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CLEARWATER - At midnight, Pinellas County Sheriff Jim Coats quietly slips into retirement.
Sheriff Coats has always been understated, more behind the scenes than in front of television cameras.
Forty years ago, Coats got into law enforcement because he wanted to be a pilot. So on his last day as sheriff of Pinellas County, he wanted his farewell pictures taken next to the plane he used to fly.
Along with his life partner, Cat.
"Our brains are connected," Cat Coats said, standing next to her husband. "We agree on most everything."
Thirty-eight years ago, she was a waitress when a co-worker nudged the rookie patrol deputy.
"He said, 'you know, there's a good-looking lady who's working at this restaurant, you ought to go in there and have dinner," Coats said.
"No, I think he said, 'hot chick,' " Cat Coats added, laughing.
In the decades that followed, Cat attended every promotion ceremony and helped with two elections. Then a few weeks ago, Coats suddenly announced a mid-term retirement.
"Retirement came a little sooner than we wanted it to because of my cancer," Cat explained. "So in the beginning, that decision wasn't such a happy, happy thought, because we had to get through, knowing what to expect with the cancer."
But now, thankfully, they know Cat's cancer is in retreat.
*******
Before leaving office, Sheriff Coats wanted to show off his final achievement, a decade in the making: a $3.4 million firing range.
Coats was chief deputy of the Pinellas County Sheriff's Office when he started working on the agency's first-ever range, and it barely got finished before his November 7th retirement.
"It was such a job trying to get this facility done," Coats said hours before leaving office. "I think [this is] one important achievement. It was desperately needed."
The sheriff wanted a range designed for his training needs: handguns and long rifles, variable targets and scenarios.
"Training pays big dividends in my view," Coats explained. "We train, train, train, train, and I don't think you can spend enough money on training. And firearms training is critically important to us."
The $3.4 million facility has classrooms, an armory and two adjacent ranges: one with a maximum distance of 25 yards from shooter to target, the other 100 yards. Slanted concrete roofs direct any stray bullets to angled steel plating behind the targets.
All of the spent lead is directed into an enclosed trough and mechanically recovered for recycling.
The roofs are also high enough to allow vehicles on the range, and holes in the floor accommodate temporary walls.
Some of the targets flip, some move sideways to simulate a running target and others pop up -- or all of the above.
"So there's like six, eight decisions in combination of what can happen here," rangemaster Michael Platt explained/ "Put somebody into mental overload: who's a good guy, who's a bad guy, who's a hostage, who's not."
Over the years, Coats set aside $2.4 million seized from criminal enterprises. A $700,000 federal grant and the general budget provided the balance of construction funding.
*******
In recent years coats has had to shrink his agency by millions of dollars and hundreds of jobs, relying more and more on technology...a lot of it developed by the Pinellas Sheriff's Office.
Under his watch, the sheriff's office implemented tobacco-free hiring, wellness programs, and same sex health benefits.
There have been many innovations, but now the sheriff says it's time for him and Cat Coats to go private.They plan to volunteer for charitable organizations, hoping to help kids become good citizens.
They also plan some nice getaways:
"We're really looking forward to spending more time on our boat. That's our, that's been our refuge and our getaway, and our next career I guess you'd call it," Coats said.
