May 29, 2025 • 12 mins
Sheriff Bradshaw talks about the two new animal cruelty laws in Florida, the New Orleans jail break and the story involving a drone caught bringing contraband into the Martin Correctional Institution in Martin County.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, Joel, Malcolm Ford, w j n O dot com
and Florida News Network and for protecting the Palm Beaches.
We have pomp Beach County Shefferck Bradshaw with us and
Sheriff Bradshaw appreciate you joining us. I believe you were
at Bigordon, thank you. Good morning to you as well.
I believe you were at Big Dog Ranch Rescue in
Laxahachi yesterday Wednesday for the signing of by Governor De
(00:26):
Santis of Hunters or hunter What am I talking about
Trooper's Law and Dexter's Law and we don't have to
go into all of the you know why they were named,
especially Dexter's Law because that was just horrendous. Not that
Trooper's Law thing with the dog being, you know, tied
up to a fence by I seventy five there near
(00:47):
Tampa as the floodwaters rose ahead of Milton was a
good thing either. I wanted to ask you, though, how
often would you say these these kinds of things occur?
Animal cruelty case is in Palm Beach County that you're
aware of?
Speaker 2 (01:02):
Well, yeah, I can't give you a number per day,
but it happens every day. Big Dog Ranch takes these
dogs in every day from some place that have been abused.
I mean one of them. You know, you saw where
the guy drugg three chihuahuas behind this truck with a rope.
I mean, you just got to say to yourself, who
(01:23):
is this guy? You know, and what kind of mental
problems has he got? But you got other people that
you know don't feed their dogs, or they beat their dogs.
They shouldn't own dogs period, right, and so Big fortunately
Big Dog Ranch will take these dogs and rehabilitate them
and then trying to find a home. You know, I've
(01:44):
got six dogs that I've rescued from Big Dog. Two
of them were abandoned during a hurricane down in Puerto Rico.
And it's not uncommon for people during an emergency of storm,
they don't think that they can go to a shelter
with their animals, so they just leave them.
Speaker 1 (02:01):
And you know that may that may have that didn't
ever make sense, But the concern made sense years ago,
back in maybe four oh five and earlier. But now
and and I believe it was either Dave Kerner or
Governor De Santis that mentioned this. I think it was
Governor de Santis that every every county has at least
(02:23):
one pet friendly shelter now, and they made sure of
that because I'll tell you my brother was My brother
was over in Port I believe it was either Port Charlotte.
It was over there by uh when when Charlie, when
Hurricane Charlie came through in those are those years. I
want to say that was four or o five. It
was one of the two.
Speaker 2 (02:39):
But uh.
Speaker 1 (02:41):
He says they actually stayed there because they had two
dogs and they didn't want to leave the dogs there.
But today that's not a real concern.
Speaker 2 (02:52):
Is it. No. I mean, not only do you have
the shelters, they're just about every hotel that I that
I'd know, they're preferriend it. You can bring your pets there.
So it's not like there's only one place. There's there's
a multitude of places. You just got to care about
the dog.
Speaker 1 (03:13):
Now. And I know this isn't a in Palm Beach County.
It didn't happen in Palm Beach County. But the guy
that that you know tied the dog that would later
be named Trooper to a fence. You know, you say,
well they'll let a dog go or they'll do this,
or they'll do that, or you know, even leave the
dog home. What I don't know if did we ever
(03:34):
find out what the heck was the thinking there?
Speaker 2 (03:38):
Well, I don't know if they interviewed the guy or
he said why he did it or something. But you know,
you don't know what's going through these people's heads. You know,
maybe he thought that he could tie the dog there
and come back and get it at another time. I mean,
who knows. But the bottom line is that's not the
way that you treat your animals. You take him with you. Period.
(04:00):
There's There's no legitimate reason to tie a dog up
during a major hurricane or storm outside and leave it.
There is no excuse.
Speaker 1 (04:11):
Uh wow. Yeah, Now these uh new these new laws
to kind of make it simple. Dexter's Laws harsher penalties
for aggravated cases of aggravated child child neglect, animal neglect
involving involving pets. And it also sets up that offender
(04:31):
database with the f d L e R, which I
think is pretty is pretty big because I think you
know that if people know, you know, oh, we're going
to be on a database, and then you know there
was also uh, I know Debbie do Reno I believe
was her name was. You know, she was the one
that pushed for Dexter's Law and also got Ponce's Law
(04:51):
years earlier, had mentioned that, you know, in some of
these cases they can never own a dog again or
a again. I guess that would be legally owned because
you are supposed to get licenses and stuff. And then
Trooper's law. Of course, the bull terrier found abandon tied
to a fence and floodwaters rising, and this would this
(05:14):
would make it that type of thing, you know, abandoning
when you have a storm or some natural disaster coming.
