After I wrote my last article exposing Sheriff Dave Rosado’s woke catch and release policies, Rosado performed a sleight of hand and revealed that he had secretly changed his dangerous sanctuary jail policies in the dark of night on March 27th. This is positive for Chesapeake, but the problem is Dave Rosado is acting like these were his policies all along. He truly thinks voters are ignorant, and this must not go unnoticed by conservative voters in Chesapeake.
Let’s break down the timeline:
- March 16: A national article on Medium identifies Republican sheriffs operating sanctuary jails. Sheriff Rosado’s Chesapeake City Jail is listed alongside jails in California and Oregon.
- March 27: Under pressure, Rosado quietly changes his ICE detainer policy—no press release, no transparency.
- April 2: I expose his record right here on The Bull Elephant.
- April 3: Rosado scrambles to release a polished version of his new policy—acting like it was always in place. No admission. No accountability.
- Then: Rosado convinces a local TV reporter to run a fluff piece, hiding the fact that the change happened just days earlier. It’s political theater—nothing more.
Rosado is in a full-blown PR campaign to deceive voters, but we aren’t ignorant and we know the TRUTH. It takes more than a liberal media fluff piece on ABC to pull the wool over our eyes.
Let’s be clear: Rosado didn’t act out of conviction, and has yet to acknowledge the danger he had us under. He changed his policy because he was caught and cornered. The voters forced his hand, not his conscience.
Here’s what Rosado doesn’t want you to remember:
- From November 1, 2024 to March 27, 2025, Chesapeake City Jail released detainees with ICE holds at 11:50 PM on their release date—ignoring ICE’s 48-hour hold standard.
- He falsely claimed “full cooperation” with ICE in an email to the public on March 29—even though his own jail policies (Section 2.7) up until March 27th had said otherwise.
- He never admitted the error. No apology. No explanation. Just spin and distraction.
Now that he’s been exposed, Rosado is trying to rewrite history and paint himself as a tough-on-crime conservative. But we know the truth: he caved when the pressure came—and he hoped no one would notice.
If there had been no Republican primary challenger, nothing would have changed.
That’s likely why some of his closest allies have worked so hard to avoid a primary. They knew Rosado’s record couldn’t stand up to real scrutiny.
Thankfully, voters have a choice.
Wallace Chadwick—a Marine Corps and Chesapeake Police Department veteran—is the real conservative in this race. He doesn’t wait for political blowback to do the right thing. He leads from principle, not pressure.
On June 17th, we can finally elect a Sheriff who supports President Trump’s immigration agenda, respects the rule of law, and won’t flip-flop in the shadows.
Chesapeake deserves better. Let’s make it happen.
