[Music] I I view the role of sheriff as the protector of the people as one of the oldest elected positions in the world really it's the man or woman who's supposed to stand up for right or wrong stand up for the people and is able to do that because the fact of being elected you have four years in which if something is not popular you don't have to act so much at that moment with what's politically correct you can do the right thing it gives you that ability to stand up and not be judged the following week and maybe be removed from office but you can stand up for the people to do what's right I never planned on being a law enforcement officer I'd always planned on being an attorney every term paper I ever did in junior high school up was always on the law and what where the Amed to was is uh I was working in a Paint and Glass Door and bla County Sheriff's Department was hiring 10 deputies in 1971 it was going to bring the number of oldtime deputies up to approximately 25 deputies and Sheriff Ed dub who was a retired FBI agent who had actually recruited two of my uncles out of steps to the law school when he was an FBI agent into the FBI was the sheriff and I looked at that as an opportunity I had friends who were deputies and I'd ride with them enjoyed it I thought well here's a way I can work my way through school and then going to law school well I became a deputy 1971 30 months time I made Sergeant I was enjoying it next thing you know you have 5 years and you look at it and say well in 10 years you have a retirement and I'm enjoying what I'm doing then 10 years gets here and it's still fun really enjoying it I started making Rank and it just became the fact of that's what my life was going to be be it was going to be in the Sheriff's Office that's where I stayed now let's go back as a young Deputy you sit and you see the sherff and to you at that time he was bigger than life and to think that you know in the back of your head you're dreaming well I could be the sheriff I'd like to be the sheriff not really ever thinking you're going to be there but having that opportunity to become a sheriff to live in those shoes to where you're out there with the people working with the people where you working with the rest of the sheriffs such great men and women out there where you're sharing information and that's one of the best things about the association is the sharing of information the training that's put on by the Florida Sheriff Association it's a shame that more states don't take this model and run with it knowing how to take and and get funding up you know through sponsors through Partners so that you can do these things so that we can train all law enforcement and not just Deputy sheriffs but every all of law enforcement but being able to be a sheriff Europe has just uh it's it's been an exciting thing it's been like a dream I'm not going to say every day is a good dream Some Dream some of those dreams are nightmares probably a Cas so that I remember the most more than any other was called the Xbox murders and if I'm not mistaken it's 2004 and it was a case where six young people were murdered by individuals with baseball bats killed over a man who felt like he was he he he felt like he had been done wrong just verbally nothing there but they they killed these people and it was the most brutal crime that I've ever seen as one that has to be the absolute worst crime we ended up with two on death row two serving life sentences but then you had six individuals whose families were basically ruined and they were just innocent kids killed for no good reason that case right there made international news and we successfully closed the case but it still was unsuccessful a fact of an individual that should have been in prison and stayed in prison was able to come out and lead other individuals who before this happened they were known as basically most of them as basically pretty good kids but to lead them almost like in a Charles man Manon sort of a deal where he led them out there to kill in a very cold blooded manner that's that's probably the case that means the most but the majority of the time the pride of being able to be a sheriff to be able to go out there in outside world and to help them the people and it just has really been a dream come true and even though I'm retired this year I really meet that bittersweet because it's been a fantastic 16 years and it's really been a great all the way through my career being able to work with people and to help people and feel like that the majority of your career was helping people doing something doing something for society going out there to try to make a difference [Music]