Fishing For Felons and Wheel of Fugitives -- Sheriff Ivey Scores Big Crime Fighter Ratings!

With a spin of the wheel or a cast into some of Florida's most beautiful waters, Sheriff Wayne Ivey admits his sense of humor gets on the nerves of felons and fugitives but gets results when it comes to pulling criminals off the streets and into jail in Brevard County. 

The two tongue-in-cheek television programs draw a regular and huge audience every week as citizens -- and fugitives -- tune in to see who is either the Fresh Criminal Catch or featured felon when the wheel stops turning.

The Great American Senior Show host Sam Yates takes us behind the scenes of one of the most successful law enforcement organizations in Florida and the nation in this Special Report. 

Yates has been granted access to a dozen exclusive sessions with Sheriff Ivey and his operations where every employee is one of the most valuable assets in the overall Sheriff's Office operation.

Don't forget to subscribe to receive the Great American Senior Show FREE so you never miss an exciting episode. 

Transcript

Sam Yates: 0:11

Hello, everyone and welcome to another edition of The Great American Senior Show. We're back on the road again in Brevard County, one of the best known names and law enforcement in Florida and soon to be all the nation if not all, the nation already, Sheriff Wayne Ivey is our guest. Once again, welcome back to the program.

Sheriff Wayne Ivey: 0:30

Thanks for having me back. Man. We had a great time before and I was excited when our team told us we were going to do this. So

Sam Yates: 0:35

you know, one of the things as we covered a lot of material was the overall Sheriff's Department. We didn't go into a lot of details about your department itself, a lot of employees a lot of command structure. Tell us about it.

Sheriff Wayne Ivey: 0:47

So you know, the Brevard County Sheriff's Office is 1700 members. And those members are civilian sworn law enforcement officers sworn corrections deputies telecommunicators IT people. As always tell everyone, no matter what job you might want to do in the private sector, you can do here we have, we have veterinarians that work in our Animal Services, we have helicopter pilots, we have doctors that work in jail. Pharmacists, there's there's nothing it everything. So it's it's kind of like a an aircraft carrier, if you will, like it's a city all to itself. But it's made up of amazing people that do amazing things every day. And you know, I always tell everybody, if I had to select what my greatest leadership quality is, it is staying out of the way a good people, putting him in the right places, giving them the mission, and then standing back and watching them fulfill it. So it's an amazing agency. One of the things that makes this agency so great, is we're surrounded by an amazing community that loves us, trust us and protect us just as much as we love, trust and protect them 140 $6 million budget that, you know, takes a great CFO and a team to manage and do the things that we need to do to make sure that we're protecting not only the community from keeping by keeping evil away, but also protecting, being a good shepherd of their taxes and the taxpayers dollars. And so we try to work it from both angles I, I've learned that the best way to do a budget in in this capacity. And probably a home budget as well, is to quickly identify your wants and your needs, and then realize they're never the same. And the example I always give everybody is I want a Rolex, I need a watch. And that's how we try to manage our budget here. We do it by identifying what it takes to protect our deputies, what it takes to protect our citizens. And then what can we do that makes the job a little more efficient, a little more safer. And we operate from that capacity. But there's this this is such a great agency. And when you look at how it functions, they're I cringe sometimes because I hear law enforcement leaders say, well, our support staff in this, we don't have support staff here. Every member is vital to our success.

Sam Yates: 3:12

Community. Outreach is important for me, and I know it is important for you, how do you come up with all these great ideas that you have?

Sheriff Wayne Ivey: 3:21

I guess the best way to say it is, I have fun and everything I do, you will you will very rarely find me that I don't have a smile on my face, and that I don't have a pep in my step. Because I love this job. I get up every day. And my wife says all she ever sees me in my uniform. In fact, she's threatened to buy me pajamas that look like this, which is fine with me. I love this job, I get up every day and I can't wait to go do it. So I try to be innovative. And our team knows that and they try to be just as innovative. But we try to come up with things that are engaging, use the term community outreach, to truly have successful community outreach. You have to engage your community, you have to develop things that are going to keep them coming back. And, you know, some most overwhelming majority come back because they love what we do. And there are those that come back because they don't like what we do. But either way, they're engaged and we're able to get our messaging out. I as I became Sheriff, what I wanted to do, in fact, what I ran on was that I was gonna lower the crime rate. And I know we talked about in the previous show that we've lowered our crime rate by 51% here in Brevard County. But our goal was to get vital crime prevention information to our citizens before they became a victim not after. And to do that. You have to engage your citizens, you have to reach them on how they'll let you reach them. Is it through a podcast like we're doing today? Is it through email because not everybody has social media? Is it through Facebook, Instagram, whatever it is, how would they let us reach is a smartphone app. So what we did was we set up all of those and and and we increased our Dynamic ability to get to our citizens. Once we got to them, then we can give them and say, we're having a rash of burgers to unlock cars, please lock your car doors. We mix humor into what we do now when it's time to be serious, we're Ultra serious. But when we can deliver a message through a little bit of humor, it engages the community. A little bit of craziness. I have a very weird sense of humor that I just love to laugh and I think if if I can make people laugh, then we can make people listen. And so that's what we try to do.

