszkowski said. "And when the community has questions about their company, they should have answers about that company, and that's what they're going to get. And that's why transparency is deserved."

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