Why Baron Reinhold is Running for Gwinnett County Sheriff

“You have to have a force that people want to join, and that is incumbent upon the leader to create the environment where people love to work. Where they know that their boss has their back. They know that their boss is looking out for their career. They’re invested in training, equipping them, and so on.” Baron Reinhold talks about his run to be the next Gwinnett County Sheriff.

Baron Reinhold, who has a 30-year military background, discusses his varied experiences in the Navy, including leadership roles in nuclear command and reconnaissance. He aims to enhance transparency and accountability within the sheriff’s department through measures like budget audits and public forums. He stresses the importance of restoring public trust by addressing organizational issues promptly and effectively, including staffing shortages and jail safety concerns. Listen in with your host Rico Figliolini.

Timestamp:
00:00:00 – Baron Reinhold’s Extensive Military and Community Service
00:01:53 – From Naval Academy to Military Consulting: A Military Career Spanning Decades
00:04:50 – Running for Gwinnett County Sheriff
00:07:05 – Addressing Gwinnett County’s Challenges
00:10:14 – Lack of Transparency in Sheriff’s Budget
00:12:21 – Implementing Command Climate Surveys for Organizational Improvement
00:14:14 – Navigating Jail Budget and Safety Challenges
00:18:21 – Understaffed Jail Struggles with Inmate Safety
00:21:56 – Importance of Effective Leadership in Law Enforcement
00:24:13 – Addressing Staffing Challenges in Law Enforcement
00:28:12 – The Sheriff’s Role in Upholding Constitutional Rights
00:31:20 – Balancing Constitutional Rights and Public Health
00:34:40 – Abuse of Public Funds for Personal Branding
00:36:28 – Exploring Alternatives to Traditional Law Enforcement
00:38:54 – Experienced and Qualified Candidate for Gwinnett County Sheriff

PODCAST TRANSCRIPT:

Rico Figliolini 0:00:29

Hi, everyone. This is Rico Figliollini, host of Peachtree Corners Life here in the city of Peachtree Corners in Gwinnett county. And lately we’ve had election candidates on the show. Today we have a special candidate who’s running for Gwinnett county sheriff. His name is Baron Reinhold. Hey, Baron, thanks for joining us.

Baron Reinhold 0:00:48

Thanks. It’s great to be on your show.

Rico Figliolini 0:00:49

Yeah, no, I appreciate you being here with us. Barron has a long resume of participation in all sorts of things, certainly in the military. Right. And different posts, different positions that you’ve been in, from everything from a professor of naval science to director of military community management, you’ve been part of nuclear command and control operations, team three. I was looking at that. I was like, wow. Squadron commanding officer, United States Air Force. You on the admiral staff in Bahrain, I guess, during deployment in 2003 to 2004, is that correct?

Baron Reinhold 0:01:32

Well, there’s about three different things in there. I was at US strategic command, and I was also on, that was a combatant command in Omaha, Nebraska, but I was also on an admiral staff out in Bahrain for two years and another admiral staff in Norfolk for two years.

Rico Figliolini 0:01:48

Okay. Yeah. And the list goes on. It’s just. It’s an expansive list of accomplishments. And you’ve been involved in a lot of volunteer work in organizations quite involved in Europe. Some of the past groups included Boy scouts, Kiwanis club. But what I’d like you to do is tell us a little bit about yourself, beyond the resume, if you will, and you know what you’re currently doing, and give us a brief, a little bit about that.

Baron Reinhold 0:02:18

Sure. Well, thanks again, Rico.

Rico Figliolini 0:02:19

Yeah.

Baron Reinhold 0:02:19

My background, I joined the Navy right out of high school. I enlisted for a year and then went to the Naval Academy prep school that year, and then on to the naval academy when I graduated from there. I ended up going to flight school, finishing up flight school, and spent 30, 30 years as an officer all over the world. Just kind of look at the last half of my career, which is most of my senior leadership positions. Right after 911, I was the officer in charge of a number of combat detachments. Our squadron got surged for the next 20 years, doing the most important missions in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Somalia. And after that, I was on that admiral staff, brought the family out to Bahrain, right there in the Gulf region. It was a couple years there, then was in charge of global strike planning at US strategic command for two years. Then the third year there, I was the deputy commander’s executive assistant, went on to command the nation’s, one of the nation’s two highest reconnaissance squadrons, and again spent most of that time in Afghanistan. And then was the officer in charge or the senior officer on the nuclear command and control 747. So, literally, if we had nuclear war, we would be at a different base every night, were constantly on the move. And if nuclear war happened, our ground nodes would be gone, and I would personally be briefing with the president on his nuclear options and executing his war orders from the 747. So that was totally different than my reconnaissance days over land in the combat zones. And anyway, then from there, I went on to command a unit that was in charge of the entire Navy’s 388,000 community management. So we made sure that the entire Navy, over a moving 30 year period, was properly manned in every subspecialty, which was a pretty wild job. And then I finished up, like you said, I was the commanding officer of NROTC Atlanta region. So I had a battalion at Morehouse that had Spelman and Clark Atlanta attached to that, and then a battalion at Georgia Tech that Georgia state and Kennesaw state attached. And we trained all the naval officers and, you know, future Marine Corps officers at those six schools. So that’s kind of a quick 35 year round the horn.

