Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos is facing a recall.
Daniel Butierez, a Republican congressional candidate, told NewsNation he has started the recall process for Nanos, who has received national attention in the case of Nancy Guthrie, who has been missing since Feb. 1.
Butierez added there are hundreds of volunteers collecting signatures to remove Nanos from office.
Recently, Nanos has been criticized for his handling of the search for Guthrie, the mother of “Today” show host Savannah Guthrie. Nancy Guthrie, 84, was reported missing from her Tucson, Arizona, home.
But Butierez said the Guthrie case is just the latest example of Nanos’ inadequacy in doing his job.
“This is about more than, of course, the Nancy Guthrie case,” Butierez said Tuesday.
“This was just the straw that broke the camel’s back, essentially … It’s a shame that crime has risen to this point in our community, and I can’t blame just Nanos. We have failed leadership in Pima County,” he added.
The process to recall an official is a lengthy one.
Butierez has 120 days to get 120,000 signatures. This is 25% of the total votes cast for the sheriff in his 2024 election. His goal is to get that number within 60 days. If the recall is successful, Nanos has the option to resign or call for a special election.
Documents have revealed Nanos misstated his law enforcement employment history on his publicly posted resume, which stated Nanos resigned instead of being terminated from the El Paso Police Department in 1982. This is two years earlier than he indicated on his resume.
According to the records, Nanos’ resignation from the El Paso police resulted from a long list of disciplinary issues, including insubordination, excessive force, off-duty gambling and tardiness, NewsNation reported.
His department earlier this week acknowledged the errors in Nanos’ publicly posted resume.
Crime analyst Sheryl McCollum, the founder and director of Cold Case Investigative Research Institute, said on “Jesse Weber Live” she believes Nanos is doing an adequate job in the Guthrie search.
“There is absolutely no doubt he’s made mistakes, he has misspoken, he has contradicted himself, he went to a basketball game, which was a horrible optic, but the reality is this ain’t TV,” McCollum said.
“If there’s no connection, you’ve got to find where they intersected. And if it was only at that house on the 31st (of January), it’s going to take more than 45 days … If some missteps that are just human nature are going to cost you your job, honey, most of us will be out of work. So you’ve got to give them time to work,” she added.