Sam Yates: 5:34

I'm gonna go into some of those programs in our ask you to go into them in a little detail in a moment, but a serious note about our communities. And it's an anniversary coming up for residents here in Brevard County, April 23 1987. A gentleman who lived here Kentucky transplant, angry a kid's cutting through his yard and property next to his yard, grabbed a pistol at an automatic weapon ended up in I believe it was the sable palm shopping center started shooting people in the parking lot. No two law enforcement officers showed up one had 18 shots through the windshield. That officer was killed. Another officer was killed reloading his weapon. terrible scene. The suspect then went into a Winn Dixie still shooting people. When it was all said and done. I believe we had six people killed 12 wounded, the suspect captured alive. At that time, I think you were detective in a neighboring county, but you had to hear about this what was going through your mind? You know,

Sheriff Wayne Ivey: 6:42

the same thing I did I remember vividly as it happened. And, you know, when you think back to that timeframe, when when you think back, there was no social media, then there was there was the news and and there was word of mouth. And when you hear about these things, the first thing you think of is, you know, the hurt the the compassion for those that were lost and those that were were injured in it, those that suffered because they had lost someone. And then the next thing you think is how does that happen? How does how does somebody do that? And you think about you know, the the thing you think about how do we prevent it? How do we keep it from happening in our own area. That time was with the Putnam County Sheriff's Office. And at that time, you know, you would think about are we going to have a similar incident? Well, now you fast forward to social media to all the expert, NC of information sharing and you think about school shootings, parkland, Columbine, San Bernardino, California, that Pulse nightclub, you just go on and on. And I remember when when Columbine happened, I remember vividly when Parkland you never forget those moments, you never forget where you were. And so as I as I, you know, reflect back now being here in Brevard County, being in the role I am and I reflect back on what I knew then, about that incident in Palm Bay. And what I know now, what I know now is that the community wasn't prepared for the community wasn't aware that something like that could happen. And even today, when I go out and I speak about active shooters, I asked people, How many of you lived here in that timeframe. And it's amazing the number of people that I'd be at a presentation I'm doing they will raise their hand. And then I asked him this, how many of you lived here in 2015, when we had an active shooter at the Melbourne Mall? How many of you lived here in 2000? I think it was 17 when we had an active shooter at parish hospital that took the life of a patient and an employee. And then I followed up with this. Well, if you lived here, then or if you didn't live here, then but you know, now that we had those, you have to anticipate we could have one tomorrow. We pray we never do. But you got to be prepared to be the first line of defense for you, your family, those around you in the movie theater those around you in church. And the best way to be prepared for that is what we know all too well. The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun, law enforcement coming. We're Mach two with our hair on fire. But until we get there, you're gonna have to be able to deal with that threat.

Sam Yates: 9:28

And that's the reason that I brought that up. Of course, that suspect was convicted. I believe he got two life sentences plus died on death row. 2018. Okay, yes, it was 2009 and I'm not going to mention his name because he doesn't deserve it. I think the message there and you hit it right on the head that those of us in the community including senior citizens have to be prepared to protect themselves.

Sheriff Wayne Ivey: 9:56

That's right. And you know, you're the first line of defense and as We see active shootings unfold across the world. And across the country, there are those out there that want to blame the gun. Here's the reality of it, I can take my gun off my gun belt right now laid on this desk, and it won't kill a single soul. I can put it in my hands and it won't kill a single soul. But you put it in evil hands, and evil kills. That's That's what kill evil kill with a knife, it'll kill with a bottle, it'll kill with a limb off a tree. And so it's evil that kills and evils out there that the world has evil in it. And so since we don't know, you know when that evil is gonna strike and in the in the art of war, Sun Tzu says that if you know your enemy, and know yourself, you won't be killed in 100 battles. But if you don't know your enemy, and don't know yourself, you'll be killed in every single conflict. So it's important for us to know us, I don't know who's the person that's gonna try and rob me, I don't know who the person is, is going to be an active shooter in the movie theater or the church that I'm in. But I do know me. And I know that if I'm prepared to respond, not react, because there's a big difference between responding and reacting. If I'm prepared to respond to a threat, then I'm going to survive that threat. Or at least if nothing else, I'm going to have a much better chance of surviving that threat than I am if I'm not prepared at all. Glad to