Rico Figliolini 0:04:41

Yeah. Where did you originally come from, Baron? Where did you.

Baron Reinhold 0:04:46

I was born in Rochester, New York, but we moved around a lot when I was a kid, and we settled in Miami when I was in first grade. So I considered Miami until Hurricane Andrew wiped out the house, and my family moved up to Melbourne, Florida. By then, though, I was out of the house and in the navy, blasting around the world. So Miami was the home that I grew up in.

Rico Figliolini 0:05:06

Gotcha. And when did you move back, actually, to. When did you move to Atlanta? Let’s put it.

Baron Reinhold 0:05:12

Well, we did 16 moves since I’ve been married, which is, you know, that’s kind of wild to think about. My oldest daughter did 15 of those. So we moved here in 2015, built a house here in Gwinnett in Suwanee, and, you know, made the commute down 95 or 85, rather, every day. So I got up really, really early, got down there before the traffic got insane. And we usually either try to beat the traffic home or stay until the traffic that dissipated.

Rico Figliolini 0:05:42

Yeah, God knows the traffic has continued to build. Doesn’t disappear.

Baron Reinhold 0:05:48

Yep. But when I heard January 1 of 2020 and then since then, I started a consulting business. So I still do a lot of work down in Pensacola, which is the cradle of naval aviation, which has been a lot of fun because all the senior officers down there, you know, buddies of mine and the admirals and whatnot, and then the students, a lot of them were my former students at my Georgia Tech and Morehouse battalion. So I always get together with them. So I’ve got both ends of the spectrum. The senior most, the junior most people every time I go down there.

Rico Figliolini 0:06:21

That must be fascinating. My youngest wants to go into military history. He’s actually attending Kennesaw. Not quite the place for that, but that’s where he’s starting at, right? Yeah, he’s all into. Especially prior to World War two. World War two and prior, actually, that part. So it’s fascinating to be able to see and talk to people that are involved. So your consulting work is still with the military, I’m assuming? Correct. Okay. And so I guess the biggest question. The first question would be, why? Why run for Gwinnett county sheriff then? Why run for that post? Why do you see that you need to do that?

Baron Reinhold 0:07:05

Well, I mean, really, there are a lot of reasons. First, we did exhaustive study. We could have lived anywhere we wanted to when we moved here, and we did a lot of study, a lot of research, and Gwinnett county was the place to move to, you know, in 2015. And, you know, it’s been great. And, you know, we’ve seen a lot of changes, and almost all of those have been in the wrong direction in the last three to four years, whether it’s, you know, school board problems or taxation rates, you know, we have high. I think, well, I don’t think. I know. We had the highest number of people, you know, having a problem with their property taxes and appealing those. So those are going the wrong direction. And then certainly crime and just everything that the sheriff’s office is supposed to be doing, they’re failing in a major way. And so seeing what Butch Conway did for a quarter century and then seeing what’s happened since Sheriff Taylor took over, it’s night and day, and any county can only really be as good as the sheriff and the law enforcement. And since the sheriff is the senior law enforcement officer in the county, that’s a direct reflection on who’s doing that job. So, bottom line is, I think Sheriff Taylor’s doing a horrible job, and I think I can do. I think I could turn the county around completely.

Rico Figliolini 0:08:27

Now, the sheriff, so then people understand the difference, right? Gwinnett county police and the sheriff department. Two separate entities. Right. Gwinnett county police has the police officers that arrive on the scene of a crime that patrol the streets and stuff. Right. Gwinnett county sheriff has other responsibilities, including the jail system, serving subpoenas and such. Right? Correct. So two different. Just want people to know that two different areas. One of the things that, quite frankly, to my audience, we’re not fact checking any of this, but Baron is one of two candidates running. We have the incumbent, Sheriff Kebo, and we have Baron running. One of the things you want to do, based on what you’re saying, is that you want to be able to do full audit. How will you ensure that the audit’s done correctly and that it’s. That it’s open, impartial, transparent. How would you plan to do that?

