Why are opioids more important than employees?

Why do we have civilian chiefs that have NEVER worn a gun/badge and worked a day as a Law Enforcement Officer in their lives? Chiefs over LEO personnel should be sworn, the civilians can be over the non sworn personnel in the agency.

What changes are our leadership implementing? You asked the supervisors to ask their subordinates your 5 questions, what was done with the answers? What are you doing about all the employees that haven’t even been asked for their responses?

Why are chiefs still blocking memos that are addressed to you?

Why is the training division still shooting the same qualification courses for rifle, shotgun and the discretionary handgun? Aren’t we a progressive agency? The training staff that we used to have made training way more relevant and practical. Now we are lumping block 1 and block 2 together on the same day?!?

Why does our training division look like a complete joke and feels like a formality rather than professional development. Why do they spend more time being sarcastic and condescending rather than actually teaching something? How come when you ask a new deputy how to combat load a shotgun or tac load a rifle they look at you all crazy?!? Why is there a deputy (DL) who never spent any time on patrol, a full time trainer and is so ungodly fat he has to wear a drop holster which no one else is authorized to wear?

Why did we shorten up our field training program in order to push deputies out faster which compromises the new deputy’s safety along with everyone else’s safety that they work with? Why are we having deputies with little to no experience here in Seminole become FTD’s? I understand we need more but shouldn’t our FTD’s be of quality and not quantity? Seeing as how they are teaching/training new deputies, some with zero LEO experience. This concerns us all!

Why isn’t health and wellness, training, and employee retention/engagement at the forefront of what we do at the SO? Law enforcement seems to be the least of our worries and people pleasing is our overall objective/concern.

Why are SRD’s teaching school staff how to apply tourniquets to kids and other staff members but they aren’t actually having them use a training tourniquet to have a practical exercise? They watch a PowerPoint and are expected to be able to successfully apply a tourniquet? Sheriff are you ok with a teacher applying a tourniquet to one of your family members by just watching a PowerPoint? Maybe we can transition our firearms qualifications to a PowerPoint as well? Talk about a liability! If anything, shouldn’t it be some sort of medical personnel teaching something of this nature?

Why does the sheriff constantly refer to our K-9 unit, which is an essential function of law enforcement, as a “necessary evil”?

Why are supervisors more concerned with mustaches and hairstyles than “cancerous” employees that are ruining the workplace? If you’re going to worry about the looks of the deputies out here on the road, you might want to take a look at the corrections deputies that you have working here. We all have seen the pictures posted on social media with their hairstyles and body ornamentations at their swearing in.

We are continuing to lose people to other, more progressive agencies, what are we doing to retain our troops? The new tattoo policy is ridiculous, we live and work in Florida, nobody wants to wear another layer of clothing to cover a tattoo! All of the highly qualified potential employees are going to agencies that allow their tattoos to be visible. It’s 2020, tattoos along with facial hair are acceptable in law enforcement. Watch 5 minutes of Live PD and count how many agencies that you see from throughout the country and you’ll see for yourself that we are slacking with no Load Bearing Vests, tattoos and facial hair.

I’m willing to bet that a majority of our understaffing issue has to do with POOR leadership. Has anyone ever thought of that? We have supervisors with very little experience trying to supervise people in a job as stressful as ours. How crazy is that??

How about we dismantle our “top flight” IPCU along with our SCORE team and assign them back to us on patrol where we are so short??? You know, it’s a safety concern for us out here!!

Why are so many and I mean, SO MANY, investigators working details and forgetting that they have a job that you hired them to do? You said years ago that you would not tolerate paying an employee to take PTO or “adjust” their hours so that they could work a detail BUT here they are continuing to do so! Just take a look on any high paying SGL detail and you will see investigators working 8p-6a and violating policy? This continues to be ignored and this is another reason why we cannot retain good deputies. We’re tired of not being treated fairly!!! Policies should apply to everyone or no one, there cannot be an in between with this.

Why do we not have a night time shift differential like most other agencies?

Why are we such a booming/wealthy county yet our salaries cannot compete with Oviedo? We’re hearing that Oviedo will soon be making more than OPD and OCSO!

Why are we a Circuit City in a mall trying to compete with Amazon?

If we’re such a progressive agency why are our uniforms stuck in the Stone Age? If we have access to technology that makes the boots on the ground more comfortable and practical for daily use, why are we not taking advantage and supporting that?

Why did legal say we can’t have tattoos because we could be sued but we are sued all the time? What if I was offended by in God we trust or the rainbow sticker we had cause it’s against my religion?

Why are we promoting/praising/rewarding deputies that have done nothing but negative things throughout their careers but forgetting/ignoring the ones who show up and do their jobs without complaining?

Why has the off duty detail committee been struck down about raising the rate for THREE YEARS, yet the sheriff himself said he wants to raise it? Where is the damn accountability?!?

Why can’t off duty be included in retirement like other places?


At the end of the day, everything looks great up there at 30,000 feet in yours and the chiefs offices. Meanwhile, on the ground you have one heck of a disaster that nothing is being done to address.