Floyd M. Scott Running for Gwinnett County Sheriff [Podcast]

Forty plus year veteran Floyd M. Scott shares with host Rico Figliolini why he is running for Gwinnett County Sheriff. Recorded at Atlanta Tech Park, in the City of Peachtree Corners GA

Resources:
Website: FloydScottSheriff2020.com

[00:00:30] – Intro
[00:03:21] – About Floyd
[00:06:02] – 287g Program
[00:11:34] – Police Morale
[00:19:29] – Recruiting
[00:20:38] – Changing the System
[00:27:38] – Seeing the County change
[00:30:50] – Gwinnett County Sheriff Responsibilities
[00:33:43] – Mental Health Departments and Jail numbers
[00:35:41] – Budgets and more changes
[00:38:15] – Officer Integrity
[00:41:54] – Closing

“…My profession is a passion that I love and I wouldn’t trade it for anything. You know, it’s just something that once you get it in your system, it’s something that you just want to, it’s all about servitude. You know, I’m a servant. I’ve been a servant all my life. You know, I went into the military as a servant and now retired as a servant.”

Floyd Scott

Podcast Transcript

Rico: [00:00:30] Hi everyone. This is Rico Figliolini, host of Peachtree Corners Life. I want to welcome you here tonight. We’re at Atlanta Tech Park where we do all our podcasts from. Atlanta Tech Park is an innovation hub with over 70 companies here. A place that can fit over a hundred companies here. These are startups that are in the city of Peachtree Corners here. Atlanta Tech Park, growing, doing high tech stuff. And this place has event space, has Financial Fridays, Wine Wednesdays, they have a whole bunch of things going on here and seminars. The big April, the event in FinTech that’s going on as well. So check out their website: AtlantaTechPark.com, and you’ll find that more events that are going on here. This place is actually on a road that’s becoming more famous as we go. And it’s Curiosity Lab at Peachtree Corners. It’s a one and a half mile, 1.7 mile track. That allows a 5G, Sprint 5G enabled and allows autonomous vehicles to be able to run on it in a live laboratory environment, in a place that people are walking, driving. I mean, you, if you’re a company looking to do work in the autonomous vehicle area or on the internet of everything where technology speaks to everything that can be on a street, just think about it. You know, it could be apps, could be cars to talk to other cars, of course, talking to apps, like poles, crossing areas, maybe solar powered roads that can energize an electric car. This is what can be done here. It’s a very unique place, and even though it’s 5G enabled, that means wireless, right? Broadband. The main hub, if you will. The backbone of what brings the internet here is really still fiber and our lead sponsor is Hargray Fiber. They are essentially the backbone of Curiosity Lab at Peachtree Corners, and they are a company known in Southeast and expanding in Southeast, bringing in solutions both to small businesses and enterprise solutions where they can bring fiber cable to your business and be your IT company in that business situation and bring voice, internet and everything you need in, in a better way than I believe Comcast and some other companies can do. So check them out at HargrayFiber.com and Atlanta Tech Park. Now to introduce my host, my host, my guest today. We’re talking to, let me introduce him here. There you go Floyd Scott. He’s running for Gwinnett County sheriff, and we’re going to have the chance to be able to talk to you. Floyd, thank you for coming.

Floyd: [00:03:10] Thank you for having me here.

Rico: [00:03:11] I appreciate you coming on the show. I want to be able to you know, find out a little bit about you, you know, so tell our audience a little bit about Floyd Scott.

Floyd: [00:03:21] Well, I’ve been in public service for over 40 years. I was, I’m retired military actually. I was military police, and so it was an easy transition for me to actually go into law enforcement here in Gwinnett. I’ve been in Georgia since 1993. I’ve been policing in Gwinnett County for close to 24 years. I was with the Gwinnett County police department. And I just retired from the Munich County Sheriff’s office after 17 years. And the only reason why I retired was so that I could run for the sheriff cause it needs to be changed. Gwinnett County is a very diverse County, we speak over a hundred different languages and some say that we are the most diverse County in the nation. I believe that.

Rico: [00:04:05] Certainly the most diverse County in the state of Georgia. For sure. So, you know, that’s a long 40 year, 40 plus years of service. Didn’t you ever get, didn’t you ever get tired of it?

