(gentle music) - There is a new sheriff in town, Chip Simmons on this edition of conversations.

(gentle music) You might say Chip Simmons was straight out of central casting when he was elected sheriff of a Escambia County in 2020, he has an impressive law enforcement resume spanning over three decades, is the former Police Chief for the Pensacola Police Department, served as Chief Deputy for a Escambia County, and has a stack of awards and accolades to back up a proven track record.

In addition to his undergraduate degrees in criminal justice Simmons has a master's degree in public administration and is a graduate from the FBI national academy in Quantico, Virginia.

We welcome Escambia County Sheriff Chip Simmons to Conversations, Nice to see you, thanks for joining us.

- Good to see you again, thank you for having me.

- Oh, my pleasure.

What was it that first got you interested in law enforcement?

- Well you know I was born in Iceland, Keflavik Iceland, I was a Navy brat.

- Okay.

- My dad was stationed there and so I always liked the uniform, the service aspect of things and so growing up, I always knew I was gonna be in the military or in law enforcement and growing up you start seeing things and you just want to help and I felt like whenever I graduated high school, that the best way to help is local law enforcement.

So in 1984, I decided I joined the Escambia County Sheriff's office and for two years I worked as a corrections officer only to leave and go to Pensacola Police Department, the rest as they say is history.

- What did you do when you initially, I guess you just initially started off on the street with Pensacola PD?

- Yeah, everyone starts off in local law enforcement, everyone starts off as a patrol officer and they stick you on the midnight shift normally, on the beat and so I did that in the streets of Pensacola for a couple of years and then I kind of found my niche, which is I wanted to do more investigative work.

I went to what they call the tactical unit, which is a plainclothes armed robbery type unit and then I went to narcotics, that's where I stayed for probably 15 years as an investigator, working undercover, doing a lot of drug search warrants, task forces with federal authorities, promoted to Sergeant and then ultimately Lieutenant, and all that time I stayed in narcotics.

- What was the most fascinating part about that job?

I mean, there seems to me like there's a lot of webs woven into that side of the world.

- Well, I think it's just learning that there was a whole different type of people, there's a whole different culture in the drug world, you know you're working undercover so you're talking to these people, you're talking to them on the phone, you're going to their house, you're meeting them, you're talking to them, but you're talking as one of them, so you have to kind of put yourself in that role.

So I think that that's really interesting and that's what really challenged me, to get to where they think that they understand you, they trust you and keeping in mind that whether you may be having a good conversation with this person, this person is ruining lives by selling drugs and distributing these drugs throughout our area and obviously the entire state of Florida.

So I think that was what really drew me to the undercover, the narcotics part and probably my favorite assignment was the Sergeant in the narcotics unit, because you had six to eight people under your command and you had to make those decisions.

Do you do a search warrant now?

Do you try to do a wire?

Do you work with the FBI?

Do you work with a DEA?

Do you work with another agency?

It's just, it was an adventure every day.

- I mean, you are obviously decent, clean cut young man coming out of high school and college.

- Easy to talk to right?

- Yeah.

How do you prepare yourself?

How do you learn in order to be able to kind of incorporate yourself into that world undercover?

- It takes some time, even whenever I first became a law enforcement officer, mine was more difficult, 'cause I worked as a corrections officer for two years.

So the people that I worked with for 12 hour shifts, these were the ones that are gonna be back out on the streets of Pensacola, so they knew me, they knew my name because that's what you do.

They have nothing to do but sit there and memorize your name and try to get some extra stuff from a corrections officer, and then I get out, I work at the police department and I'm pretty active, I'm active on the streets, and so people know you, but then you'd be surprised, at what happens when you make that transformation.

You don't have to shave everyday, you don't have to wear a uniform, your car doesn't look like it's a red, white, and blue car at the time, it's not a black car.

And so you be surprised at how easy it is to assimilate into this group of people, you just gotta be careful, you have to have a little bit, a little cunning, you have to have a little bit of the ability to gift of gab, if you will and it's not for everyone, I loved it I mean, I absolutely loved it, and the people that I worked with, they loved it, they were top notch and so we really enjoyed the job, even though it was a difficult job at times and a relatively dangerous job because you're out there by yourself.

You have some of your backup is outside or your backup is down a road or you have signals that you need help.