A third degree felony punishable by up to five years
in prison and a ten thousand dollars fine. Do you
feel that these will dissuade some folks that otherwise would
be cruel to animals?
Speaker 2 (05:32):
Well, yeah, because the penalties are harsher, But it's like
everything else. I mean, you got harsh penalties for robbery,
you got harsh penalties for burglary, you got harsh penalties
for murder, and they still happen. So you'll have a
certain segment that it goes. I don't care, you know,
because I probably won't get caught. But you know, for
the average person, when they realize there's a severe penalty here,
(05:54):
they're going to think twice about it.
Speaker 1 (05:58):
All right, I think we covered everything with that. I
want to talk to you unless you get think of something.
But this whole situation a couple of weeks ago in
New Orleans, the uh the jail there that you had
the jail break, ten inmates running out. That video was
incredibly horrible to watch because these guys are just running
(06:18):
out and you just knew they had help. And it
turns out they had help. You had ten inmates just
escaping in the middle of the night, and then we
found out, of course they did have help and some
other charges. In addition to I believe that as we speak,
eight unless I missed something, eight or back in custody.
Two are still at large doing God knows what to
God knows who you know while they're out, because these
(06:39):
are hard These are people with some serious serious charges
against them, some murder in fact.
Speaker 2 (06:45):
From what I asked, yeah, they're very dangerous. There's no
two ways about that.
Speaker 1 (06:49):
How does something like this reality.
Speaker 2 (06:51):
Of operating jails, because we operate two big ones, you
have to have very strict guidelines, policies and procedures and
certified correctional officers in there. You can't just pick up
somebody and say, hey, you know, come in here be
a jail guard. So in our jails, you know, we
(07:11):
have a certain time period you have to go check
on prisoners, count the number of prisoners, check to see
what they're doing. You know, there's an accountability of how
many you have, where there supposed to be and what's
going on. And the ones you're talking about New Orleans,
I mean, they got hours in between anybody going over
there and look to see if anybody's there. That's ridiculous.
Speaker 1 (07:37):
You know, I was watching I think it was the
sheriff in that area there in New Orleans, just a
day or two after it happened, and she couldn't answer questions.
She couldn't answer questions like well, why why was it?
You know, if you found out at eight thirty am,
it wasn't until ten ten thirty that the public was notified.
(07:58):
Is that something?
Speaker 2 (07:59):
You know?
Speaker 1 (08:00):
We had an answer like, well, we had to make
sure this or that and the other. I mean, do
you not feel it should be like imperative that you
at least put the alert out there, so that folks
know to be a little bit cautious if they're in
the area of the jail.
Speaker 2 (08:13):
Oh yeah, if in fact, you have somebody escape, which
we don't have that happen, but sometimes people could escape
from a you know, work release or something like that,
a road crew. Excuse me, immediately, I'm talking within minutes.
You need to get it out to the public so
they could be aware of the fact that there's somebody
(08:34):
out there that might try to stop them, get their car,
get into their house. So you know, you don't put
a lot of space in between what's going on and
the fact that the public needs to know because just
what somebody might spot it right away and calls, hey,
I just thought a guy run down the street. So
it's a huge advantage to get the information out like
(08:54):
real quick.
Speaker 1 (08:56):
Has there ever been, even before your time, an escapement
a successful escape successful meaning obviously you know you would
assume eventually they get brought back. But we're able to
get out from the Palm Beach County Jail, not that
I know of.
Speaker 2 (09:11):
We have had people that have been on work release
that you know, failed to return or on a work
detail or something like that, but not from the actual
detention centers theirselves. And that's the and the reason for
that is there's there's a good set of policies, procedures,
check times, count times, accounting for where everybody's at, uh
(09:36):
knowing how many people are into pods. I mean, you know,
there's a lot of guidelines that correctional deputies go by.
They do a good job, but they pay attention to
what's going on.
Speaker 1 (09:47):
And even more importantly, you don't have any any workers
falling asleep like with the in New York with the
Epstein situation. Right, No, No.
Speaker 2 (09:57):
If they did, it would only be one time because
they wouldn't work there yet. But the other thing too,
is the only people that can come in there to
visit a prisoner is their lawyer. Everything else is video visitation.
You don't have contraband, you don't have people trying to
assist them, you don't have people giving them things that
will help them get out. So the only people that
(10:20):
can come in and visit them in person as their attorney.