Floyd: [00:04:16] Well, as my profession is a passion that I love and I wouldn’t trade it for anything. You know, it’s just something that once you get it in your system, it’s something that you just want to, it’s all about servitude. You know, I’m a servant. I’ve been a servant all my life. You know, I went into the military as a servant and now retired as a servant.

Rico: [00:04:36] Do, so do, I guess, you know. So tell us a little bit, since we’re going there, tell us a little bit about your belief system, about you know, your values and how you base your decisions when you work.

Floyd: [00:04:50] Well, I’m a man of faith. I’m a family man. First I have, I’m actually well vested in here in Gwinnett County because I have seven children. And they live here, and I have eight, seven of them live in Gwinnett County. One decided to go to Alpharetta, but I actually have five that are in the household. And I have two that are adults. They live in Gwinnett County. So I’m well vested. And I believe that the people that I love near and dear, I want them to feel safe. So, I also want citizens in Gwinnett County to feel safe as well, you know?

Rico: [00:05:26] So, okay. Do, are any of your kids? Do they say, dad, I want to be, I want to get into law enforcement? Do any of them say that?

Floyd: [00:05:36] Well, I have four beautiful daughters that they look up to me. I think what they do right now is they go to school and they talk to the teachers and they talk to their classmates and they say, my dad is going to be the next sheriff of Gwinnett County and they’d be running around talking, talking to the teachers. It’s funny. I love it, you know.

Rico: [00:05:56] So, why, why are you seeking office? Why do you want to be the Gwinnett County sheriff?

Floyd: [00:06:02] Well, I believe in rebuilding relationships within the community. I believe in rebuilding the trust between the citizens of Gwinnett County and law enforcement, you know, as I’m in that there’s been some injustices that have appeared that are occurring in Gwinnett, and there’s some injustice that are occurring in the County Sheriff’s office. For instance, the 287g program, for instance.

Rico: [00:06:29] So explain that to people that don’t know.

Floyd: [00:06:32] Well, what it is, is a contracted agreement between the sheriff of Gwinnett County and immigration. What it does is anybody that’s an undocumented immigrant that comes here in Gwinnett County and is arrested by any of the local police that are here, including the Sheriff’s office, and they are undocumented and they get arrested, whatever the incident may
be, if it’s just a traffic citation of traffic, driving without a license or no insurance, and they get arrested and they went to Gwinnett County jail, they have a team of workers that are there, that are dedicated to immigration and that they find that they are undocumented. Then they will be handed over to immigration for deportation.

Rico: [00:07:24] Ice, essentially, right?

Floyd: [00:07:25] Ice.

Rico: [00:07:25] Ice, which is what I think many people might know it as.

Floyd: [00:07:29] And the thing of it is, some of these people that are undocumented, they left that country for a better life. Some of them even escaped that country for a better life, and a lot of crimes are going unreported because the undocumented immigrants feel that is, they would rather endure the crime that’s being committed against them instead of reporting it to the police and have the police, I guess, check them out and find out that they are undocumented and then deport them.

Rico: [00:08:11] Have you come across stories like that where people have been deported for really minor offenses and torn away from their families?

Floyd: [00:08:18] Oh yeah. You got some people that I’ll actually leave them at home in the morning, going to work like normal. And they get pulled over by the police for whatever the reason may be and it, and they could be making a wrong turn or making a turn without putting the signal on, or is, it could be a very or varying, different things that could happen. And they pull them over and they don’t have a driver’s license, so.

Rico: [00:08:45] Now 287g is enforced, it’s voluntarily enforced by the County.

Floyd: [00:08:52] Yes, it’s an, like I said, it’s an agreement between the Gwinnett County sheriff and immigration. So if the sheriff decided that he didn’t want it anymore, then it would be gone.

Rico: [00:09:05] And there’s no repercussions?

Floyd: [00:09:07] There’s no, there’s no repercussions whatsoever. So that’s why when I do become the next sheriff of Gwinnett County, that’s one of the first things that I’m going to be doing away with.

Rico: [00:09:16] Do you find that the police officers that are tasked to this? I mean, most people, I guess that they used to seeing police shows and stuff and or reality shows even, and they may be aware that, you know, you get a collar, you have to spend time at the jail processing that collar. For example, the person that you brought in arrested, do you find that a big waste of time for the Sheriff’s department to be doing that?