But for the most part, your help is not gonna get there anytime soon.

So but you understand that this job is important.

The job of ridding our area of drugs is important because when you're undercover, you don't just see the drug dealers, you see the drug users and you befriend, or you make a acquaintance with the drug users and you see them what they used to be and unfortunately over the course of a couple of years, you see them deteriorate and you see how sad it is and it really just invigorates you to be able to continue to do that job because you know that there are lives being ruined.

- What brings a person into that drug world?

I mean, you don't just wake up and start, I don't guess.

- Well, no, there are what they call gateway drugs and I think that there are gateway actions or activities where you will, you'll go to a bar and then you want a little bit more, you know, you do marijuana, you want a little bit more, what's better than what I've done yesterday?

Let's do that and I don't pretend to know all the answers on the addictive personalities and who becomes addictive with one shot or who becomes addictive with 10 shots, or who never becomes addicted to drugs.

So I think that you just assumed that as bad for everyone, and it's not just the drugs themselves, as you know, these drugs are cut or they added, people add various chemicals and poisons and different things to white substance to pretend like they have, an ounce of cocaine instead of a half ounce of cocaine, and that's kind of the situation we're in now with the opioids, it's not just opium, it's the fentanyl that ends up killing people.

So nothing's really changed with that regard it's still very dangerous, you can't trust what you're buying and many times what you're buying will kill you.

- How does a person become a drug dealer?

And what I mean by that is how do you get roped into that lifestyle?

Or how do you choose that?

- Jeff, it's the money, it's the money, we talk a lot now about some of the violent crime that we have, and I always get down there and I say, it's drug-related and but a drug-related, I don't mean that someone was high on drugs when they did it, although it's possible, what I really mean is it's, drug-related meaning it's money-related, there are stacks of money, and you can make quick and easy money, and that's what we started seeing in the late eighties and early nineties with the crack cocaine epidemic, you had people that were standing on the street corners in broad daylight, wide open, selling small what we call 20 cent pieces or $20 pieces of crack cocaine, and then they would have handfuls of money.

These are 14 year olds, 15 year olds, and that is very alluring because you get, say, if you're a guy, you get the girls that way, you get the money, you get the fine cars, you get to the houses, you can party, you can travel, you can do a number of things, and I've got money I didn't have to work a 40 hour week, people are coming to me, I'm the king of the neighborhood, I've got guys working for me, they're bringing me money, when you get to a certain level and that's really what we concentrated on is the mid-level drug dealers.

We would arrest the people that were out on the street, in a street corner but for the most part, we wanted the people that were distributing the drugs their putting drugs in there, 'cause we felt like that would have a greater impact.

- Are most of those people users as well?

- Well, when you get to a certain point they're not, the street-level people do use at times, but then when you get the mid-level and certainly the upper level, if they're users, then they run a risk of being addicted themselves and then they're not on their game and they become victims or subject to robbery.

So and usually not good with money, or even remember who to give money or drugs to so I would say that while they, let's take heroin for example, if you're selling heroin, you're usually not a user, you're a pusher, and you know who are the users, and what they will do is, has been in my experience, what they will do is they will use alcohol and they will use another what I call a minor drug, they'll smoke marijuana, but they don't use heroin because they know what they put in heroin, they know that the stuff that they're cutting it with is poison and they're would never touch it themselves, but it's okay for you to do it.

If you give me the money I want you hooked so you always give me the money, you're always a customer, and that's what was so that driving, that was such a driving force for me, to make sure that we arrested these mid-level and upper level drug distributors.

- You ever have a conversation with any of them afterwards, after they were arrested, after they were convicted, and say, you realize the lives you've ruined and the damage you've done?

And if so, what was the response?

- To this day, I have people coming up to me and they say, hey, you arrested me, or in some cases you didn't arrest me, you gave me a break and 'cause there was an opportunity for a break and they'll tell me that, hey you saved my life because if you had not arrested me, I would be dead by now and because they were spiraling and a lot of times when law enforcement gets involved is because they get sloppy or it's because someone gets hurt and we have an investigation to do, or someone else gets caught and they tell on them and they work with authorities.

