WUFT News’ Brianda Villegas sat down with interim Marion County Sheriff Emery Gainey on Monday, June 6 to discuss his experience as sheriff so far, and his plans for the coming months that he will be serving as sheriff.
I just want to know a little bit about how your transition into becoming the sheriff. How did the employees react to this transition?
Well obviously it was a difficult transition for them, in that, this is totally unexpected that their leader was going to be arrested, obviously having a new sheriff come down.
Usually these transitions take place where an election is in November, and then the transition is in January. So you have ample time for the new interim, or sheriff elect, to come in and introduce themselves, work with the transition team and organization.
Having one where literally you get two announcements within the same discussion - I’m sure it brought shock to a number of the employees.
However, despite that, the men and women have stepped up to the plate, they knew that they had a job that needed to continue to do. They’ve done so, they’ve done so with honor and courage and I’m proud of them for doing that.
Has there been anything unexpected that you didn’t think you would encounter by taking this position?
No, no, no, no. I spent 25 years in the sheriff’s office up in Gainesville. And obviously when I left there I rose to the rank of Chief Deputy. So in many aspects, I ran the operations of the organization, both from the administrative as well as in the investigative standpoint.
So, nothing particularly shocking, for me coming in, but simply knowledge that there was a lot of work to be done in a very short period of time.
So my command staff in particular, but some other members have spent some very long nights here since that transition. But it was necessary. We feel now we have a good organization chart, a good clear chain of command. There’s still some investigations that are ongoing, as well as the daily operations and organization.
What are your plans for hiring, say, new employees? Especially with the previous employees that have retired, do you have any plans for hiring new ones? Are you hiring from within or from the outside?
Well I will address that in two parts.
In regard to the command staff, we simply have realigned that command staff and put some bureau chiefs as temporary chiefs of staffs in those positions. So there is no intent to hire outside staff to carry on with those.
I think that’s the right thing to do for two reasons. These are men and women who’ve got extensive experience here at the Marion County Sheriff’s Office. And secondarily, it didn’t tie the hands of the new sheriff who is going to be elected in six months. I think that’s also important to leave the clear opportunity and ability for that new sheriff to come in and select and put in place their command staff.
As it relates to all other positions within the organization, we’re actively recruiting. That does not stop within the organization, be that law enforcement, personnel, our civilian staff personnel or corrections. Our human resources division is continuously hiring and recruiting new employees.
Are you thinking about running for office?
I am not. I think I made it clear the first day I came down here that it is my opinion, that citizens of Marion County should select a sheriff from the men, I think they’re all men right now, that have been campaigning over the last year, going, visiting the communities, giving them their vision, what they believe the organization of this vision is from.
I think that’s the right thing to do, as opposed to an interim who came down for a short period of time. While clearly there is time to get into this race, I’ve clearly made a decision that I will not.
I know that former Sheriff Blair’s advisory board is planning to meet again sometime. Are there any plans of changing the board or leaving it the way that it is?
I think in light of the grand jury presentment last Friday, that we’re going to go back and reassess those issues. So we have made no final decisions at this point, but clearly we need to reassess the current board and the future board.
What is your reasoning behind that?
I think we’re going to look at, or have looked at obviously, the presentment and we want to align the board that, I think that most appropriately follows the recommendations in that presentment. So that’s going to be the reasoning for it.
At the press conference, you mentioned something about the TIU (the Tactical Investigations Unit). What is your opinion on that? Are you planning on keeping that or why do you want to not keep it the way that it is?
Well you know that it was dissolved by Sheriff Blair before he was removed from office, so it does not exist anymore, and I have no intent of resurrecting it quite frankly.
Is there a reason you wouldn’t want to?
I don’t see a need for it at this point.
How do you plan on changing the image of law enforcement in the local area? Because I do hear from a lot of different sources that a lot of residents are scared to be pulled over by law enforcement nowadays. So what do you think you could do in the months to come to kind of help residents?
Well the great thing is that, while my time has been limited to get out in the community, because we spent, are spending a lot of time realigning the administration and staff at the sheriff’s office, I’ve had the opportunity to get out to a number of community events and meet with some community based groups.
What they’re telling me is that they’re very happy with the majority of the employees here at the sheriff’s office and the job they’ve done. We all recognize that a few, a dozen or so, tarnished the batch. But the great thing about the citizenry is that they look at the agency as a whole, they look at the services that are being provided, and quite frankly have been provided through this entire episode.
There are men and women who are honorable, got up every morning, went out, did the right thing and continue to do the right thing. So it’s a great reflection on them as individuals, the oath that they took when they raised the hand and swore to uphold the constitution, that they continued to do so.
A majority of the public is well aware of that. Like anything else, we always know that support is not 100 percent. So we continue to strive to work with those communities to see how we can also get in there, make them aware of the services we’re providing and why we’re doing it as well.
One of my last questions is about the physical agility exams. Did you choose to change those around, or if you could explain to me what your opinion on those are?
Surely. We came in and took a look at the current requirements and there was two different levels. One for new hire law enforcement, which is a much more stricter standard than the employees that were already here.
I made a decision that I thought that standard should not be the sole judge as to whether or not an individual and effective and great law enforcement officer. I think you have to look at the totality of the circumstances, the whole person.
Physical fitness is clearly one aspect of that, because the job that we ask these men and women to do, both in law enforcement and corrections, requires the ability to, not only take care of yourself, but inmates, the public and your fellow law enforcement officers.
I simply felt that that standard was a bit more aggressive than it needed to be for what we’re asking our folks to do, so we modified it. Quite frankly so there is one standard. For the time being we’ve suspended the mandatory time in that, but we will continue to assess physical fitness over the time period I am here, and I’m sure the new administration will do the same.
Going forward, do you have any changes that you would like the public to know that you are planning to set forth?
Well I think the biggest thing is simply know that we’re here to run an honorable, credible, respectful law enforcement agency.
We’re going to follow state law. We’re going to follow our own policies. We’re going to ask our staff, and demand of our staff that they do the same thing.
But I ask the public to support your law enforcement officers. You know, these are tough jobs. You have correction, or you have folks who no longer want to be there, but we ask men and women to be there 24 hours a day, seven days a week to make sure they’re provided a good service.
So realize, only a few of the 753 employees tarnished the batch. Now, one of those is one too many, but recognize that we’re talking about a dozen or so, which means by far, a majority of these men and women despite that have come to work and have done the right thing.
Recognize them for it. Recognize them from having honor and courage and dignity and pride, because those are the people I want them to see every single day out in the community.
Do you have anything else that you would like to add?
Well I do now that you ask.
Well just today, we have launched alertmarion.com, which is a website through our emergency operations center where citizens can go out and sign up to get current and active weather alerts. And there’s no better time than now, since we have a tropical storm out there.
Those alerts can come to your email address, your cell phone, your home phone, whatever you want to sign up for, all of those quite frankly, and various social media sites.
And not only is it great now that citizens can prepare ahead of time, but we’ll also use that throughout the entire hurricane season. So I would encourage you to go to our website, Marion County Sheriff’s Office, you’ll see a link to alertmarion.com, and sign up and they’ll get regular alerts.