Everything else's video.
Speaker 1 (10:24):
Is that common for a county jail because I don't know,
I guess I go by Maybe I'm thinking of prisons
when you look at like in the movies and TV
and you see people visiting uh in jail and you
know oftentimes they're between a wall and a window, but
that doesn't happen.
Speaker 2 (10:37):
Well, it's not, it's not. I can't say that we're
the only people that do it, because we're not. But
it's not a common thing where every single jail has
got video visitation.
Speaker 1 (10:52):
Hmm. That is interesting something I didn't know. I would guess,
Oh yeah, people want see.
Speaker 2 (10:58):
What it reduces is every deduces the opportunity for contraband
to be introduced it to the jail or give them
some items that may help them escape. So if you
don't let anybody in personal contact with them other than attorney,
you don't have to worry about that particular aspect.
Speaker 1 (11:15):
You know, we have that situation just this just I
think last week in arrest in Martin County with somebody
the Martin Correctional Institution in Indian Town, with somebody allegedly
flying a drone in with contraband, including live ammo driving
it over the jail. Is that that's something that couldn't
(11:36):
happen at the Palm Beach County jail. I'm assuming.
Speaker 2 (11:40):
No, it can't happen there, and I'm not going to
get into all the details, but you could be rested.
Sure we have the ability to detect if there's a
drone in the area and take it down one.
Speaker 1 (11:51):
Yeah, you have to wonder where that situation and Martin's going.
And obviously that's an investigation underway, and the sheriff says
that you know there will be there will be more
arrest coming. So you would imagine that that would would
have been also help from the inside. But you know,
I don't, I don't know. We don't know for sure.
Speaker 2 (12:11):
Well, they got they got to know it's coming, and
they've they've got to be in an area where if
it's a drop, they can pick it up. See, in
our facility, nobody comes outside at the institution to do
anything into the finished in grassy area courtyard. Nothing our
our courtyard where the exercise is up on the either
tenth or eleventh floor. You know it's outside, but nobody's
(12:36):
outside watering around the grounds. They don't come outside the
building for anything ever.
Speaker 1 (12:41):
Well, all right, if you have nothing else, I will
let you go back your busy, David. I appreciate you
joining us. Palm Beach County cheff Rick Bradshaw for protecting
the Palm beaches. Thanks for making the rounds no problem.
Speaker 2 (12:53):
Always good to talk to you.
Hey, Joel, Malcolm Ford, w j n O dot com
and Florida News Network and for protecting the Palm Beaches.
We have pomp Beach County Shefferck Bradshaw with us and
Sheriff Bradshaw appreciate you joining us. I believe you were
at Bigordon, thank you. Good morning to you as well.
I believe you were at Big Dog Ranch Rescue in
Laxahachi yesterday Wednesday for the signing of by Governor De
(00:26):
Santis of Hunters or hunter What am I talking about
Trooper's Law and Dexter's Law and we don't have to
go into all of the you know why they were named,
especially Dexter's Law because that was just horrendous. Not that
Trooper's Law thing with the dog being, you know, tied
up to a fence by I seventy five there near
(00:47):
Tampa as the floodwaters rose ahead of Milton was a
good thing either. I wanted to ask you, though, how
often would you say these these kinds of things occur?
Animal cruelty case is in Palm Beach County that you're
aware of?
Speaker 2 (01:02):
Well, yeah, I can't give you a number per day,
but it happens every day. Big Dog Ranch takes these
dogs in every day from some place that have been abused.
I mean one of them. You know, you saw where
the guy drugg three chihuahuas behind this truck with a rope.
I mean, you just got to say to yourself, who
(01:23):
is this guy? You know, and what kind of mental
problems has he got? But you got other people that
you know don't feed their dogs, or they beat their dogs.
They shouldn't own dogs period, right, and so Big fortunately
Big Dog Ranch will take these dogs and rehabilitate them
and then trying to find a home. You know, I've
(01:44):
got six dogs that I've rescued from Big Dog. Two
of them were abandoned during a hurricane down in Puerto Rico.
And it's not uncommon for people during an emergency of storm,
they don't think that they can go to a shelter
with their animals, so they just leave them.
Speaker 1 (02:01):
And you know that may that may have that didn't
ever make sense, But the concern made sense years ago,
back in maybe four oh five and earlier. But now
and and I believe it was either Dave Kerner or
Governor De Santis that mentioned this. I think it was
Governor de Santis that every every county has at least
(02:23):
one pet friendly shelter now, and they made sure of
that because I'll tell you my brother was My brother
was over in Port I believe it was either Port Charlotte.