So I talked to them more often than you would think I was getting on a ECAT or trolley actually, a trolley bus about a year ago and I get on and someone stopped me, I was in uniform, but they knew I was running for sheriff at the time and they stopped me, said Hey, you know, Chip Simmons right, I said yeah and he said, I just got to tell you, I'm where I'm at now, I have a family now because of what you and your partner, I had a partner at the time, what you and your partner did for me 15 years ago.

And so I stopped, I mean, obviously I want to listen to the discussions, he made a point to stop me and he says, you arrested me, you didn't charge me what you could have charged me with, I know that, in his mind, and he says, but I'm only here because of what you did and I can't thank you enough and he started to tear up and my wife was with me and she just standing there watching it, and we give a little bit of a half hug as men do, and then I walked on by, my wife was like, does that happen a lot?

I said, it probably doesn't happen enough, but it really reinforces the work that you've done and it reinforces the work that you do, and I take those anecdotes that happened to me and I tell my guys that these guys remember you, you do the job the right way, don't lie, don't do any of that stuff, treat people with common sense, treat people with decency, do your job and ultimately there will be rewards, you'll literally save lives.

- What would your advice to parents be as you're raising kids in today's world with so many influences out there and not all of them good clearly, what advice would you give a parent today?

- I think it's as easy as talk to your children, know who their friends are, peer pressure to me is a huge problem with regards to who gets into drugs and who does not.

There are with Facebook and social media, I don't think there's ever been stronger peer pressure than there is right now, because now they're educated earlier, so they know that these things are available, they know that there's a way to get them.

Now, you always heard over the years, you always hear, oh you can get drugs if you want it, it's kind of true then, definitely true now.

So I think that that's, I would tell the parents to pay attention to what they're doing, their kids are doing, who they're hanging out with, and just be a little bit suspicious, suspicious is love and keep pushing that way.

- You bring up Facebook and social media, clearly when you started, that was not something you had to be concerned about, but I would assume cyber crime is a big deal in today's world.

- It is, we are dealing with a number of, in fact, I think it's one of the fastest growing crimes so much so that when I had my last meeting, I wanted to get an extra one or two investigators to just assigned specifically to cyber crimes, computer crimes, we call it, and because it's just becoming such a widespread problem.

Again, we got the violent crime, which is number one priority, violent crime is from drugs and drugs and money, and then we have the cyber crime, which is also about money.

So, there's a common denominator there, it is money and it's always been money, right?

Crime has always been about money, whether you're Al Capone or, money or land I guess.

- Right, right, right.

- It's money now but it used to be land and or money.

So I again, the cyber crime is something that's not gonna go away, it's gonna continue to build, and that's why your Facebook's and I guess Amazon, all of them are building in more safeguards, hopefully they can combat some of that as well.

- And it's also, doesn't an open up more of an opportunity for some unsavory characters to reach out to children and other folks and go down a very bad road too?

- Again, I would think that the computer age has done more for child porn and child victimization than almost anything else.

But think about this, what do you need to be a child predator nowadays?

You need a computer and a warped sense of morality, and almost everyone has a computer, and unfortunately, too many people have that warped sense of morality, 'cause you could do that literally from your room and you can trade, you may not be making these videos, but you can trade these videos and dispense these videos and download these videos and it's just horrific to watch, it's horrific to see what's what's taking place, and that's why we're part of a federal task force on internet crimes against children, that's what we concentrate on, we assign a specific investigators to that, and all they do is go fishing for people that would target children, people that would download and then send messages out and some of these people actually, as despicable as it sounds, they will put it out, what I'm looking for is a picture of this or a picture of that and it just, again it breaks your heart, it shocks you and again, it re-energizes the need to make sure that we do things the right way.

- What about human trafficking is that a problem in this area?

- I think that I don't want to be naive about it, we don't have the human trafficking that you would read about it and I mean, there's not big vans loading up children and taking them away or bringing them here, but the human trafficking is a lot more than just that, human trafficking is the victimization of people and it's based on some of the limitations, there may be a language barrier, they don't have money, maybe the threat of force or bodily harm, and so what we pay attention to that.

I had a conversation with many of our hoteliers just a couple months ago, and I told them what to look for because there's a lot of them in the hotel industry, a lot of restaurant industry, and so I told them what we were seeing and what the Intel was giving us, and because I want a partnership, I want them to be our eyes and our ears and let us know what they're seeing and then we can work with our federal partners on stopping this.

