- April 20, 2024
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After taking the oath of office Jan. 3, newly elected Sheriff Rick Staly faced an audience of deputies and community members to outline his vision for the agency and present a blunt warning to criminals.
“If you are a drug dealer, a gang member, a burglar, commit domestic violence, drive impaired, prey on seniors, or you’re just a dirtbag criminal in general — I want you to know, the vacancy light is on at the green-roof inn,” he said, referring to the county’s new jail.
Staly said his agency will be tough on crime while offering those involved in it opportunities to change; will reach out to youths to develop trust; will mirror the community it serves and will create a domestic homeland security section to prevent terrorist attacks and mass shootings.
Staly already knows the agency well: He served as undersheriff under former sheriff Jim Manfre, and retired in April 2015.
One thing, he said, will change immediately when he takes office. “The sheriff will go out on patrol,” he said. “I did that as undersheriff on Friday nights; I will do that as sheriff.”
LAW ENFORCEMENT CAREER
Staly, 61, has spent his career in law enforcement. A Florida native, he became a police officer in Oviedo in 1975, then later became a deputy sheriff in Orange County.
He was shot in 1978 trying to stop a suspect who’d gotten his partner’s gun. Staly was awarded a Medal of Heroism by Gov. Rick Scott in 2015 for that incident.
“After he was shot in the line of duty, he made it his mission to develop patrol techniques regarding public interaction to reduce the possibility of injury,” said Chief Mark Strobridge, a former colleague of Staly’s in Orange County who has joined Staly’s command team.
Staly, who has graduated from the FBI National Academy and the Southern Police Institute’s Administrative Officers Course, has a Master of Science in Justice Administration from the University of Louisville. He touted his policing background during his campaign, saying his knowledge of life as a street cop set him apart from Manfre, who is an attorney.
Strobridge said that Staly, in addition to being an astute street cop, knows how to fund the kind of initiatives that could help the Sheriff’s Office develop. That funding, Strobridge said, “translates into vehicles, it translates into equipment, it translates into ability to train.”
DRUGS, GANGS, BURGLARIES
Staly lists three major issues as priorities for policing in Flagler County: drugs, auto burglaries and gangs, which he said are at their “infancy stage.”
“If you don’t control the gangs from the very beginning, if they get a foothold, you’re done,” he said.
Gang activity in Flagler, Staly said, comes from a combination of small-time “wannabe” gangs and individual members of larger city gangs who have moved to Flagler County.
“What I don’t want is Flagler County to be the place they’re going to feel comfortable to sleep at night,” Staly said. The county has also seen “a resurgence of cheaper drugs: crack cocaine, powder cocaine,” he said. His agency will push for incarceration for dealers and treatment programs for users, Staly said.
Another issue to tackle, Staly said, is “a nexus” of criminals operating in Flagler and surrounding counties to break into cars.
DOMESTIC VIOLENCE
Flagler County is seeing rising numbers of arrests for domestic violence, Staly said, and he’d like to create a program to prevent it.
“One of the first things I will do is put a task force together, and we will look at that issue for real solutions,” Staly said. Dealing with the problem might involve making resources like anger management classes more accessible to those who need them.
“I will use my position as sheriff to bring the resources together so we can focus on this problem, and then have the experts tell, is, ‘OK, here’s the best way to combat it,’” Staly said.
COMMUNITY POLICING
Staly said he will continue the “One Common Ground” meetings that Manfre held regularly with local pastors, school officials and students. Manfre started the tradition in August 2015 in response to national tensions over police shootings of black men.
“The thing to do in any community is to have those bridges built before something happens,” Staly said. “Because we’re in a high risk occupation, and something can happen at any time. ... The time to build those relationships is not after that incident happens, it’s long before.”
Staly has created a new motto for the Sheriff’s Office: “An honor to serve, a duty to protect.”