Floyd: [00:09:43] In most cases I find it to be a waste of time because I don’t think that the 27 week program should even be there because like I was there before, the 287g program was even there. And we had a system in place that we would contact a consulate of whatever nationality that we had put in the jail. And then we notify that consulate. If the consulate wanted them, they would come and get him. And if they didn’t want him, then we would do a background check on him to make sure that they didn’t have any violent crimes or anything like that. If they had a violent history, then yes, we would notify. But if it was a minor crime, like, like for instance, no driver’s license or no insurance, and we wouldn’t still notify that consulate, but if the consulate said, nah, we’re not going to come get him, then we would just release them back into the public cause they were no threat to the public.

Rico: [00:10:35] Right. But they still come to court, I guess later.

Floyd: [00:10:38] They would if they didn’t pay that fine. Usually when they, when they were born to the, to the jail for no driver’s license, they were bought because they couldn’t sign the ticket because they didn’t have, they couldn’t verify the address from where they were. So they would bring them in. So they would pay that fine. If they paid that fine and got released for, you know, for instance, it was no driver’s license and they paid a fine, right. Or no insurance. They paid that fine and they would be released. They didn’t have to have a court date because they already paid the fine. The court date was set up so that they could go before the judge and, right. Hey, what? I was fine. I needed the payment if they paid it.

Rico: [00:11:17] So Floyd M Scott becoming sheriff first day, 287g would be out the door.

Floyd: [00:11:22] 287g would be gone.

Rico: [00:11:24] Gone. Okay. All right. So, yeah. Obviously that’s the single most important issue at this point, it sounds like.

Floyd: [00:11:34] Well, that’s one of the, that’s one of the things that, I’m emphasizing strongly. But I also, the morale within the jail itself, you know, like I said, I was here for 17 years. I left on August 19th, 2019. Six months prior to that, I knew I was going to be running for sheriff, but nobody knew in the Sheriff’s office, so I was going around to all the deputies that worked in the housing units, and I was talking to the deputies that were working the streets and I was asking them if they had a way of changing something to make their jobs easier. What would they do? And they would give me ideas. So I was already, I guess you could say interviewing them to find out what is going to make that the new system around. And that’s what I carried, that’s what I’m carrying with me now.

Rico: [00:12:31] Okay. So what would be the first thing that Floyd M. Scott sheriff would do? The first 90 days? I mean, what would you start with? Give me the top three or four things that you’d want to start accomplishing.

Floyd: [00:12:43] One of the things that I would do immediately in addition to the 27g is I would allow the deputies to wear beards.

Rico: [00:12:52] They can’t wear beards?

Floyd: [00:12:53] They can’t wear beards at this time unless they’re in a specialized unit. Then a specialized unit, but I would allow them to wear beards. I wouldn’t get it. They’d have, I’d have regulations on it. They couldn’t grow it beyond probably an inch or so, but of course that would let them grow up because we have a lot of deputies that have, I guess, trouble shaving. They have razor bumps and it is painful. It’s my whole military career. I had to have a shaved profile.

Rico: [00:13:24] Some people just don’t want to shave. I mean, I just cut this down a little bit, but it’s been like…

Floyd: [00:13:29] As long as it’s neat. As long as it’s neat and it’s trimmed nicely, I don’t have a problem with it.

Rico: [00:13:36] All right, so dress code that, that being part of dress code though, you would address that. What other things would you address?

Floyd: [00:13:43] I know that there is a, you got, deputy ones, the ones that I’m not, that have no desire to be certified deputies to walk around and carry guns or work at the courthouse or anything like that. They love working in the jail. They call it deputy ones, three months. Then you’ve got deputy twos and then you’ve got deputy, master deputies.

Rico: [00:14:06] So deputy ones work in the jail system and don’t carry weapons.

Floyd: [00:14:10] They don’t carry weapons. The only thing would they, the thing of it is you got some of them that’s been there for like 10, 11, 12, 15 years. And then you have a young officer that comes in and they, I guess they’re at that point, other than the pay for performance, that’s the only raise they get is each year where a deputy that goes through the mandate Academy and gets certified. It’s a pay grade increase and also have the opportunity to go and get tests for corporal, test for master deputy, test for sergeant and go up the ranks. Well, the ones that don’t have a desire to go to mandate, they don’t have that option. So I’ve, that’s one of the things that I want to bring. I want to have a rank structure for the DSO that there would be pay parity for, because you got some of these DS ones that have one set of training, right? The deputies that are going to mandate. And they have more knowledge in how to work in the jail then, then, then the young guys that are coming through.