The problem with human trafficking is it crosses jurisdictional boundaries, you know, Escambia County is a big County, but I can't imagine someone, being thrown into a human trafficking situation and then stay in Escambia county, they want them away from family, they want them away from resources, away from friends, and so that they have nowhere to go, no one to turn to, except for this person that is victimizing them.

That's all part of that, entire structure and that vicious cycle.

- What's the biggest issue that we have, the what type I guess would be the question, of crime is your biggest concern right now in this particular area or region so to speak?

- If you say the biggest crime, I would still have to say, it's the violent crime associated with drug trafficking.

We recently about a month or two ago, we made a huge marijuana arrest, a couple thousand pounds, and we had, we seized $800,000 in cash.

Remember I told you that the violent crime is a result of cash?

Well, if you've got $800,000 in your home, someone knows about it, and these people aren't good people because they're buying and selling drugs so they may well, rob you or shoot you or take your money however way they could do it.

So I would say that that is the biggest crime issue that we have but I can't discount, I have to caveat that by saying that opioids and opioid addictions and overdoses, are devastating to our community, not just ours but every community but if you think about it, how many people, people have no idea how many overdoses that we get called to, they would cringe if they knew how many overdoses that our emergency medical services respond to, that we don't even get a call on, it's an overdose, it's a person that's unconscious, it's a heart attack, it's a death investigation, short of the death investigation, we may not always get a phone call on it.

But if I was talking to some of our EMS partners, and they said that the average age of an individual that they transport for an opioid overdose was over 50 years old, that's not 20 something year olds that you would think, that's not the one that you see on television, this is our age, this is our brothers and sisters and aunts and uncles, and it's because of the addiction, it's because these pill mills were continuing to push this stuff.

And you're seeing a lot of the ramifications of it now.

But again, the opioid problem remains a huge problem right here in Escambia county.

You know, you may say, well, it's not as bad as it is in West Virginia or Kentucky or the big cities, you're probably right, but that does not mean that we are not seeing them every day, every single day, we have overdoses right here in Escambia county.

- And like you say, it's not someone who you would think is, you know, your typical drug user, starts off, I guess with like a broken arm or something like that and then the addiction.

- It's funny you said it because that's the last example I heard was someone hurt their back and they were prescribed opioids, and this particular person, was one of those ones that became addicted relatively early, and then the doctors were continued to give them opioids, and then there's a crackdown, the feds cracked down, you can no longer get this many opiates, you have to wean them off, or you can't do it, you have to do go to a different medication.

Well by that time they're addicted, and so what do they do?

They steal it from someone, they rob, they take money, they steal, they pawn their wedding rings, they pawn their valuables so they can get money and they can buy it, and then they becomes so desperate that they buy it from anyone, people that don't know, and the people they don't know, has this much, they want this much, so what do they do?

They cut it, they put more junk into it, sometimes that junk is fentanyl and fentanyl was a hundred or a thousand times more potent than opioids, and we have seen, I've seen surveillance videos inside an individual's home, 'cause people have those things in their home, and you could simply see the guy sitting on the edge of his bed, shooting up the opioid, and then just tuck his head, fall on the floor, and that's the last you hear of him, it happens that quickly, and these people don't care.

- Sad situation.

- The drugs is so strong, they don't care about the dangers.

- Interesting.

- It is sad.

- It's extremely sad, extremely sad.

Let's talk a little bit about the kind of the state of police officers in today's world.

What did you think when you saw, the George Floyd incident?

What went through your mind?

- I was horrified, my profession is law enforcement and so when you look at other other agencies and you can't help but to judge because always, you critique and you judge, you're like, well, that's not something we would do, that's not what we train, or man, we trained the same way.

Well, the George Floyd thing, I was just, I was horrified because just the sheer callousness of the officers that are involved and it angered me, it angered me because I have been in this career for a long time, I know a lot of people, and the officers that I know would never do something like that.

We are trained differently, we are an accredited agency, and that means we have standards that we have, opportunities at training and we have a level of professionalism that we will not dip below.

So, but I do understand that it happened, I do understand that that people rightfully were calling for a review, at least a review of law enforcement, law enforcement practices, what force is used and what force is really necessary.