Baron Reinhold 0:09:30

Well, just one thing before we go on. There’s actually five people running against the incumbent right now.

Rico Figliolini 0:09:37

I’m sorry, you’re right.

Baron Reinhold 0:09:39

So there’s three.

Rico Figliolini 0:09:40

Yeah.

Baron Reinhold 0:09:41

Unfortunately, it’s a partisan race, which I don’t think it should be, but I guess people aren’t interested in what I think on that. So there’s two Republicans and three other Democrats that are running against the incumbent on the Democrat side. But so, obviously, nobody is happy with how he’s doing, otherwise we wouldn’t have so many people running for that position. But, yeah, so the issue is when Butch Conway, who was the sheriff for 24 years here in Gwinnett county, who incidentally, endorsed me over all the other candidates, even though a couple of them worked for him or with him, one of them worked directly for him for about twelve years. Butch, when he left, he had a budget of $105 million. Right now, Sheriff Taylor has a budget of about $170 million, and he’s got almost about half of the deputies and jailers have left. So he’s got a force that’s half the size, and he’s got a budget that’s $65 million ish more. And so there’s money being spent in crazy places. Obviously. We know that from day one when he repainted all the sheriff’s cars with his name on the back of them. Again, a waste of taxpayers money. But there’s a lot. Where is the money? That’s the whole issue. You can’t trust government, you can’t trust law enforcement when money’s being squandered on frivolous things. And you can’t. I mean, I’ve put in all kinds of requests for, you know, freedom of information act stuff, but I didn’t know that you have to pay for all that. So I figure, okay, I’m a taxpayer. I want to know where this money’s being spent, or I want to know how many. How many deputies we’ve lost every year for the last four years. And, you know, if you want to know that, which is right on a spreadsheet, you got to pay $150, or you got to pay this, or they slow you the information, even if you do pay. So those kinds of things are frustrating. You know, you talked about transparency. I mean, I want to do an audit. You’d have a professional, reputable agency come in and do that, or organization and find out where all this money’s been spent. I mean, if you ground zero of building trust with the citizens of the county, it’s based on knowing facts. And I can’t find facts. And I’m in this race without paying a lot of money. So I think we need to do this audit. We need to flip the table, make it public facing, even if it’s pretty damning, whatever the results are of that, the public needs to know. And you need to snap a chalk line and say, okay, this is what happened before. This is when I took over. And this is what happens from here on out. And it’s not just a budgetary chalk line. I’m talking about in the Navy, every time a commanding officer takes over, they do something called a command climate survey. And again, that’s snapping another chalk line, but that’s more typically with personnel and programs. So what that does is the entire unit gets to give an anonymous. Takes an anonymous survey that’s very in depth. And then they get a free flow. They can type whatever they want at the end of that. And so as a new CEO coming in, new commanding officer coming in, you get the results of all that, and you get to see, okay, if it’s just one or two things, you know, maybe it’s a. You know, maybe it’s not all that important, but it’s good to know. But if there’s huge blocks of ink on, okay, this is a major problem, then it gives you, the new person, the information you need to, a, know that there’s a problem, b, address that, bring all your people in and say, this is obviously a huge issue here in this command. Here is my plan. You bring in people so you can all talk about what that issue is, what the background, why there’s that problem, and then come up with a solution. And then you brief personally, as the CEO, you brief all your different levels of rank, and then you give them an opportunity to give you feedback face to face. And so those kinds of things are critically important for a new boss coming in. And we will do something like that, not only with the people who are currently at the sheriff’s office, the deputies and jailers, but I’ll have surveys sent out to those that left because obviously they left for a reason, and I know why a lot, a lot of them left because I’ve talked to scores of them. So that’s important information.

Rico Figliolini 0:14:04

Sure. I would imagine also that a place like the county jail system, the sheriff system department, I mean, if they’re, if they’re expending money, there’s probably usually bids for certain things, contractual bids. There’s discretionary funds that can be spent on certain things because you don’t want to hamstring a department. There’s usually a budget level where you can spend money up to before it needs to go out on a bid system or some other thing. It could be in $170 million. Budget could be complicated doing that. It could take some months doing that. In the meantime, whatever you find, like you said, you will be able to address at that point. In the meantime, while that’s happening, because that could take several months, you’re going to be hitting the ground. You would hit the ground running. I know there was some other things that you were talking about, like measures that would implement, that you might implement to improve safety and reduce high rates of inmate injuries or deaths in the jail. Has that been an issue? Now, I haven’t myself looked at those issues. So tell us a little bit about that, about what you’re looking at and what you would implement day one for that week. Right.