Rico: [00:15:20] Sure. Experience counts for something, right?

Floyd: [00:15:21] Yes.

Rico: [00:15:22] But the DS2s are carrying weapons.

Floyd: [00:15:25] And they carry, they carry weapons once they leave the jail.

Rico: [00:15:28] Right. And are they, I mean, they are, obviously the pay grade is different also because they’re more likely, something will, likely would happen. I mean, the more hazardous duty, if you will.

Floyd: [00:15:39] You got some that any jail that has the capabilities of carrying weapons, but yet they’ll go into the locker room and they’ll change into civilian clothes and you’ll never know that they were deputy two. But all the DS ones they have to dress down where you don’t recognize them because they don’t carry guns and we, they’re forbidden to walk around in their uniforms outside of the jail.

Rico: [00:16:08] Because they don’t carry guns.

Floyd: [00:16:11] They don’t carry guns in. That’s one of the first things that a person would, there’s wanting to do harm. He’s going to seek the person that looks like my law enforcement.

Rico: [00:16:19] Right. So that makes sense to me. All right, so, and what would, is there, what else would you do? That’s the, the next?

Floyd: [00:16:25] Well, I know that, we don’t have our own training facility. We pretty much share a train facility within Gwinnett County police. I would like to. I’d have to talk to the board of commissioners about it. It wouldn’t be something that I could make happen but something that I can bring to their attention. You know, we don’t have our own shooting range. We gotta we have to, rely and share the shooting range of the Gwinnett County police. Where we could, develop our own shooting range. That way we can train our deputies to shoot because they, some of them have problems with shooting and yeah, we’ll tell them to go to these shooting ranges that are, that you have to pay, but we don’t give them the fundamental training that they need sort of before they go to the Academy.

Rico: [00:17:13] Is there a formal training with the Cornell Police Academy?

Floyd: [00:17:17] There is a formal training with the police Academy and then they go through like training scenarios, and they go and shoot, we prove the 40 hour actually scheduled to go to the range or go to the Academy. But then you got some of the ones that have been certified that still have trouble shooting. Yeah, so and the only time that they even go and shoot that weapons
is if they’re slated to go to the range and then that’s got to be whenever they can get it going during the day. It’s usually Monday through Friday doing certain set hours that the police department is open. Well, if we had our own range. You got people that work at night, they got certified instructors that can take them into a range in the jail or in a facility that is right outside the jail and teach them how to shoot when they have that downtime.

Rico: [00:18:12] Let me ask you something. I know the Cornell police sometimes there’s, there’s always problems with hiring. There’s, they’re always short. They’re, they train police. Within two or three years. Those police officers may leave to go to another County. It’s good to know the police department because better pay, maybe better benefits. Maybe better, more out. Let me, I’ll be finding that to be the case also in the Sheriff’s department right now.

Floyd: [00:18:38] Yes. The morale is not as at the level that it should be at the level that I would like for it to be. I know from all the training and leadership classes that I’ve gone through, if you show your people that you care for them and that you care about their wellbeing, they don’t care about the pay. You can give them as much as much money as you want to, and they are still unhappy. If they feel that you don’t care about that, right, then they’re going to leave regardless. They’re going to go somewhere with somebody cares about them.

Rico: [00:19:10] Yeah. So you’re finding that level of morale is really like that.

Floyd: [00:19:15] Yes, I’ve experienced it.

Rico: [00:19:17] Okay. So if, so, your vision and goal for the, for the office and what you want to accomplish is really sounds like, to me it’s really morale based.

Floyd: [00:19:28] Yes.

Rico: [00:19:29] It’s changing the system. So then, so would this also, would you, how would you improve? Do you think we have enough Sheriff’s deputies? Do we, should we improve the recruiting as well?

Floyd: [00:19:40] The recruiting system is good. The repeating, the recruiters that we have in place right now, they’re very, they’re very good at what they do. And, they will continue to, to excel and bring people in. It’s just the retention part of that. And I feel that a majority of that retention has to do with us actually caring for them. The people that don’t, we bring in. Also the leadership. A lot of people forget where they come from. You know, I worked my way through the ranks. I’ve never forgotten where I came from. And I can go and, if I have any problems, I’ll go and ask a deputy one who works in our housing unit or out on the street constantly and knows it inside and out and say, Hey, well how do you do this? How do you do that? I don’t get this big head to the point where I’m the big man, so I don’t need to ask you what, you know how to do this, but that person knows how to do that.

