Sheriff Laurie Smith & Sierra LaMar

I wish to add my name to the growing list of law enforcement fraternal organizations, business leaders who are supporting Kevin Jensen’s candidacy for Sheriff of Santa Clara County. Although I am not a resident of Santa Clara County I have had opportunities to interact with Sheriff Laurie Smith and firmly believe that the citizens of Santa Clara County deserve a new direction and new leadership in the public safety arena.

During the days and months following the disappearance of Sierra LaMar I worked with her family and a large volunteer force to organize and establish the Sierra Search Center. Many thousands of individuals have volunteered time and tens of thousands of hours have been donated to assist with the search for Sierra LaMar. The Sierra Search Center, now run by Sierra’s family and a core group of volunteers, has now entered its third year.

Throughout the process of searching for Sierra we reached out to the Sheriff Smith on many occasions requesting passive information that would not impact the case, but might assist our efforts to better focus on viable search areas. Unfortunately, despite the fact that her office no longer dispatches SAR teams to look for Sierra LaMar, Sheriff Laurie Smith has ignored all of our requests.

I have been involved in organizing civilian search efforts since my daughter Polly was kidnapped in 1993. None of the numerous searches that we have engaged have ever been stonewalled by the jurisdictional law enforcement like the search for Sierra LaMar.

Sierra LaMar remains missing and Santa Clara County needs a new Sheriff. Join me in supporting the candidacy of Kevin Jensen for Santa Clara County Sheriff.

Response from Sheriff Smith’s campaign political consultant:

“It is sad that Mr. Klass is so thoroughly misinformed on this subject. No individual has done more to protect the public from the suspect or followed up more leads in the search for Sierra LaMarr. It is unfortunate that Mr. Klass is being used for political purposes in this way. This continues to be an ongoing investigation and the Sheriff will do nothing to prejudice the case against the suspect. She cannot comment and her uninformed opponents know it. That said, as a Mother, she will not rest until Sierra is found and the perpetrator brought to justice.”

My response to their response:

I’ve never met Kevin Jensen and I didn’t endorse him for Santa Clara Sheriff for political or personal reasons. I endorsed Mr. Jensen because he seems supremely qualified, and the current Sheriff Laurie Smith did not assist our volunteer search for Sierra LaMar. This is one of the few times in my 20 years of organizing volunteer searches that our efforts were totally stonewalled by the jurisdictional law enforcement agency.

The Sheriff’s response says that I am misinformed, but I would like to point out that they misspelled my name (Klaas, not Klass) and Sierra’s name (LaMar, not LaMarr). This leads me to believe that they are uninformed!