Baron Reinhold 0:15:23

So right off the bat, well, literally on day one, during his press conference, Sheriff Taylor implemented. He did away with something called the rapid response team. So the rapid response team are trained personnel where if there is an issue going sideways and deputy is in danger or a jailer is in danger, then the rapid response team is rapid. They’re in there within seconds and making sure that you, you know, the deputies are okay and that the inmates are okay, too, because, you know, obviously, if things get out of control, people are getting hurt. So you take away the most important tool of, on day one of how to keep your own personnel safe, and you give them no tools to replace that. It turned into an immediate catastrophe. I mean, one of the people that’s been helping me on my campaign was the 2019 deputy of the year, and she was in the, in our jail, which is one of the biggest in the country as a jailer for, you know, I think, 18 years. And so she was training other deputies and other jailers how to do their job, not only ours, but, you know, other sheriffs would send theirs in, too. And they begged her to stay on and continue training. She was going to leave when Sheriff Conway left. She stayed on for six. Well, she stay. Asked her to stay for six months. She agreed to, and within two weeks, she left. Now, she left because she saw what was going on and how she saw the writing on the wall immediately that, okay, we’ve got no way to maintain control because, you know, if we’re, if people are getting hurt, we can’t protect ourselves, let alone the inmates.

Rico Figliolini 0:17:02

And let me ask you a question, though. Obviously, I would imagine when Sheriff Akibo came in, there was a reason why he stopped it because there might have been, there was all these things going on right there.

Baron Reinhold 0:17:15

Well, yeah. He said if you go back and read the news clips in 2019, 2020, his justification for that was that there were some charges leveled against the rapid response team of using excessive force. And if that’s true or if that’s not true is a new leader. You come in and you, you, you deal with the problem. What he did was he came in and got rid of the tool. He even said, hey, it’s a good tool, but it’s being misused. So, you know, you don’t get rid of the tool. You, if people were being abusive, then you discipline them or you fire them and you keep the tool and you train more with those data points to make sure that, you know, abuse isn’t taking place.

Rico Figliolini 0:18:00

Okay, fair enough.

Baron Reinhold 0:18:01

But obviously, you don’t come in and you undercut your, your entire, all of your deputies and all of your jailers and don’t give them any tools to maintain control of the jail. So as they started leaving, things just have continued to spiral out of control. A jail that is supposed to have about 50 people per shift currently has about 20 people per shift. They used to have, the inmates used to have 8 hours a day out of the cell. Now they’ve got 1 hour a day. They’re locked up 23 hours a day. It’s crazy what’s going on in the jail right now.

Rico Figliolini 0:18:34

It seems like there’s not enough people. I know I’ve spoken to people in the Gwinnett police and such. There’s budget money there to hire, but there’s not enough applicants should say qualified applicants.

Baron Reinhold 0:18:47

Well, that’s only part of the issue. I mean, yes, law enforcement has had its challenges since 2020, but the reality is if you are an. An agency or a sheriff’s office that is, you know, is led by a good leader, then guess what? People don’t leave.

Rico Figliolini 0:19:07

People come there.

Baron Reinhold 0:19:08

So what we have seen in Gwinnett county is we’ve seen sheriff deputies and jailers flee this leadership because it’s untenable. As a matter of fact, I did, a couple years ago, I did this Suwannee Citizens Academy police academy, and it just so happened I got teamed up with a officer who worked for six months under Butch Conway, made the transition, and after a year, he took a significant pay cut to leave the sheriff’s office to go work for the city of Suwanee. And talking to him that night, it’s what every deputy I’ve talked to has said, whether I solicit the question or not, they’re like, yeah, it’s ridiculous. It became untenable, and they left inmate safety.

Rico Figliolini 0:19:53

I mean, it’s always been a problem, I think, in any jail, right, there’s only a certain amount of leeway you can do. Sometimes it can’t be helped, you know, with. You hear about these things all the time on, like, not in Gwinnett sheriff jails, but in federal jails or state jails, where there’s drugs in the jail, sometimes there’s other things going on, and that actually increases the inmate safety issue because other people causing problems among the population, if you will. What tools would you use to improve that or to reduce that? I mean, so it’s not just happening because. I don’t think it’s just happening because officers are being abusive, and some of them have been. It’s also being the other side of that. So what tools can a sheriff have to do? Do you plan on restructuring that whole command of how things are done?