Rico: [00:20:38] Sure. So what did you, have you found anything surprising when you’ve been out in the field like that? Asking deputies those questions, anything surprising that you found? Floyd: [00:20:48] What I’ve found is, first of all, they’re shocked that they mean, you are asking me? Oh wow. I feel they feel, they feel part of the system. You know, they feel, they feel valued. And that’s all I’m trying to do is I’m just trying to bring value. I want you to feel that you are included in the process, you know? And not the, we are up here at the top and we are just gonna rain down. I want to know what you would have to say. So, and that’s what, that’s where a lot of things have been lost in this place, is that once you get into these high ranking positions, you feel that you got to make all the decisions and you don’t want anybody else to make them. And then if the decisions are made from below you, then you might feel that you’re inadequate, but I don’t feel that way.

Rico: [00:21:46] Do you feel some people do feel, some people have been in the system way too long?

Floyd: [00:21:51] Yeah.

Rico: [00:21:51] That sort of sounds like, yeah. Do, do you think the Sheriff’s department or the sheriff, the County sheriff should have either a term limit also?

Floyd: [00:22:01] I think, I think it should be three terms. Three, three elections, and that’s it. I don’t think they should be in there until either they die in office or they are there until they’ve been there 30, 40 years or whatever. I think it should be a three term limit.

Rico: [00:22:21] It’s funny, I was doing some research before this interview of impact county sheriffs across the country and you either die in your, your office essentially, or you hand it down to your son or family member in some counties. It’s, I was reading that and I was like, man, that’s unbelievable. It’s so, junior can take the job of… I can see that in certain counties, you know, maybe not in the cities areas, but where they literally handed that to family members or they die in office because they’ve been there so long. What, what, what’s the vision and goal that you, or i’m sorry, not the vision and goal. What’s the quality and experiences that you feel is the best core candidate for this office?

Floyd: [00:23:05] Well, first of all, it has to be somebody that’s actually worked at the Sheriff’s office that knows the constitutional responsibilities of the sheriff. And have a love and care for the employees that work for the sheriff. You got civilians. We’ve got over, I think it’s the last eight, 800 plus officer’s deputies as well as civilians. You want them to come to, to work and not dread coming to work, but coming to work to be productive because they enjoy being in the environment. What I’ve experienced, and just from being a supervisor and being a manager at the Sheriff’s office, where you got some people that drive up in the parking lot and they’ll sit there and they’ll contemplate. Wow, I’ve got to go in and should I call in sick because the morale
is that bad? Well, I, I want them to feel wanted. I want them to feel welcome and I want them to feel that the production, the work that they do is valued. I want them to feel valued.

Rico: [00:24:17] I can see how if someone is, is angry or is now feeling valued. How’d that would really, be a detriment to the way they work their job as well. If they have anger.

Floyd: [00:24:32] Well, you’re going to have, you’re going to have people that will have, you’re going to have a bad day. They’re going to come in and they want everybody to feel the way they feel. So they’re going to come in with a certain attitude. And they’re going to try to, and the thing of it is you’ve got to have those strong leaders, be it ranked leaders or chosen leaders amongst the peers, because you’ve got peer leaders too, as well as rank leaders that can go going and talk to a person in and say, Hey, what’s going on?

Rico: [00:25:06] Does the county sheriff do like other corporations, do they do, I imagine they do reviews on a regular basis, right?

Floyd: [00:25:13] What they have the annual, they have, if there’s a, a deputy that is in trouble. They got programs that set up that they can seek counseling without anybody knowing. You know, and the responsibility of the supervisors is to see that. And it also is each one of the deputy’s responsibility to see if one of their peers or somebody that they feel is going through something that somebody is made aware of it.

Rico: [00:25:47] You see where I’m going with that question, right? Because I mean, in a normal corporate environment, all right, someone doesn’t do the job, right? Paper falls off. File gets lost, things happen. It’s different in a law enforcement where lives are at stake and some cases even if it’s a little different, right?

Floyd: [00:26:04] Absolutely.

Rico: [00:26:05] You want to weed out some people that you know shouldn’t be maybe that particular job, but you know, they could do that job better. Sounded like saying we’re going to weed out everyone that’s bad, but I’d say let’s put them into the right place, but they might work better.