Sam Yates: 11:21

hear that we have similar reading habits. By the way. You know, I want to switch back to something a bit more pleasant. I think our senior citizens do have a realization of the need to be prepared. When I walked in this office, I was not exactly prepared to see Junie Junie tell us who jr. Is it major journey

Sheriff Wayne Ivey: 11:44

major journey journey is the only to my knowledge. He's the only command team canine in the entire country. We recently promoted him to major. And actually if you look at our website at Brevard sheriff.com, you'll see my photo and then you'll see Junie. And the chief deputy doesn't like that he believes his picture should be right there next to mine. But, Judy, anybody in our agency and probably most people in our community can tell you that Judy is the most important thing in the Brevard County Sheriff's Office. In fact, a little bit of humor here. We actually when people come in for their old board when they're applying with us, we asked them two questions at the very end of it. And those questions are if Junie and the chief deputy are standing in the middle of the road, and a car is gonna run over one of them. Who do you save? If they say the chief deputy, they're not getting hired here? Because they don't understand the dynamics? If if they say Junie then the next question is now Judy and the sheriff are standing in the middle of the road. Who do you save, if they say the sheriff, they're not getting hired, because I should have enough sense not standing the middle of the road, they should save that dog. So he's he's an intricate part of our agencies, our mascot. And he's, as you look over at him, he sound asleep under the United States flag, which I think is just awesome for him. But he's named after a little boy by the name of Junie. Rios Martinez and Junie Rios Martinez, in 1991, was abducted and murdered here in Brevard County. as we as we said earlier in the show, I wasn't here then. But I quickly learned the significance of Julie's abduction and murder here. And so when we got my Junie, he when he was donated to the agency by the Jimmy rice Foundation, he was 10 weeks old. And we took a picture of him and put up on our Facebook page. And we asked our citizens to help us naming it was a cute little picture. And that well, it wasn't little because God has never been little but it was a puppy picture. We we got over 5000 names. And the young lady that was running the contest and run our social media then walked in my office. She said Sheriff, we got over 5000 names. You're going to pick the third name on the list. And I said, I said well, I'll decide what name I'm gonna pick. She goes, No, sir. She goes, I wasn't saying I'm telling you to pick it. I'm telling you. I know that's what you're gonna pick and I said what was the third name? And she said is Junie after Junie Rios Martinez. I have no idea to this day what those other names were that's never looked at the list didn't need to we we do swear in ceremonies for our canines. It's a neat way to introduce them to our community. And in that particular one, we had Julie's mom and dad come in and pin his badge on him. Wow. He has been today. He's seven weeks old, are seven years old, and he's been to every Memorial for Jeanne Rios Martinez. He's been to Judy's mom's high school reunion to stay in there. He's iconic to our community. I tell everyone, I'm his Uber driver. And I get him to the events he needs to go to but he's so much more. He's He's trained to search for missing children. He's trained to be a child comfort dog. And there's a God's hand was at work here and I will demonstrate that by saying A when Judy started living with my wife and I know when when we first got him he lived with our paws and stripes team and our canines at the at the corrections facility. But about three years ago Junie for as long as we've had him, if he saw me anywhere, he would start whining. If you heard my voice, he would start howling. I'd have to go get him. And so one day I said, clean Jr. I'm going to take him to a budget meeting. And I said, Sheriff, what do you think? And and I said, nobody ever told me no God. And so people knew him from the parades and stuff. And so I took him to a budget meeting, I took him back afterwards. The next day went, got him again, took him to a couple events next day, same thing. After about a week of that I couldn't take it back anymore. It just broke my heart to put it back in the kennel. So I told my wife, Judy is moving in with us. He has an air conditioned kennel in the garage that has a sofa and it has pictures of me and him all over. But here's here's what God had a hand in this. God had a hand in naming him Junie so that the legacy of Junie Rios Martinez forever lives on in our community to show you how deep that runs. When Judy first started living with us. My wife said, What's Johnny's birthday? Because we're that weird family that celebrates their dog's birthdays. And I said, I don't know. I said, I know the day we got him though. I said, I've got a picture of that. So I pulled out my phone, I pulled up the picture of Judy, today we got him. It was May 6 of 2014. And so I said, he's 10 weeks old. So my wife's busy counting back 10 weeks to see what his actual birthday was. And I decided to see when Junie Rios Martinez was born. He was born on May 6. And so to know that Junee was got was received by our agency on the same exact day, the anniversary of Junie Rios his birthday, even though he wouldn't be named until two weeks later, is just to me showing showing God's hand at work. He's He's a great dog. I mean, he has his own activity book that teaches children how to be saved. He's got his own T shirts. There are Juni socks, there are Junie hats. Hannah, who's sitting here with us, that's my handler today, when when she first came to work for us, or in the capacity she's in, I told her if we're ever an event, and something bad happens, don't worry about me, you get my dog and you get him out of here because he's he's iconic to this community and people loving