It was over there by uh when when Charlie, when
Hurricane Charlie came through in those are those years. I
want to say that was four or o five. It
was one of the two.
Speaker 2 (02:39):
But uh.
Speaker 1 (02:41):
He says they actually stayed there because they had two
dogs and they didn't want to leave the dogs there.
But today that's not a real concern.
Speaker 2 (02:52):
Is it. No. I mean, not only do you have
the shelters, they're just about every hotel that I that
I'd know, they're preferriend it. You can bring your pets there.
So it's not like there's only one place. There's there's
a multitude of places. You just got to care about
the dog.
Speaker 1 (03:13):
Now. And I know this isn't a in Palm Beach County.
It didn't happen in Palm Beach County. But the guy
that that you know tied the dog that would later
be named Trooper to a fence. You know, you say,
well they'll let a dog go or they'll do this,
or they'll do that, or you know, even leave the
dog home. What I don't know if did we ever
(03:34):
find out what the heck was the thinking there?
Speaker 2 (03:38):
Well, I don't know if they interviewed the guy or
he said why he did it or something. But you know,
you don't know what's going through these people's heads. You know,
maybe he thought that he could tie the dog there
and come back and get it at another time. I mean,
who knows. But the bottom line is that's not the
way that you treat your animals. You take him with you. Period.
(04:00):
There's There's no legitimate reason to tie a dog up
during a major hurricane or storm outside and leave it.
There is no excuse.
Speaker 1 (04:11):
Uh wow. Yeah, Now these uh new these new laws
to kind of make it simple. Dexter's Laws harsher penalties
for aggravated cases of aggravated child child neglect, animal neglect
involving involving pets. And it also sets up that offender
(04:31):
database with the f d L e R, which I
think is pretty is pretty big because I think you
know that if people know, you know, oh, we're going
to be on a database, and then you know there
was also uh, I know Debbie do Reno I believe
was her name was. You know, she was the one
that pushed for Dexter's Law and also got Ponce's Law
(04:51):
years earlier, had mentioned that, you know, in some of
these cases they can never own a dog again or
a again. I guess that would be legally owned because
you are supposed to get licenses and stuff. And then
Trooper's law. Of course, the bull terrier found abandon tied
to a fence and floodwaters rising, and this would this
(05:14):
would make it that type of thing, you know, abandoning
when you have a storm or some natural disaster coming.
A third degree felony punishable by up to five years
in prison and a ten thousand dollars fine. Do you
feel that these will dissuade some folks that otherwise would
be cruel to animals?
Speaker 2 (05:32):
Well, yeah, because the penalties are harsher, But it's like
everything else. I mean, you got harsh penalties for robbery,
you got harsh penalties for burglary, you got harsh penalties
for murder, and they still happen. So you'll have a
certain segment that it goes. I don't care, you know,
because I probably won't get caught. But you know, for
the average person, when they realize there's a severe penalty here,
(05:54):
they're going to think twice about it.
Speaker 1 (05:58):
All right, I think we covered everything with that. I
want to talk to you unless you get think of something.
But this whole situation a couple of weeks ago in
New Orleans, the uh the jail there that you had
the jail break, ten inmates running out. That video was
incredibly horrible to watch because these guys are just running
(06:18):
out and you just knew they had help. And it
turns out they had help. You had ten inmates just
escaping in the middle of the night, and then we
found out, of course they did have help and some
other charges. In addition to I believe that as we speak,
eight unless I missed something, eight or back in custody.
Two are still at large doing God knows what to
God knows who you know while they're out, because these
(06:39):
are hard These are people with some serious serious charges
against them, some murder in fact.
Speaker 2 (06:45):
From what I asked, yeah, they're very dangerous. There's no
two ways about that.
Speaker 1 (06:49):
How does something like this reality.
Speaker 2 (06:51):
Of operating jails, because we operate two big ones, you
have to have very strict guidelines, policies and procedures and
certified correctional officers in there. You can't just pick up
somebody and say, hey, you know, come in here be
a jail guard. So in our jails, you know, we
(07:11):
have a certain time period you have to go check
on prisoners, count the number of prisoners, check to see
what they're doing. You know, there's an accountability of how
many you have, where there supposed to be and what's
going on. And the ones you're talking about New Orleans,
I mean, they got hours in between anybody going over
there and look to see if anybody's there. That's ridiculous.
Speaker 1 (07:37):
You know, I was watching I think it was the
sheriff in that area there in New Orleans, just a
day or two after it happened, and she couldn't answer questions.
