Sheriff Johnathan Morgan faces three challengers—Demetrio Perez, Troy McDuffie, and Joe Bailer—in the March 3 Democratic primary for Cumberland County Sheriff.
Early voting runs through February 28. If one of the candidates clears the primary without a runoff, he advances to the November general election to face Republican LaRue Windham.
Whoever wins in November will lead an agency with 651 employees, a $67.97 million annual budget, and oversee a county jail with a capacity population of 884 people. The sheriff’s office secures Cumberland County’s courtrooms, patrols Cumberland County Schools facilities, and shares jurisdiction throughout the county, working alongside municipal police to enforce laws and conduct investigations inside towns and cities. The agency sees more than 90,000 calls for service to 911.
All four Democratic candidates highlight long careers in public service and a desire to strengthen the sheriff’s office. They told CityView what motivated them to enter the race and the issues they want to address.
Demetrio Perez: ‘I shoot from the hip, but I speak from the heart’
For Perez, 64, the decision to run came from what he describes as a steady drumbeat from inside the agency he once served.
“What drove me to run is the much needed change that has to occur in the sheriff’s office,” he told CityView.
Perez, a Texas native who has lived in Fayetteville since the Army brought him here in 1979, spent 20 years in the military and another 18 as a Cumberland County sheriff’s deputy. His résumé spans school resource work, gang investigations, supervision, bilingual hostage negotiation, recruiting, and polygraph examinations.
He says he still hears from former colleagues—and what he hears concerns him.
“Morale is down. Morale is down. The promotion system is broken, and that’s why they can’t retain anybody. People are leaving. They’re bringing in folks that shouldn’t even be deputies,” Perez said.
As a former recruiter, he argued the agency’s hiring standards have slipped.
“When you do it, you have to make sure that you cross all your T’s and dot all the i’s, because if you don’t, you can bring in a bad actor,” Perez said.
Perez now works as a security specialist for Cumberland County Schools and casts his candidacy as a continuation of a life spent in public service. He said his leadership style is rooted in discipline and development.
“I know how to build people. I know how to instill discipline and keep discipline, and I don’t train people for today. I train them for tomorrow,” Perez said.
His top priority is restoring what he calls the “visibility” of the sheriff’s office—a return to sheriffs who “took pride in going out and being with the public, talking to the public, gaining their trust and keeping their trust.”
He also wants to bring school resource officers (SROs) back under the sheriff’s office. The agency provided SROs since 1998, but in 2024 said it lacked the staffing to renew its contract, leaving Fayetteville and Hope Mills police departments to fill the gap—and leaving some schools without officers.
For more information, visit Perez’s Facebook page at Perez for Sheriff or his website at perez4sheriff.com.
Johnathan Morgan: ‘Our biggest fight right now is retention’
For Morgan, 50, the job wasn’t something he sought out.
Former Sheriff Ennis Wright asked him to apply for the vacancy, Morgan said—and it took time, prayer, and conversations with his wife before he agreed. In August 2025, county commissioners unanimously appointed him sheriff to complete Wright’s unexpired term.
“I’ve just been ingrained with helping others,” Morgan said. “You want to help the community, but you also want to make sure that we’re taking care of the deputies inside the agency too.”
Morgan, a North Carolina native, began his law‑enforcement career with the Fayetteville Police Department in 1997 before joining the sheriff’s office a year later. He has spent 28 years with the agency and nearly 20 years as a volunteer firefighter with the Stoney Point Fire Department.
Asked what changes he has made since stepping into the role, Morgan pointed to his focus on fiscal stewardship—specifically, finding ways to save money without compromising operations.
“Sometimes you gotta look at things like a business too, because you’re dealing with people, and you’re dealing with county tax money,” he said.
In the past, the county spent about $3,000 to uniform a new officer. By reevaluating vendors and processes, he said he cut that cost by roughly 30%. If elected, he plans to continue that approach.
“Looking at ways that we can say, okay, is this a waste? Are we wasting money here, or is there a different way we can do this to where we’re saving money,” he said.
But Morgan said the agency’s most urgent challenge is retention—and that the root of the problem is a Career Development Plan that hasn’t been updated since 1980.
He argued the plan is no longer competitive with surrounding agencies, which offer better pay and advancement opportunities. He says he has been working with county commissioners to overhaul it.
“Our biggest fight right now is retention, keeping people here. And how we do that is we fix our Career Development Plan,” he said.
To learn more about Morgan, visit his Cumberland County Sheriff’s Office biography.
Troy McDuffie: ‘There’s always room for improvement’
McDuffie, 62, said he didn’t initially plan to run either, butWright approached him about it.
McDuffie brings more than 35 years of law‑enforcement experience, plus six years in the military with the 82nd Airborne Division. His policing career began in 1986 with the Fayetteville Police Department and later included leadership roles across the region.
In the early 2000s, he served as deputy chief of the Hoke County Sheriff’s Office and then as chief of police in Red Springs. In 2009, he took over the Spring Lake Police Department after it was stripped of its law‑enforcement powers amid a corruption probe. He stayed until 2017, helping restore the department’s authority, returned briefly at the town’s request, and retired again in 2021.
He later spent a year as deputy police chief for the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs Police Service before leaving to care for aging relatives.
From the outside, McDuffie said he doesn’t see “major problems” inside the sheriff’s office—but that recruitment and understaffing need immediate attention.
He also emphasized community trust, something he said he had to rebuild in Spring Lake.
“One of my main focus with the Cumberland County Sheriff’s Office is to build a strong relationship and better connections with the community,” McDuffie said.
Visit McDuffie’s campaign website at electtroymcduffie.com to learn more.
Joe Bailer: ‘Legitimacy, transparency and accountability’
Bailer, 56, said he entered the race because he wasn’t seeing enough community engagement from the current administration.
As sheriff, he said he would focus on “legitimacy, transparency, and accountability.”
Bailer, who has 30 years of experience across the military and corrections, served as a military police officer and in military intelligence. He has taught incarcerated students through the North Carolina Department of Adult Corrections and has spent the last 12 years as director of public safety at Fayetteville Technical Community College.
He also noted that during his military service, he “guarded five presidents,” working alongside the Secret Service on multiple missions.
Bailer said residents tell him they rarely see deputies—and that when they call for help, they’re sometimes told their issue isn’t the sheriff’s office’s responsibility.
“That’s not good policing. I should be able to gather the resource for them and contact the resource to get them what they need,” he said.
His top safety concerns include drug trafficking, sex trafficking, and crimes involving minors. He also said the jail needs urgent attention.
“The jail is in disarray, so that needs to have a hard reset on it and understand what’s going on in there,” Bailer said.
Like the other candidates, he said recruitment is a major problem—and he has a plan to bring in more deputies.
You can find more information about Bailer on his Facebook page, Joe Bailer for Sheriff, or on his website joebailerforsheriff.com.
Government reporter Rachel Heimann Mercader can be reached at rheimann@cityviewnc.com or 910-988-8045.
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