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1985 – today
The office: The sheriff of St. Joseph County commands the county police, keeps the county jail and serves the county's courts from South Bend. The office's nineteenth- and most of its twentieth-century succession is beyond the verified record reached for this section; the line stands documented from a federal court's incidental record of it. The Seventh Circuit's opinion in Miller v. St. Joseph County, decided 9 June 2015, records that Sheriff Michael Grzegorek — elected in 2010 — had appointed as his assistant chief a man who had himself been sheriff from 1985 to 1998. The opinion does not name that earlier sheriff, and this section does not either: the fact is printed, the name left to the record that carries it.
Redman, and the chief who followed him: Bill Redman was sheriff from 2019, served the two terms Indiana's limit allows, and in the election of 3 November 2026 moved on — winning the District 1 seat on the Board of County Commissioners with 16,735 votes, 58.4 percent, over the incumbent Carl Baxmeyer, in the unofficial returns. His successor as sheriff is the city's own police chief: Scott Ruszkowski, who had won the Democratic primary of 5 May 2026 with 66 percent over Earl Wigfall, defeated the Republican Rod Laureys, a county police officer, on 3 November 2026 by 47,951 votes, 62.6 percent. He remains chief of police as this record closes and takes the sheriff's office on 1 January 2027 — the sixty-second chief of the city becoming the county's sheriff, a crossing of the city-county line this section exists to record. The sheriff line between the 1985–1998 holder and Grzegorek's election in 2010 is documented only in part in the sources reached, and the gap is named rather than filled.
Sources:
- Miller v. St. Joseph County, No. 14-2989 (7th Cir., 9 June 2015) — Michael Grzegorek, sheriff (elected 2010); his assistant chief a former sheriff of 1985–1998, unnamed in the opinion.
- St. Joseph County Clerk, precinct summary of the general election of 3 November 2026 (unofficial), as reported by WNDU, the South Bend Tribune and St. Joe Current — Redman's commissioner victory, 16,735 votes, 58.4 percent; Ruszkowski's sheriff victory, 47,951 votes, 62.6 percent; the primary of 5 May 2026, 66 percent.
- The office record — Bill Redman, sheriff 2019–2026, term-limited at two terms.