Ex-deputies have plans to reform agency
Voters picking county’s first Latino sheriff
Voters in Osceola County will be tasked on Nov. 3 with choosing between two former deputies with very similar platforms to be their next sheriff, with the winner of the election becoming the first Latino to hold that office.
The choices are between Democrat Marco López and Tony Fernández, a no-party-affiliation candidate. Both ran for Osceola County sheriff in 2016 but lost to current Sheriff Russ Gibson, who López upset in the August primary by just 620 votes.
No Republicans filed to run for sheriff.
Following a primary in which campaign spending reached six figures, the candidates have spent just over $50,000 on the race combined, with López making up about three-quarters of that spending.
And in a race in which they present similar platforms, both candidates are relying on their different resumes to distinguish themselves in the eyes of voters.
The winner will oversee a nearly $80 million budget and be in charge of fulfilling campaign pledges to diversify a majority-white agency that polices a county where about 60% of residents are Black or Hispanic and establish the agency’s first citizen review board.
Who they are
While López and Fernández, who are both Puerto Ricans, agreed the election of the county’s first Latino sheriff is important for improving Hispanic representation, neither argued it should be a factor at the ballot box.
Both men left the Sheriff’s Office recently, though under different circumstances. While Fernández retired from the agency earlier this year after nearly 15 years of service to run for office, López was fired one day after filing to run against Gibson. The former sergeant’s termination was upheld after a brief legal bout.
Since then, López has been managing a security consulting firm he founded. He touts his experience at the Sheriff ’s Office working in various capacities and
22 years in the U.S. Navy as credentials.
López ran for sheriff in 2016 as a no-party-affiliation candidate to replace then-retiring Sheriff Bob Hansell, but only garnered 12% of the vote.
Before Fernández’s tenure at the Sheriff’s Office, he worked as a corruption investigator for Puerto Rico State Police.
Fernández also ran in 2016 but lost to Gibson in the Democratic primary with about 27% of ballots cast in his favor.
He said he ran as a Democrat “against my will” to better his chances of winning and decided to run as an NPA this time around to “be true to myself.”
“I don’t want to be associated with any political view. I’m here to protect and enforce the laws and the Constitution,” he said. “We don’t make laws. If I decide to do that one day, then I’ll choose a party.”
Where they stand
López and Fernández campaigned on similar proposals to improve transparency and accountability at the Sheriff ’s Office, with ideas carried over from their previous runs that have gained greater acceptance amid a recent nationwide uprising against police brutality and systemic racism.
Their main proposal is the creation of a citizen review board that would offer recommendations on the Sheriff’s Office budget and disciplinary action against deputies accused of misconduct.
And while both candidates have downplayed activists’ calls to defund the police as “emotional responses” — countering that the county needs more deputies to keep up with population growth — some ideas they’ve brought forward throughout the campaign overlap with demonstrators’ demands.
For instance, both have expressed interest in allowing social workers to embed with deputies on non-violent emergency calls, a practice some agencies around the country, including the Orlando Police Department, St. Petersburg Police Department and the Pinellas County Sheriff ’s Office, have begun to at least seriously consider.
“[Deputies] go through the police academy, they then come to the sheriff’s office for a basic field officer training, which their core function is to train them on policing,” López said. “They don’t really get outside that scope with mental health or the other services that are involved.”
López said he plans to start a pilot program. Fernández stopped short of making a commitment, but said he’s supportive of the concept.
“For a majority of the calls, we don’t know until we get to the scene if there’s a crime or not,” he said. “I’m OK if [social workers] come and they want to provide the help a family needs if there’s child abuse or elderly abuse or whatever the case may be. But sending them to unknown calls, to me, would be needlessly putting people in danger.”
Recently, Gov. Ron DeSantis released a proposal that would increase criminal penalties for protesters who attend demonstrations that result in property damage or blocked roads, which if enacted could make Florida’s laws against “violent or disorderly assemblies” the harshest in the country.
The proposal also offers protections for drivers who run over protesters and would make protest organizers and movement donors liable under the state’s racketeering onstrations laws turn should violent. dem
Neither candidate took a firm stance on the proposal, with Fernández saying “it wouldn't make a difference.”
“We’re going to enforce the law, whatever it is,” he said. “I will say I support keeping our citizens and visitors safe.”
Said López: “Peaceful protest will always be allowed here.”
How they differ
Because their ideas are similar, the candidates have found it difficult to differentiate themselves on policy and have refrained from directly attacking each other, instead pitching themselves to voters based on their resumes.
A veteran of the U.S. Navy and Operation Iraqi Freedom, López’s experience comes from intelligence gathering and anti-terrorism operations.
That experience included preparing for terror attacks and active shooter scenarios along with revising policies and procedures for servicemembers, he said.
Those credentials, he argues, would be useful when it comes time to implement reforms.
“You’ve got to have a very broad mindset when you’re going to be the sheriff or work pacity,” in López any government said. “You’ve cagot to have the citizens in mind, you’ve got to have the employees in mind. You agencies in mind. That’s where my experience will make a difference.” Fernández said his experience as a lifelong cop puts him in the position to understand fice’s daily the operations Sheriff’s and Ofhow to change it from within.
In his 15 years at the agency, he has worked as a detective, a patrol deputy and a field training officer, among other roles.
Particularly with regard to disciplinary nández reforming argues practices, the he not agency’s only Fercan identify where the problems lie but can rally deputies around needed changes.
“I’m a proven unifier, and I want my deputies to be like that. You don’t have to go around like a cowboy or Clint Eastwood right away,” Fernández said, referring to the need for more training to deal with community issues.
There are some policy differences. On school safety, both have plans to improve security and prevent incidents like school shootings, but with significantly different methods.
Fernández said there ought to be more deputies patrolling areas in neighborhoods surrounding schools that could coordinate with school resource officers stationed on cam-pus.
He also believes the Sheriff ’s Office should bring back its in-house crossing guard program, which is currently being run by a contractor.
“Nobody loves those kids more than the people who work with them. They’ve got passion for that,” he said. “And I know many who are dying to come back.”
While López agrees more patrols are needed, he also proposes stationing anti-terrorism teams on campuses, tasked with which identifying would “ter- be rorist threats” and flaws with campus security.
It’s not a top priority and would require finding additional funding in order to implement, he said.
But the need for an intelligence-focused school safety program is something he says is key to keeping students safe, though he acknowledged it may raise concerns of campuses being over-policed.
“It’s all about operational efficiency,” López said. “There’s no way you can tell me one deputy can secure a school’s perimeter alone.”