Baron Reinhold 0:20:53

Yeah, I mean, immediately. I’ll reinstate and train a rapid response team. What we need is we need the proper numbers of deputies back in the jail cell. It’s a horribly dangerous job when you are critically undermanned. So the issue now is instead of being in charge of one cell block, they’ve got deputies, at times in charge of two, three, and up to four cell blocks. You know, that is. That is sheer insanity. And when you’ve got that type of. I mean, the inmates know that you can’t maintain control of them, and so things get. You know, things get crazy, and you can’t stop it. So what’s the answer to that? The answer is to keep people locked behind, you know, in their room 23 or in their cells 23 hours a day because you can’t control them. What’s that? Due to the mental health that makes people, you know, more angry. And when they do get out, there’s more problems. So all of these things are precipitated by the fact that, you know, the deputies in the law enforcement is a very tight knit community. So I just went through that, you know, quote unquote police academy. I’m post certified now. I went back in September through December. And, you know, all the guys, you know, a bunch of them were prior, you know, jail or were jailers before they were coming back to get their, you know, their full post certifications. And, you know, those guys, you know, talked in depth about all the different sheriff’s offices around the various counties and about all the different police. But, I mean, they know. And the word. It doesn’t matter. I shouldn’t say it doesn’t matter.

Rico Figliolini 0:22:21

The money.

Baron Reinhold 0:22:22

I mean, money is always attractive. But you know what? You have to have a force that people want to join, and that is incumbent upon the leader to create the environment where people love to work, where they know that their boss has their back. They know that their boss is, you know, is looking out for their career. They’re invested in, you know, in training and equipping them and so forth and so on. And that’s. I mean, the history of, you know, my background for 35 years is training and equipping and leading high, you know, high, highly performing organizations that are the number one of their type in the entire Navy. And you get, you know, there’s a. There’s a specific award called the Battle Efficiency Award. Now, they call it battle effectiveness Award. Same award, just. They changed the name, but you get that when it’s the number one unit of its type in the Navy. We won. We were awarded that back to. Back to back three years in a row when I was the commanding officer. So I know how to build organizations that people love to work in and love to do their job. And that’s what we need here. We need that type of leadership to bring people back. And I know that they’ll be back. I mean, people want to come back. I’ve talked to deputies all the time. They want to work here and Gwinnett, but they won’t work for this sheriff.

Rico Figliolini 0:23:37

Do you. Do you think that salaries or benefits have to change also?

Baron Reinhold 0:23:42

I mean, there needs to be. I mean, right now, if you listen on the radio, you can hear. You know, you can hear the. The Gwinnett county sheriff’s office, you know, spots on there all the time, and they’re, you know, attractive numbers and this, that and the other. But they’re not hiring anybody. I mean, they’re. Their numbers are single digits. You know, people are not coming to their hiring conferences, and they’re not responding to those ads, even though, you know, on the surface it sounds good because they know. They know that, you know, it’s better to work someplace for less money than it is for a boss that doesn’t support you. To answer your question, all of that stuff needs to be looked at, and we need to be the most competitive, pay in the area, and have the best leadership. And because the thing is, after you’ve trained people and you’ve equipped them and built the organization that they don’t want to leave, you don’t want to lose that talent. And those are the two key factors, to have the leadership and to have the money to support maintaining them there so they don’t train, move on.

Rico Figliolini 0:24:45

Yeah. And that’s been, I guess, the problem with law enforcement in the metro area. Right. They get trained in one place, like Gwinnett county has had that, where they train police officers, they work for two years, and then all of a sudden, they get hired away to a different county. Right. Maybe it’s closer to their home. You know, it’s a lot of different reasons. Right. I mean, our peach recorders. Sheriff Restrepo, chief. Sheriff Restrepo is a former Gwinnett county police officer, decided this would be a good place for him to be. Right. So people do leave. So, yeah, I mean, it’s hard enough to find people, even in the private sector, to do things, and it’s difficult all around. So unemployment is low, they say. I guess it’s low, but, yeah, paying bonuses do make a difference, and that’s something a sheriff has control over. Right. That’s not something that has to be decided at the city council level, at the county level, I don’t think.

Baron Reinhold 0:25:46

Well, I mean, certainly the budgets and the money come from the commissioners.

Rico Figliolini 0:25:51

Right. Total budgets. Right. But if you have, like, positions for 40 positions to be filled, but you can’t fill it, you still have that budget money in that line, I guess.