Again, here locally, the agencies that I've been involved in, we have always had a hierarchy, you start with an officer's presence and then you give a demand and then you try what we call soft arm, a soft hand techniques like escort, and then you could try, if that doesn't work, you could try a taser and if that doesn't work, then obviously you have to use more, more aggressive type techniques, and then ultimately you use deadly force with a firearm.

So I think that those are, that's the professional way to do things, but to put your knee on someone's neck, for minute after minute after minute, and it just, it horrified me, and it shocked and disappointed me, but it also made sure that I looked inside our agency and said, is there anything at all that would even closely resemble what I saw?

And with pride, I say no, we had nothing like that.

We still tweaked a few things, and we want to make sure that we had some safeguards in place and I know we're not the only agency that did that.

We're getting body cameras this year, we would have never been funded for body cameras, within two weeks of my taking the oath of office as the sheriff, I went to the board and I told them, this is very important, it's important to be transparent, it's important to have this level of professionalism, and they approved on $900,000 for the body cameras and that worked out very well.

We almost have everyone on our patrol division, all of our uniformed deputies with body cameras, and that's just one of the many things that we're doing.

- What keeps you awake at night?

- I think the fact that we have 21 year old deputies, we have, I don't wanna say boys and girls, we have young men and young women that are just starting their lives, that we train them out there and it's a tough job.

I listen sometimes to the radio transmissions and the calls that they go on, and I'm just and the hair on the back of my neck stands up I'm like, man, that sounds terrible, I mean, I hope they have a backup right with them, or I hope that because only drive one deputy per car, and if on a bad calls we obviously have backups, but the backup doesn't always get there at the same time that the initial responding or the primary deputy gets there and it keeps me up at night knowing that, they risked their lives, knowing that they're not gonna wait, knowing that if you need them, whoever calls 911, there's gonna be a deputy that's gonna go there, and even if there's a gun involved, even if there's a murder suspect involved, and it just terrifies me that one of my guys are gonna get hurt.

- What do you look for and I've only got a couple of minutes left here, what do you look for in a young man or a young woman who wants to be a police officer or a deputy sheriff?

- I think you have to do it for the right reason.

You don't need to do it because you like the power, you shouldn't do it because you like to use the uniform or you love guns, you shouldn't do it for that reason because really we're a service, we provide a service to a community, and three of my core values are courtesy, integrity and professionalism, and the first one is courtesy for a reason, because this is someone's worst day, most of the time that'll be their worst day, and you can make that worst day, just a little bit better and so that maybe years from now, they'll stop you and say, hey, I appreciate what you did or you saved my life or you had a positive influence on me.

And ultimately that's what makes it worth it.

- Years away, years down the road, when you walk away from this job, what do you hope people say about Sheriff Chip Simmons?

- That he cared, I've done the tough job for a number of years and now that I'm in a position to make those decisions to get new cars, to get better cars, to get better training, to get better cameras, to be more transparent, to make the agency a better agency.

'Cause I plan on living here in Escambia County for the rest of my life, and hopefully my kids will move right back in Escambia county, and I want to be able to live and to work and to play and to do so in relative safety, and I want people to say, Hey, Chip Simmons knew what he was doing, and he did the right thing for the right reasons because he cared.

- Yeah, that makes sense.

And any advice to young person who's thinking about entering law enforcement in about 30 seconds?

What would you tell them to do?

- Do it, it is a terrifying, it is a rewarding, it is a terrific, terrific occupation.

You'll lay on your bed at night before you go to sleep, and you'll go through the day and you'll realize that you did something good today.

You don't have to wonder if what you do in life matters because you will know any hour of any given day, you can be called upon and that action that you take can save a life, and what other occupations can really do that?

You got to do it right, but when you do it right, there's nothing better.

- Thank you my friend.

- Thank you, appreciate you.

- All the best.

Chip Simmons, he is the new sheriff in Escambia County and of course has a distinguished law enforcement career before becoming Sheriff, was the Chief of Police for the Pensacola Police Department, and so great to have him on the program, and getting a little bit of insight into what's going on as far as law enforcement is concerned here in Escambia County.

By the way, you can see this program and many more of our conversations online at wsre.org/conversations, as well as on YouTube.

I'm Jeff Weeks, thank you so very much for watching.

Take wonderful care of yourself and we'll see you soon.

(upbeat music)