What To Know
- Pima County supervisors are seeking the removal of Sheriff Chris Nanos.
- Records show Nanos was suspended multiple times as an El Paso police officer.
- The supervisors’ push for Nanos’ removal is unrelated to his handling of the Nancy Guthrie case.
Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos has been under a microscope for months as he investigates the disappearance of Nancy Guthrie, mother of Today’s Savannah Guthrie. But now local officials want him removed from office.
Two Pima County supervisors, if not more, plan to move for the sheriff’s office to be vacated if Nanos doesn’t resign by Tuesday, May 12, the 100th day of the investigation, according to CBS News.
The supervisors allege Nanos perjured himself in a deposition for an unrelated lawsuit. They say the sheriff lied when he denied being suspended during his previous job as a police officer in El Paso, Texas.
According to El Paso Police Department records obtained by CBS News, Nanos was suspended several times, with alleged infractions including “unnecessary violence” on the job.
“A unanimous vote of the disciplinary board at that time, for a whole host of problems, said, ‘Hey, he can’t be a cop anymore. He’s just bad at this, and he’s not upholding our standards. He’s got to go,’” Dr. Matt Heinz of the Pima County Board of Supervisors told CBS News.
Now, Heinz wants Nanos out of office in Pima County, saying, “He has definitely lost the confidence of the community. He has embarrassed himself. And it’s time for him to go.”
In a written response, an attorney for Nanos said, “Sheriff Nanos did not understand the question related to discipline with a different agency not governed by the Arizona Peace Officers Bill of Rights. In reviewing the transcript shortly after his deposition, Sheriff Nanos spotted the misunderstanding and promptly notified his attorney.”
Board members in Pima County are expected to vote on the matter on Tuesday, according to CBS News, though Heinz specified the current criticism is not about Nanos’ performance investigating Nancy’s disappearance. “In no way has the Guthrie investigation ever factored into this,” he said. “It really hasn’t.”
Nanos previously faced scrutiny over a November 2024 incident in which he allegedly brought a loaded, undeclared firearm in a carry-on bag to a security checkpoint at an airport. “If a private citizen had encountered that at the airport, the consequences would have been greater,” Cory Stephens, president of the Conservative Coalition of America, told Fox News Digital last month. “We as citizens want answers. The safety of our community is at stake.”