Floyd: [00:26:18] Yeah. We, we have a system. Well, I believe in the system that if you’re not used to being around people that cause this, law enforcement is a people oriented business for me. You gotta care about the people that you, that you are talking to. Otherwise you, you know. We can put you in a place where you don’t really have to talk to people. You don’t have to have any encounters with people at all. But, that’s one of the things that the supervisors would have to find in, in, and weed them out, and to sit back and sit down and have a conversation with them. I mean, as this a profession that you really want to be in, I mean, considering this is a public service, right?

Rico: [00:27:03] And some of them may be carrying weapons, right? You have to have the right, well, emotional stability and sleep.

Floyd: [00:27:10] You’re absolutely right, because one thing about being in the law enforcement arena, one minute, I tell him all the time, I would tell him all the time, one minute you could be helping an old lady across the street, and the next moment you can be in a fight for your life. So you gotta be really prepared mentally for that.

Rico: [00:27:38] Then you’ve been, you’ve been in this county a long time, 23 or 24 to 24 years. That’s almost as though they’ve been here since 95, so 23 years. The county’s changed a lot. I mean, I mean, you’ve seen it firsthand, obviously even better because you’ve worked in, in the system. What, what, what do you think are the pressing things? What areas of the County and what, what, what do you think needs more attention? They may not be getting that now. I mean, there’s more gang activity. Maybe there’s more crime, I don’t know. And depending on who you talk to, what part of the county you’re, you’re talking about things change.

Floyd: [00:28:19] Well, I know when I was honestly out there on the streets policing Gwinnett County, the areas that were bad, but the demographics have changed. And people have transitioned from those locations. When I first started back in 2001 in with the police department, Norcross was a very, very heavy gang drive by shootings constantly. Cause my first week there I had to deal with three drive by shootings, you know, and people getting killed from gang disjoint, gang size. Well the crime is slowly moving. Well, the 85 corridor. And what we got to do is we just got to, yeah. You just got to focus. You know, when they got the, the crime stats, they got to do the crime stats, the comp stats that they do to, do to an area. And I even have an app on my phone that any crime that committed that I’ll get briefed. Brilliant. So you can know what areas though most crimes are ridden.

Rico: [00:29:30] Not just college, you’re talking about incident reports.

Floyd: [00:29:35] Actual incident reports where we got, okay, well, larceny was committed here, you got the aggravated assault or domestic violence, or you know, even a heavier crime then that and now they actually have apps that you can actually wherever your address is, we can have it within however many mile, 10 mile radius of your home.

Rico: [00:29:59] I have one now. It’s, I forgot what it’s called, this crime mapping. It’ll, every morning I would get something and I’ll say, one crime, one incident or five. It’s just about four. The interesting part is, at least in this area, I don’t, I see less break-ins percent, unless you’re on a main road. Which always tells me that it’s just an easy in and out, but I don’t see a deeper into a community. And I see a lot of just stuff happening in like, parking lots and office, spray cans and stuff like that.

Floyd: [00:30:31] One of the other amazing things that are happening, is they have these tag reader cameras put in neighborhoods that, that can afford to have them in their neighborhoods. And then I guess in some of the, the industrial locations that they have as well.

Rico: [00:30:50] You know, the city of Peachtree Corners is actually putting the license plate identification cameras throughout, at least the main roads that are city owned, if you will. And then anyone that wants it and their homeowner association that can go at it and the city will put it there, as long as they pay for it in their property taxes prorated on all that. You were talking before about constitutional mandate, so just for those that don’t understand, because. County sheriffs from jurisdiction to jurisdiction take care of a variety of things. It’s not always the same in every County. Some of them manage jails as their main priority, some of them, because they do that, then they may be the largest provider of mental health services in the County just because of the nature of the beast. They perform evictions, sometimes running car office, variety of things in different counties. What is the constitutional mandate for the Gwinnett County sheriff? What would, what are you tasked to do? What’s your responsibilities?