She couldn't answer questions like well, why why was it?
You know, if you found out at eight thirty am,
it wasn't until ten ten thirty that the public was notified.
(07:58):
Is that something?
Speaker 2 (07:59):
You know?
Speaker 1 (08:00):
We had an answer like, well, we had to make
sure this or that and the other. I mean, do
you not feel it should be like imperative that you
at least put the alert out there, so that folks
know to be a little bit cautious if they're in
the area of the jail.
Speaker 2 (08:13):
Oh yeah, if in fact, you have somebody escape, which
we don't have that happen, but sometimes people could escape
from a you know, work release or something like that,
a road crew. Excuse me, immediately, I'm talking within minutes.
You need to get it out to the public so
they could be aware of the fact that there's somebody
(08:34):
out there that might try to stop them, get their car,
get into their house. So you know, you don't put
a lot of space in between what's going on and
the fact that the public needs to know because just
what somebody might spot it right away and calls, hey,
I just thought a guy run down the street. So
it's a huge advantage to get the information out like
(08:54):
real quick.
Speaker 1 (08:56):
Has there ever been, even before your time, an escapement
a successful escape successful meaning obviously you know you would
assume eventually they get brought back. But we're able to
get out from the Palm Beach County Jail, not that
I know of.
Speaker 2 (09:11):
We have had people that have been on work release
that you know, failed to return or on a work
detail or something like that, but not from the actual
detention centers theirselves. And that's the and the reason for
that is there's there's a good set of policies, procedures,
check times, count times, accounting for where everybody's at, uh
(09:36):
knowing how many people are into pods. I mean, you know,
there's a lot of guidelines that correctional deputies go by.
They do a good job, but they pay attention to
what's going on.
Speaker 1 (09:47):
And even more importantly, you don't have any any workers
falling asleep like with the in New York with the
Epstein situation. Right, No, No.
Speaker 2 (09:57):
If they did, it would only be one time because
they wouldn't work there yet. But the other thing too,
is the only people that can come in there to
visit a prisoner is their lawyer. Everything else is video visitation.
You don't have contraband, you don't have people trying to
assist them, you don't have people giving them things that
will help them get out. So the only people that
(10:20):
can come in and visit them in person as their attorney.
Everything else's video.
Speaker 1 (10:24):
Is that common for a county jail because I don't know,
I guess I go by Maybe I'm thinking of prisons
when you look at like in the movies and TV
and you see people visiting uh in jail and you
know oftentimes they're between a wall and a window, but
that doesn't happen.
Speaker 2 (10:37):
Well, it's not, it's not. I can't say that we're
the only people that do it, because we're not. But
it's not a common thing where every single jail has
got video visitation.
Speaker 1 (10:52):
Hmm. That is interesting something I didn't know. I would guess,
Oh yeah, people want see.
Speaker 2 (10:58):
What it reduces is every deduces the opportunity for contraband
to be introduced it to the jail or give them
some items that may help them escape. So if you
don't let anybody in personal contact with them other than attorney,
you don't have to worry about that particular aspect.
Speaker 1 (11:15):
You know, we have that situation just this just I
think last week in arrest in Martin County with somebody
the Martin Correctional Institution in Indian Town, with somebody allegedly
flying a drone in with contraband, including live ammo driving
it over the jail. Is that that's something that couldn't
(11:36):
happen at the Palm Beach County jail. I'm assuming.
Speaker 2 (11:40):
No, it can't happen there, and I'm not going to
get into all the details, but you could be rested.
Sure we have the ability to detect if there's a
drone in the area and take it down one.
Speaker 1 (11:51):
Yeah, you have to wonder where that situation and Martin's going.
And obviously that's an investigation underway, and the sheriff says
that you know there will be there will be more
arrest coming. So you would imagine that that would would
have been also help from the inside. But you know,
I don't, I don't know. We don't know for sure.
Speaker 2 (12:11):
Well, they got they got to know it's coming, and
they've they've got to be in an area where if
it's a drop, they can pick it up. See, in
our facility, nobody comes outside at the institution to do
anything into the finished in grassy area courtyard. Nothing our
our courtyard where the exercise is up on the either
tenth or eleventh floor. You know it's outside, but nobody's
(12:36):
outside watering around the grounds. They don't come outside the
building for anything ever.
Speaker 1 (12:41):
Well, all right, if you have nothing else, I will
let you go back your busy, David. I appreciate you
joining us. Palm Beach County cheff Rick Bradshaw for protecting
the Palm beaches. Thanks for making the rounds no problem.
Speaker 2 (12:53):
Always good to talk to you.
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