Sam Yates: 17:17

another iconic thing of this community. Some of the programs that earlier you were talking about your sense of humor, and the impact that those programs and the humor and the messaging can have on the community. I'm going to say the name, you give me the description. All right, we'll, uh, fugitives

Sheriff Wayne Ivey: 17:35

will a fugitive. It was really our first program initiative that we put up. It was it's 10 fugitives on a wheel that looks just like the Wheel of Fortune. And I spent it every Tuesday night at eight o'clock, whoever it lands on their fugitive of the week. And so we, we started it, our chief deputy at the time, Doug Waller told me it was gonna be a horrible idea. People would like it. People love it. In addition to people enjoying it, it's got an 88% success rate that within the first three to five days, 88% of the people in the world turn themselves in or captured. And so it's, it is it's iconic to our agency. It's now a program that's across the country. Law enforcement agencies across the country use it or something similar to it. For example, Flagler County has fugitive bingo. There's a agency in Texas that has fugitive feud. It just goes on and on. So it's been it's a lot of fun. We go into the studio and film it and put it up. The ironic part is the fugitives actually watch it now. And so they can see if they're on there. Many of them go turn themselves in. Others of them decide they're not going to turn themselves in but our citizens tell us where we can find a map

Sam Yates: 18:45

amazingly successful and that's a great idea. Fishing for fugitives.

Sheriff Wayne Ivey: 18:48

Yeah, fishing for fugitives is another similar program. It gives me an opportunity to highlight the beautiful waterways of Brevard County. We go around to different areas. I have a fishing pole that's got handcuffs on it. I cast out I just kind of ramble while we're doing it talking about the beautiful area where they can find this spot at the Chamber loves it because it shows all the great fishing spots. And then I catch you in land a fugitive we pull it in and it's the catch of the day. Tell people where where they can be found out or what area they are. They last frequented the warm waters of Titusville or cocoa or wherever, tell them their charges and we ask our citizens to help us find them.

Sam Yates: 19:28

And folks, I'm not going to give away that secret lower but it is in the shape of handcuffs. Seriously. It seriously

Sheriff Wayne Ivey: 19:33

is Yeah. Now the funny part is when we first if you if you when you see fishing for fugitives journeys in the beginning of it because he's always with me. And the very first time we filmed it, we didn't have handcuffs on the end we had we wanted we wanted to be able to cast out and so it had a water bottle on the end of it. Well, without thinking when I cast it out. We were actually out of the Indian River when I cast it down I forgot that God loves water bottles. And as soon as it hit in the Water God took off and almost drugged me into the, into the river. And so we had to we had to digress and come up with a different plan. So it's, but it's a lot of fun we do. Again, we mix humor when it's appropriate, when it's time to be serious we are, we try to engage our community.

Sam Yates: 20:22

One that really I think, is on the tremendously positive side, the good stuff,

Sheriff Wayne Ivey: 20:28

the good stuff. You know, the news, and I know you're a longtime journalist, and you'll probably echo about what I'm what I'm about to say. But for the most part, the news doesn't report good upbeat stuff. When you turn on the news. You walk away depressed because you're you're hearing about war, or famine, or COVID, or economy, all of those things. And so the good stuff was designed to tell all the great stuff that our agency, our deputies, our community does, and so it's just that it's it's the good stuff. It's I actually got the idea for it from listening to a song one day in my car, by Kenny Chesney called the good stuff, good stuff. And it really just resonated with me that there's so much our team does out here so much our community does, we put up what they do, and you're right, it is tremendously popular. People love it, it gives me a chance to showcase the amazing heroic efforts of some of our deputies. The amazing things we do here in this agency. And really, quite frankly, how Brevard County serves as a model for other communities to follow