Floyd: [00:31:47] Our responsibility is the jail. Maintain security of the jail. The courthouse. Make sure that we have an adequate amount of deputies that command that courtrooms, so that the judges will have security in the courtrooms. We, service the warrants, the civil papers. We are actually in charge of the family violence, the temporary protective orders that are put in place. Whenever it is a family violence order for a temporary protective order, it comes to the Sheriff’s office. We control the family violence orders that come down. And we also, maintain the sex offenders. And there’s, there’s an app out there too. You go to the Gwinnett County Sheriff’s website, you can actually tap into the sex offenders. So you will know who, if there’s a sex offender in your neighborhood or anywhere close proximity to you.

Rico: [00:32:50] Because they have to be registered for a period of time. Floyd: [00:32:51] They have to be registered and monitored. They actually go on. I’ve done it. I’ve actually went out to these, registered sex offenders homes to make sure that they were home. If they’re not home, then we go into front of the judge and we’d say, Hey, this is, this person wasn’t here at the time he was supposed to be here, and then the order, the judge issues an order, we’ll go get them and bring them back in before the judge. The judge is going to say, if you can maintain, you know your probation in your home that you registered for, then you can stay here, not jail.

Rico: [00:33:24] Well thing is there, does that expire at some point? I guess they have to probation or did they say . Floyd: [00:33:30] It all depends on the seriousness of the crime and I’m sure there’s times they can go and get their charges expunged. But it all depends on the severity of the crime.

Rico: [00:33:43] What, with going back to a little bit about what I said about some maturity sections in health, mental health services, I would imagine in the jail system. Have you seen the
growth of that, of people that you know how, or have some mental issues and you have to provide services? Does, the County does do that?

Floyd: [00:34:06] We have a 24 hour mental health, so we have mental health workers that are there 24/7. At one point, I was told that we were like the third largest mental health facility in the state of Georgia. I mean, because we, we have so many mental health, we have a, we have a unit that’s dedicated to mental health. And of course there are other mental health cases that you’d seen any time in the housing unit when the deputies in the housing unit and somebody acting out of character or they just been sentenced to something. Well, they’ve been sentenced to a crime that they’ve committed. Then we usually, it’s an automatic red flag that pops up and we’ll have mental health go on and check them out, make sure that they are okay.

Rico: [00:34:56] How many, how many, how many prisoners are incarcerated in?

Floyd: [00:35:02] There can be right now that could be anywhere from 1,800 to 2,600 at any one given time, but it’s pretty much been on the low end. It’s been around 2000. Rico: [00:35:16] Okay. Is that a trend that we’re seeing, or is that just?

Floyd: [00:35:20] Well I hope it’s, it’s one of those things that it’s going to slowly go on a decline. You know what I mean? If you look at the ratio of people that are in Gwinnett County as opposed to who’s in the jail, that’s a small number.

Rico: [00:35:34] It is surprisingly small, actually. We have almost a million people and surprise. It’s only that’s, yeah.

Floyd: [00:35:40] Yeah.

Rico: [00:35:41] So, it’s interesting to me that the Gwinnett County sheriff is not just a law enforcement person, but you’re as such way ahead of, you’re like the CEO of a company really.

Floyd: [00:35:51] Absolutely.

Rico: [00:35:52] Cause you handle and you take care of the budgets. I mean, you have one big budget and I don’t know where the money comes from, if that… Floyd: [00:36:01] On the board of commissioners we erect from, they pretty much go before the board of commissioners and let them know. From, well, the years before. And you know, here’s a trend, what we’ve used in has been times when we didn’t use all the money and we actually turned it back into the County and let them know we’ve saved this amount of money. We didn’t need it. So we return it back to you.

Rico: [00:36:25] Do you think there’s any major renovation or major work that has to be done? Capital improvements?

Floyd: [00:36:30] I, well, that’s one of the things that I want to bring. Is at the jail, we need a parking deck. The parking on Wednesdays, they have a court, that administrative court. And the parking lot is bad. They have, we have an overt, we had an extended parking lot that’s way up the Hill around the corner that you have to park at and then walk, you know, walk through the parking lot. And, you know, it’s just, this is tedious. But if we had, The capital improvement would be that I suggested. I’ve already talked to some of that board of commissioners, and this made a suggestion that we would, if you will, build a parking deck for the employees so that they can have it. That way you can free up all that extra parking lot for the citizens.

Rico: [00:37:21] They could have control acts.

Floyd: [00:37:22] The control for the employees and they won’t have to worry about that car is getting bad in the last, because there’s been plenty of times when we’ve had to be run out to them in the parking lot because somebody’s car has been broken into or we find somebody that’s using. We’ve had people try to OD in the parking lot.

