AUBURN – When he was alive, Androscoggin County sheriff’s Sgt. David Rancourt did not often get wrapped up in political matters.

So it was a surprise to Rancourt’s widow this week when her husband was at the epicenter of a feud between the Sheriff’s Department and county commissioners.

“I have given this issue great thought,” Dawn Rancourt wrote in a statement issued Thursday, “and still have not been able to figure out how such a quiet, mild mannered and nonpolitical man such as Deputy David Rancourt has somehow become the topic of an issue that had nothing to do with him to begin with.”

David Rancourt’s name was invoked earlier this week when the chairman of the commission, Elmer Berry, sent a letter to area selectmen. In the letter, he questioned how sheriff’s deputies can complain about being short-staffed when eight of them, plus a Mechanic Falls officer, were able to leave for memorial services in Washington, D.C. earlier this month.

Those remarks resulted in a flurry of angry responses from the deputies, Sheriff Guy Desjardins, selectmen from area towns, and the public. They expressed outrage that Berry would use Rancourt’s death as a weapon in an ongoing political feud.

For months, Berry, Desjardins and other commissioners have exchanged heated words over the sheriff’s push to have them approve the hiring of an additional patrol deputy. The dispute has led to a protracted public battle with no immediate resolution in sight.

Berry later apologized for his letter, saying he meant no disrespect to Rancourt’s family. He only wanted to illustrate his position in blocking the sheriff’s attempts to hire an additional deputy.

Dawn Rancourt, herself a former police corporal and currently an emergency dispatcher, does not see it that way. Her husband died on duty in November and it was important that his fellow officers attend the memorial services in the capital, she wrote.

She only wishes more of them could have attended.

“I feel bad for those deputies that were unable to attend or chose not to attend so that others could,” she wrote. “As for those who were able to attend, they should not be made to feel as though their choice was wrong. They did what was asked of them, they used their vacation time, they made sure their shifts were covered … It was the most wonderful feeling and sight to see all nine of those individuals in their honor guard uniforms standing at attention, saluting when my late husband’s name was read on the steps of the capital as one of the 145 officers who died in the line of duty last year … As much as it meant to those deputies, corrections officers and dispatchers, it meant just as much to the family of Deputy Rancourt.”

David Rancourt left behind a 7-year-old son, Jeromey, when he passed out during a police diving exercise last fall on the Androscoggin River and later died. His widow said she received overwhelming support from the deputies as well as officers from other departments.

“Deputy Rancourt’s parents, sisters, wife and children were not the only ones who lost someone important that day,” Dawn Rancourt wrote. “The people he worked closely with him on a daily basis lost someone important to them as well.”

Tom Slivinski, one of the deputies who worked extra shifts so other officers could attend the memorial, said Berry’s remarks “were low” and that they unfairly brought Dawn Rancourt, who is due to give birth to her late husband’s child, into the fray.

“You have to wonder what would cause someone to become so cold and heartless as to cause pain to an expecting widow,” Slivinski said.

On Wednesday, the county police labor and management unions submitted a letter to commissioners asking Berry to resign. Berry said he has no intention of doing so.

Rancourt said in her letter that the Sheriff’s Department has long needed an extra patrol officer. She supports Desjardins attempts to get one, but does not want her late husband’s name to become a symbol of that fight.

“I refuse to let his memory be dragged into something that he never would have gotten involved with in the first place,” Rancourt wrote. “David was a great man and a hero to his family and friends. I hope no one will forget that.”