Sam Yates: 21:32

one of those models and I know it from firsthand experience, because I've been sort of a Santos Santos helper in the past triad. What is Tria triad is

Sheriff Wayne Ivey: 21:42

really a lifeline, if you will, or a conduit if you will, for our seniors, we're very blessed. We have a great triad board, a great Trad community, but we also have a guy by the name of Joe downs that is just absolutely has made triad helping protect seniors his life, he puts in 1000s and 1000s of hours. Actually, I just lost I just lost on Joe Downes and I say that because Joe Downes was a volunteer, reserve deputy and he volunteered to triad and he, he put in 1000s of hours. Well, for some reason that I can't explain, I decided to hiring. And now I pay him to do this when he was doing it for free before. So, you know, maybe I'm not the best at budgeting. Alright, let's just let's just say that. So I told Joe, I'm like Joe, I'm losing money on you. You were doing this for free. But I couldn't I couldn't look myself in the mirror if I didn't bring him on board because he's passionate about he loves it. But triad is about providing resources for our seniors. It's it's about Project Lifesaver. That is for people with Alzheimer's and dementia and making sure that if they get lost, we can find them. It's it's about helping the person that needs a handicap ramp built at their house and they don't have the money to do it. It's about somebody that's impacted by storm, one of our seniors that's impacted by storm and lose the roof and finding a roofing company and the funds the resources to go do it. It's all inclusive. Its triad is about protecting our seniors.

Sam Yates: 23:17

I just want to say, Lieutenant, I'll put in another good word for a raise. He does a great job. He does a great job as you anticipated my next question and before that question, same as with the last episode, can you come back in the future? Absolutely.

Sheriff Wayne Ivey: 23:33

Man is this is this is I love giving out information about our community and all the great things we do. And when I say we I don't mean the Vard County Sheriff's Office. I mean we the community of Brevard County,

Sam Yates: 23:45

Alzheimer's. I'm familiar with the Brevard Alzheimer's Foundation. And Tim Timmerman takes great pride in pointing to Brevard County as an Alzheimer's friendly community. And you just touched upon that.

Sheriff Wayne Ivey: 24:00

Yeah. Yeah. You know, when when you look at Alzheimer's, the Alzheimer's doesn't just victimize the person with this dreaded disease. It's the caregivers, the the providers, the the people that are living that just just equally to the person with the disease. And so we've always as an agency, as a community, embraced Alzheimer's and trying to find a cure, and I believe with the effort that's put forward one day, there will be a cure one day, one day we won't have to have the Joe's clubs and we won't have to have the Alzheimer's Foundation. We will find a cure for that. I believe it's reachable. I believe it's attainable. So you know I every year I am seeing the Alzheimer's walk, the walk to end Alzheimer's. We try and help raise money we we embed and engage ourselves in every way we can because Alzheimer's will pick it Anybody for his victim, and I have a personal relationship with having having lost my grandmother on my father's side to Alzheimer's. And, you know, we go back to that finding humor in everything, the humorous way that we found out my grandmother had Alzheimer's, because Because back then it wasn't as prevalent. It wasn't as commonly diagnosed, it wasn't as well known. We noticed that my grandfather was gaining weight. And we live next door to him at the time. I was I was still kid, we noticed that grandpa was gaining weight. And so my father asked him said, Dad, what's going on? Are you not working out as much or you're not out in the garden as much? And he said, No, he says, Your mom's gotten for her forgetful. And sometimes she cooks three and four breakfasts and three or four lunches. And I don't, I don't want to hurt her feelings. So I'm eating them off. And so, you know, it was the start of what we what we, you know, found out later, but when you look at how much it impacts everybody across the board, I know a family here in Brevard that, at the same exact time. The the mother and mother in law got Alzheimer's, the family had to retire to be able to take care of them, the family that sometimes the caregivers are the ones that are impacted the most by this. And so it's a huge part of every community that needs to be embraced. So a huge part of every community that needs to be extended a hand of health.

Sam Yates: 26:29

Indeed, I want to thank you for agreeing to come back in the future. We've covered a lot of territory, but I know there are still areas that we can talk about. And I will be coming back and we'll be talking about more things. Sheriff IV Thank you for having us in your office today.

Sheriff Wayne Ivey: 26:45

It was my honor. Thank you guys.

Sam Yates: 26:47

Until our next episode, I really appreciate being here and rest assured we will be back. We will give you a little bit of a tease in advance before we do get back so you'll be able to tune us in on the Great American Senior Show. Until that time, I do have gray hair and I'm host of the Great American Senior Show. And that's how our program ends