Rico: [00:37:43] Tried to OD on purpose?

Floyd: [00:37:45] Yeah, they, we got them with the needle in the arm. And they’re out and we have to give them that Narcan. Yeah. They bring them back.

Rico: [00:37:52] Said that Narcan could be done as many times as you feel like it’s, you get that high and get that Narcan four or five times, six times and just keep going until the last one might not work or this. The sad part about that I mean people are getting used to it. It says, is there any, anything that I’ve missed, Floyd, that you want to share with us?

Floyd: [00:38:15] One of the things that, that’s near and dear to me. I know there, I’ve been doing this business for, like I said, for over 40 years. But I don’t think, I don’t think any handle any law enforcement agency has ever gone and actually apologize to the citizens for some of the wrongs that have been done to them by law enforcement. You know, I feel that if any person or a loved one or a friend that they may know that ever been wronged by the law enforcement or for whatever reason. I wanted to apologize to them. I know we are, we are held by a high standard. I mean, we, we are, we give an oath to uphold the laws of the land. And we were supposed to treat every citizen with dignity and respect. And if anybody was ever treated less than what we are mandated in that we’ve sworn to do. Then I wanted to apologize to them and just ask for their forgiveness for all of law enforcement, because we’re not all bad. No, we’re not all bad. Yes, because a small percentage of us do that. You know, unfortunately we see it in the news and we capture it on video and believe me, that’s one of the things I want, I, I applaud is the fact that we do have the body cams. Because what it does is it eliminates, because when I used to work out on the street, if somebody filed a complaint against you, then you had to prove that right then that it wasn’t true. No matter how much integrity you have, right? You still have to prove it, but that body cam pretty much speaks for you as well.

Rico: [00:40:04] And I think that’s helpful because it seems to me that, you know, if someone’s going to like to be a criminal that’s lying more than an honest another person, let’s say. Cause they want to get out of what, what happened maybe? So that body cam is worn by sheriffs as well, not just police.

Floyd: [00:40:18] It’s worn by the sheriffs. They have, we even got inside of the jail with the rapid response team.

Rico: [00:40:25] Okay, so this way they can prove that whatever they’re doing this course to be doing that.

Floyd: [00:40:30] Oh yeah, absolutely. That’s one of the other things that, I will, revamp is the rapid response team because they got a lot of controversy around them for ELA. So we’re going to, it’s going to be a total retraining, reeducation, because I’ve seen the tactics. I wasn’t always happy with all the tactics, but I will say that once I become the sheriff that, that will be a revamping of the rapid response team. We, it’s definitely needed because we got, scenarios that, where the rapid response team was very needed. When I grew up, we, we, we grabbed a couple of deputies. Hey, let’s go get this person correct. Now they actually train. So we make sure that the training is consistent and that they’re there to help get the person on the control and down. That’s it. After they get him under control and taken away, it needs to be, then they back down. We’ve had some incidents where it’s been in the news where you have a person that’s mentally ill and you’ve got four guys on him and then you punch them in the face. I mean, that doesn’t make sense.

Rico: [00:41:46] No, that doesn’t. It really doesn’t. If they can’t control a person with four people. That’s just doesn’t make sense.

Floyd: [00:41:53] Yeah.

Rico: [00:41:54] We’ve been talking to Floyd M. Scott, the candidate for Gwinnett County sheriff. Where can we find out about you?

Floyd: [00:42:03] Well if you go to FloydScottSheriff2020.com you will find my webpage. I’ll pop right on up and May 19th…

Rico: [00:42:14] May 19th election day. And that’s primary day too.

Floyd: [00:42:18] Primary day, Floyd Scott.

Rico: [00:42:20] So go, go to that. And if you can’t remember that, just Google Floyd Scott for sheriff. And that will come up too, cause that’s what I did. This was a pleasure having you on.

Floyd: [00:42:31] Absolutely. Thank you.

Rico: [00:42:33] And I want to thank everyone for joining us. Want you to remember about HargrayFiber.com our lead sponsor as well as Atlanta tech park here in the city of Peachtree Corners. And don’t forget to get your next issue of Peachtree Corners magazine. It should have hit your mailboxes in the past week or so. And if it hasn’t, let me know cause then I have to get back on the post office. But thank you guys. Appreciate it. Thank you Floyd.

Floyd: [00:42:57] Thank you.