Baron Reinhold 0:26:02

And the other. Your point when you talk about personnel and money is, you know, this. The current sheriff, Sheriff Taylor, you know, has a command staff that’s completely bloated. He’s got all these really high level, high paying positions that he created, and, you know, and it’s like a three for one. The guy who’s actually doing the heavy lifting in the jails or serving warrants. Their pay compared to all of these created positions is way out of whack compared to what’s normative. And that’ll be something that we’ll go back through and rescale that to the right number and have the positions that are needed. But we’re not going to have fat in there, just collecting a paycheck and, you know, having duplicative jobs or whatever else. It’s not happening.

Rico Figliolini 0:26:52

So you’re not just auditing budgets and stuff. You’re going to be auditing the structure of the command. Who’s there? Okay. One of the things that you point out, too is constitutional training, mandating constitutional education, how to enhance the daily responsibilities of the deputies and jailers. So tell us a little bit about that. What you mean by that?

Baron Reinhold 0:27:16

Well, it’s interesting because, you know, 35 years in the navy and every time you have a promotion, you reaffirm your oath to protect the constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic. And, you know, it might seem a little more intuitive, possibly for military personnel because we’re typically overseas and worrying about the people attacking the country and protecting our constitution in that capacity. But in order to do your job in law enforcement, you need to understand how the constitution applies to you. And that has to factor in to, I mean, you have to know because you’re swearing an oath to it, too. So what does it mean? You know, there’s, there are laws on the books and we’ve seen throughout history that there are times when, you know, mandates can come down that are not constitutional. So then the question becomes, is the senior law enforcement officer in the county, what are you going to do about that? And if people don’t understand the constitution, then they can’t work through that. And that’s important. I mean, I think it’s a big problem in America that the Constitution is more and more being ignored. And when you have a mandate that is a potential massive violation of the constitutional rights of the citizens, then the sheriff is the one that needs to engage them and let people know this will or this will not happen. And so, you know the sheriff to know it, then everybody also needs to know it because they need to understand why their command is taking a certain stand.

Rico Figliolini 0:28:50

Okay. That almost begs the question, though. Okay. That if you’re, if you’re, if the sheriff is supposed to enforce mandates that come down, these are, these are laws just like anything else that needs to be implemented. Sheriff can’t, I mean, it’s been done. Obviously, we see it at the federal level where certain laws are being ignored right now, is that right to do, can you slow walk that law, if you will, and not do it? You know, I get it that there’s priorities and that sometimes you might say, well, the priority is not that law. We’re not going to, we’re going to, we’re not going to step through and enforce that right. We’re going to be enforcing these other laws that really are important.

Baron Reinhold 0:29:38

But I wouldn’t put it that way because, yeah, I wouldn’t say, I mean, the laws are the laws and they need to be enforced as long as they’re not violated. For example, you know, you saw, I mean, I guess probably the best current example might be that in some counties during COVID you saw sheriffs arresting pastors for having church on Sunday. And in other counties, you saw sheriffs standing literally in the doors of churches, preventing, you know, state police from coming in and disrupting the services. So the question then becomes, you know, if the constitution is the authoritative law of the land and our Georgia constitution is also, you know, the authoritative law in Georgia, then unless there is something that says, okay, there’s no more religious freedom, then your job is to understand what is and what is not a legal declaration. And so you have to, because at the end of the day, the individual citizen, the last person between their constitutional rights being violated or not, is the sheriff of that county. So I’m not saying it’s normative that that happens, but I’m saying you have to recognize if something comes down that is not constitutional, it’s your oath. It’s your obligation, if you actually are going to fulfill your oath, to make sure that your citizens rights aren’t violated.

Rico Figliolini 0:31:03

Okay, I don’t disagree with you. I just. And we could leave it at that. But it’s just, someone has to, it’s like everything else. Someone has to decide then whether that’s unconstitutional. Now do we leave it up to the courts to decide that or the individual sheriff, lead sheriff, chief sheriff in a county to decide that? You know, and every county needs to be different.

Baron Reinhold 0:31:26

Yeah, if there are subtle things. That’s right. But yeah, something as egregious is, okay, you are not allowed to go to church. I mean, that is a gross violation of your religious freedoms, period.

Rico Figliolini 0:31:37

It is.

Baron Reinhold 0:31:38

I mean, you can, people might want to argue that, but it’s a gross violation.

Rico Figliolini 0:31:44

Okay. I could see that, you know, of course, the CDC and we don’t have to get into the politics of this, but, you know, if they feel it’s a health issue.

