A former Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office employee is seeking to unseat the current Sheriff Dave Marshak.
Colin Rumpsa, 57, of Arnold has announced he will challenge Marshak for the Republican Party’s nomination for sheriff in the August primary election. If Marshak files for re-election, he will be seeking his third four-year term.
Rumpsa has a pending civil lawsuit against Marshak and members of the county’s Sheriff’s Merit Commission, alleging wrongful termination from the Sheriff’s Office.
Rumpsa was hired by the Sheriff’s Office in 2017 after he retired from the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department, where he worked for 20 years.
At the time he was fired from the Sheriff’s Office in June 2022, Rumpsa said he was a corporal assigned to the homeless outreach unit.
According to court documents, the firing stemmed from an incident in May 2022 when, according to Rumpsa, he was off duty and he and his wife were leaving the Arnold-Imperial Elks, where he is a member. He said he witnessed a possible road rage incident involving a man and an older woman who was driving her husband home.
Rumpsa said he intervened, and the man took a swing at him while he was searching for his badge to show the man.
“I have a right to self-defense,” he said. “I neutralized him and told him that he was being placed under arrest and that I would be calling the police. He took a U-turn and drove off.”
Rumpsa said he was cleared of criminal charges resulting from the incident.
“I was told I should not have gotten involved in a minor incident as an off-duty officer,” Rumpsa said. “Road rage is not minor. They can turn violent. I can tell you that families of people who have been involved in both sides of a road rage incident would be relieved if an off-duty officer would try to keep someone from being killed and someone else from going to prison.”
Rumpsa’s civil case is working its way through the Jefferson County Circuit Court.
“Is this (running for office) personal with me?” Rumpsa said. “I want to say it’s not, but I see these things going on because I worked there. I think the people of Jefferson County deserve better.”
He said the Sheriff’s Office employs an outside consultant for at least $40,000 a year to advise it on how to retain and recruit employees.
“I’d get rid of that immediately,” he said. “It’s not difficult. Pay people fairly and just treat your people right, and you won’t have a turnover problem.”
A native of St. Louis County, Rumpsa enlisted in the U.S. Army after high school and served in the 101st Airborne Division and the 8th Infantry Division in Germany.
He said he then worked for the Nooter Corp. for almost eight years as a union boilermaker, but then decided law enforcement was his calling.
“My wife, Anita, and I were driving to church one Sunday morning and passed a Highway Patrol car that had pulled over someone. She said, ‘Why would they pull over someone on a Sunday morning? They’re probably just trying to get to church.’ I told her, ‘They were probably speeding and that’s going to be me (as a police officer) someday.’”
Rumpsa enrolled in the St. Louis Police Academy in 1997 and was hired by the St. Louis city police department, holding many positions, including defensive tactics and motorcycle instructor and accident reconstructionist. He was a sergeant when he retired from the department in 2017.
After he went to work for the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office, he said he soon learned he wasn’t in St. Louis anymore.
“I was riding around with my trainer, and we got a call to assist a stalled school bus. We got to the scene and ended up behind the bus, and the kids were waving to us, so I started waving back. My trainer asked, ‘Why are you doing that?’ I told him that this was so much different from where I came from, when the kids would likely be giving us the finger or even trying to spit on us. The people of Jefferson County are awesome.”
After serving as a road deputy for a year, Rumpsa said he was promoted to detective and then corporal.
He now works as a consultant with the Campbell Security Group.
Rumpsa said after years of working in law enforcement, he’s ready for an administrative job.
“I’ve learned that when you’re a true leader, people tend to gravitate toward you,” he said. “I think I have a lot of leadership skills. Even during my time with the boilermakers, I was a shop steward.”
He and Anita, his wife of almost 31 years, have four grown children – Taylor-Ann, Erin, Colin and Nathan – and three grandsons.
Candidate filing for the August primary election runs from Feb. 27 through March 26.
The sheriff is paid $156,214 a year.