Baron Reinhold 0:31:52

You know, they’re, their feelings don’t. Don’t get to supersede the constitution, that’s for sure.

Rico Figliolini 0:32:00

Yeah, no, I get it.

Baron Reinhold 0:32:02

And whenever it does, that puts our entire society at risk. I mean, I’ve seen societies collapse, and I spent most of my life in those areas because of, you know, things getting out of control.

Rico Figliolini 0:32:15

And so, and I agree, it’s. It’s a fragile.

Baron Reinhold 0:32:18

We can’t allow that to happen here in the United States.

Rico Figliolini 0:32:21

It’s a fragile system. And we’re constantly fighting to keep democracy or our republic alive, if you will, because it doesn’t take much for, like you said, it really doesn’t take much, especially when we had the riots during the COVID time. Remember what CNN was almost broken into during the riots then? I just, like.

Baron Reinhold 0:32:44

You forgot the mostly peaceful riots.

Rico Figliolini 0:32:46

The mostly. Yes. Yeah, we could talk about that at some point, right.

Baron Reinhold 0:32:52

But, yeah, if you’re a cigar guy, come over the house and we can.

Rico Figliolini 0:32:56

Cigar and bourbon. There you go. Jail dogs program. So, I mean, that. That’s one of the things you mentioned, I think, in your. In your program about jail dogs, about branding. Right.

Baron Reinhold 0:33:12

This is another example of. That’s insane that that program went away. Okay, so here’s a program that literally cost the taxpayers zero, not $0.01. It’s a phenomenal program for the mental health of the inmates. And, I mean, it’s a huge incentive for them to be on good conduct so that they can actually get an animal, so that they can train that animal. The mental health aspects of that are off the chart. And the jailers loved it because people would behave so that they could be in line to get a jail dog assigned. They would train the thing, have all this feeling of accomplishments, this, that and the other. The dog obviously is good for the dogs because they got saved, they got adopted out. And it was just, like I said, it didn’t cost a penny.

Rico Figliolini 0:34:03

So why was that? Is, is just.

Baron Reinhold 0:34:04

That’s just another example of failed leadership.

Rico Figliolini 0:34:09

Other things. You’ve mentioned vehicle branding. Right? So we’ll hit some of these other things quick. So vehicle branding was one. What’s with that?

Baron Reinhold 0:34:19

Yeah, exactly. What is with that? So right when we were right, when sheriff Taylor took over, he took all the county cars that belonged to the sheriff’s office and he. Yeah. Had his name painted on the back of him. I was like, okay, okay, seriously, you paid 100. Who God only knows how much money, you know, however much it is, if it’s over one cent, the Navy would call that fraud, waste and abuse. But the bottom line is, you know, he’s got his name spray painted all over these vehicles and county expense. The irony now is he, he can’t drive a sheriff’s deputy’s vehicle up to a polling place because that’s, that’s, you know, campaigning. So if there’s a problem at a polling station, he can’t respond.

Rico Figliolini 0:35:01

Think about that.

Baron Reinhold 0:35:01

Yeah, so anyway, but it’s, it’s just ridiculous. That is, that is the pinnacle of arrogance and egotism in my mind. And, you know, to spend that money that frivolously on something like that.

Rico Figliolini 0:35:14

All right, beyond that, let’s talk about reassigning personnel. Part of it was bodyguards and drivers to other roles that benefit the short.

Baron Reinhold 0:35:23

So when, when you’re critically short of personnel to begin with, he’s got a bodyguard that goes around with them. He’s also got a driver. Actually, I think he’s got two drivers or has had two drivers. So, I mean, that’s manpower that’s critically needed in our jails or serving warrants because right now we have about 50,000 unserved warrants because more warrants come in than can get served every day because we’re critically short and people won’t work for this sheriff. So every day the warrants stack up. They can only serve so many. So every day he’s in office, you know, we’re just going to keep getting more and more warrants. I mean, I should say that aren’t, that haven’t been served.

Rico Figliolini 0:36:04

Okay. I don’t have anything against bodyguards. I mean, things can happen, right. It’s not, it’s not a study. It’s a violent society sometimes. So I don’t see why not have a bodyguard. But serving warrants, though, it’s a different story. Can’t that be done by private services contracted for, to be able to stem through that? I mean, a reasonable thing?

Baron Reinhold 0:36:27

Yeah, I think it’s reasonable. Especially when you don’t have the manpower or they won’t work for you, then, yeah, you better figure out a solution. And, but, you know, the last official number that I got, it was, you know, am I allowed to say leaked to me it wasn’t gotten through FOIA because I don’t have that much money to keep asking these questions to try to get official numbers. But this was an official number. It was 48,632 as of about a month ago. And every month it’s been going up.

Rico Figliolini 0:36:57

So, and to be fair, I mean, a lot of that may have been before his.

Baron Reinhold 0:37:02

Oh, yeah, like you said. But the fact that the numbers skyrocket because it’s warrant division is, you know, is been decimated. And by people leaving, we’re not getting. Every day that those individuals are walking around without having been brought in is a potential death or a potential violent act or a potential robbery or whatever else. So these are important things to get our arms around.

Rico Figliolini 0:37:31

It’s good to have that discussion. I mean, definitely, especially. It’s one thing to, to be one of, to voting for one of over 330 house reps. You know, they do make laws that affect people and stuff, but the sheriff system really has to be taken more seriously. Have we, towards the end of our time together, Baron, is there anything that we haven’t discussed that you want to share?

Baron Reinhold 0:37:58

Well, I would just again ask people to go on my website, it’s Baron Forgwinnett, and look up my background and look up all my proposals. At least my initial day one proposals are on there. Like I said, there’s a reason why Sheriff Conway, who was the sheriff for a quarter century here in Gwinnett county, endorsed me. And he sat down and he said, Baron, you’re the only person with the background and the senior level experience in command and the senior knowledge of budgets and how to make things happen and how to apply for money and how to engage the commissioners and on and on and on and with the personnel experience with running the entire Navy’s 388,000 personnel and keeping that manned. And part of that responsibility was the bonus structure for the entire navy and administering that. I mean, hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars in bonuses across the Navy. So, yeah, it’s obvious from his perspective that I’m the only person qualified that’s running to do that in a manner of sustained, superior performance, which is my track record. So I’ve always loved people. I’ve loved serving people my entire career. That’s the biggest thing I miss about the Navy is the fact that as I got more responsibility and more seniority, I could affect more and more people’s lives and their families lives and advocate for them more powerfully in their career. So I’m, you know, I’m looking forward to, you know, doing that leadership aspect, but also bringing our county and making our county safe and our jails safe and, you know, basically making it safe for, you know, the taxpayer or the tailor for the deputies and for our inmates. That’s, that’s the bottom line.

Rico Figliolini 0:39:49

Okay, so, okay, cool. People know where to find out more information. You’ve been out. There’s early voting going on, but we’ve recorded this. This was recorded on the 8th, on Wednesday. And so there’s early voting going on. I think that, I’m not sure when that ends.

Baron Reinhold 0:40:07

Early voting ends the 17th.

Rico Figliolini 0:40:09

17Th. Okay. The Friday before election day, which is May 21. And you’re running on the democratic?

Baron Reinhold 0:40:19

I’m running on the republican ticket.

Rico Figliolini 0:40:21

Republican ticket.

Baron Reinhold 0:40:22

And the primary. You know, it’s Mike Baker and I that are running against each other on the republican side. And then Kebo Taylor, who’s the incumbent, and Curtis Clemens, Joe Mark and Brian Whiteside are running on the Democrat against.

Rico Figliolini 0:40:38

So as opposed to people listening to this, as opposed to school board races, which are decided on this election May 21, since it’s a nonpartisan or deemed nonpartisan this race, once the ballots are decided. So if you’re looking to want to support Barron, obviously you need to pull the republican ballot to be able to do that. Or the democratic ballot if you want to vote on that side, too. Either way. And then the election actually runs through until November where decisions are made. Right.

Baron Reinhold 0:41:11

So November, if I’m the candidate, then it’ll be running against. Well, there was probably going to be a runoff, my guess, on the Democrat side, since there’s not. But whoever wins that is going to be hopefully who I’m running against.

Rico Figliolini 0:41:26

Yeah, that seems like it. Well, Baron Reinhold, I appreciate you taking your time speaking to me about the issues of where you feel passionate about and how you feel you would handle the Gwinnett County Sheriff Department. People know where to reach you now, or at least where to find your information. And if they want to reach you via email or phone, the information is on your website, I’m assuming.

Baron Reinhold 0:41:50

Absolutely right.

Rico Figliolini 0:41:52

So hang in there with me for a minute. Everyone else, I appreciate you joining us listening to this. We’ll be doing some other candidate podcasts over the next week or so a few days. There’s a few more that I’ll be interviewing different races, so check it out and, you know, share this with your friends. Appreciate your time. Thank you everyone.