Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
You're a news radio eight forty whs Terry Miners here.
The new sheriff in Jefferson County, David James, we know
him already as Metro Council President's member of Metro Council
is also a law enforcement officer for many years. Good
to see you again, sir for having me. You're always welcome.
You've been on with me a bunch of times over
the years. Also, Steve Healy, I've known you from LMPD
(00:23):
for you did more than two decades there, didn't.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
You a little over twenty four years.
Speaker 1 (00:27):
Well, congratulations to you as deputy sheriff here in Jefferson County.
I went to the swearing in ceremony. It was great.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
It was thanks for coming.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
Both of your wives pinning on your badges. That was
very touching, very nice to see. It's like you guys
getting dressed in the morning. That's right, because if I,
you know, if I were in a ceremony, like my
wife would be like, oh, I don't have to go
up on stage.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
Do it right? Yes? All right?
Speaker 1 (00:55):
So Colonel John Aubrey obviously beloved in our community. They
were sad at his loss, but obviously the role has
to be filled. So the mayor then steps in and
up you come there, David, back to law enforcement. How's
the field to have the uniform on it?
Speaker 3 (01:11):
It feels pretty good having the uniform on. I used
to having a blue uniform for all those years, but
now I'm in a brown uniform, and so I like it.
It all came back to me getting dressed and getting
ready that morning, Friday morning, and.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
So it feels good.
Speaker 3 (01:26):
It feels good to serve the citizens of our city.
Speaker 1 (01:29):
And Steve, I know that you were. You did your
whole career at l MPD. And then for you would
you go fishing twice and decide that this isn't for me?
Speaker 2 (01:37):
Yeah? It's two or three times.
Speaker 1 (01:39):
Yeah, did you catch anything?
Speaker 2 (01:41):
Oh? We always catch a couple of.
Speaker 1 (01:42):
Car that's it. And then you went to pee weee valley, right, yes, sir.
And then now you're in this position of deputy sheriff.
So the two of you are going to work together
every day. Is that how it works? Or do you
take different parts of this county? How's it work? Steve?
Speaker 4 (01:58):
Well, well it does, and do you with you? This
ain't our first time working together. We've been together for
twenty something years. When I was a baby policeman walking
into the Louisville Division of Police academy. David James was
my instructor and all through my police career and his
Metro council career, we've worked on ordinances together, you know,
different quality of life issues together.
Speaker 2 (02:18):
So this isn't our first rodeo together.
Speaker 3 (02:22):
Yeah, that's a good relationship to have, absolutely so the
way it works on the sheriff and he's the chief deputy,
which means that he's the number two for the Sheriff's
department and actually makes sure all the pieces fit together
and it works well. So and he does a great
job of that. And so we've been spending the last
two days Friday and Monday, meeting with all the department
(02:42):
heads and learning about everything that they do and everything
they want to do and what's good, what's bad, and
how can we help him do it better.
Speaker 1 (02:52):
It had to be rewarding to see how many of
the deputies were there to see your swearing in ceremony.
Seemed like there's a lot of people interested in approving.
Speaker 4 (03:01):
Yeah, a ton of deputies you had. You had so
many community leaders too, You know that that shows that
this community believes in the work we've done, and it
was just truly humbly, it really was. And we look
forward because that's who we serve, and that's who we're
going to be working for.
Speaker 2 (03:19):
And uh, you know, we look forward.
Speaker 4 (03:21):
We've had great response from the deputies, from the community,
from from everybody, so we're really looking forward.
Speaker 2 (03:29):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (03:29):
And David, so the mayor named you, and so you
were you're only carrying it until the end of twenty twenty.
Speaker 3 (03:36):
Six, that works, correct, and then I'm out of there,
I see.
Speaker 1 (03:41):
And then Steve, you are. I do follow a Twitter
account called Steve Healy for Jefferson County Sheriff. So I'm
guessing you are going to that is, run for that position, yes, sir,
just making sure. So you are going to run through
an election and see if you can advance and then
become a sheriff.
Speaker 2 (03:59):
That is correct.
Speaker 1 (04:00):
Yes, well I'm sheriff and that's in the November of
twenty six.
Speaker 4 (04:04):
Yeah, you have the primary in May. You know when
we announced, we announced exactly a year before the primary,
when Sheriff Aubrey came out and endorsed this along with
several other individuals. So yeah, we're still running.
Speaker 1 (04:18):
What's the vision for the office? How I mean again,
I know it's only forty eight hours or you know,
two business days here, but there are things that have
to be done. David or Steve, either one you want.
Speaker 3 (04:30):
To yeah, I'd say one of the things we want
to do is really improve the technology. We want to
make sure that the office is moving forward with technology
for the twenty first century, for tomorrow, take advantage of
AI and all those types of things. One and the
other thing we want to do is try to work
very closely with our council members because they have sometimes
some very specific law enforcement needs in certain areas of
(04:54):
their districts, and so we want to try to be
able to enhance that and provide some community support for
quality of life issues that are important to them and
the citizens they serve.
Speaker 1 (05:04):
Since you're the former president of the council, you already
know how the communication flow.
Speaker 3 (05:07):
Work, absolutely absolutely so. Being the president of the council
for the last five years prior to going over the
Mayor's office, I know how that communication works. I know
some of their concerns, you know, like if you talk
to the council members out in southwest Jefferson County, for example,
they'll say, these people on these ATVs are tearing up
the parks and the floodwall and terrorizing folks. A small
(05:29):
group of people are can you do something about that?
Or there's other areas where it's not ATVs, but it's
maybe street racing right or in other areas it may
be they're having a problem with people stealing packages off
of porches is their most common quality of life issue
that they have to deal with. So trying to talk
(05:51):
to them about those kind of things and the way
that we can fit in, fit in and help with
LMPD with their issues is is really how we see
that going.
Speaker 1 (06:00):
Yeah, because you're an additional arm of law enforcements here,
correct and Steve, you know, l MPD front to back
all the way through. Who was it today? Sergeant Joe
Keeling's talking about a group of people that are armed
car thieves we have now and there. They'll actually point
guns of people's homes while they're trying to figure out
if they can steal their cars. I mean, they're ratcheting
(06:21):
up the treachery here, aren't they.
Speaker 2 (06:23):
Yeah, Yeah, they certainly are.
Speaker 4 (06:24):
And uh, you know that that's one thing the messaging
we need to get out is.
Speaker 2 (06:29):
You know, we both come from l MPD or LPD,
but you.
Speaker 4 (06:34):
Know, uh, the Sheriff's office has different tasks that they're
that they're tasked with. You know, we have the court security,
we have to serve all the civil process. We do
vehicle inspections, you do the c C DW permits. There's
so many other things that we do do. However, we
do have proactive units. We're gonna look into, you know,
(06:55):
our social media really really putting out to the community
what the Sheriff's office does and looking at like Sheriff
James said, different ways, we're going to work with community,
the council members and get a more visible presence in
the areas and to assist LMPD and we work together
as a partnership for quality of life issues for the
citizens here.
Speaker 1 (07:17):
Right and if there's an incident going on that involves
LMPD and a Sheriff's deputy happens to be in the
neighborhood and here's the radio, they go and assistant.
Speaker 2 (07:25):
Absolutely we'll be there to help right away.
Speaker 1 (07:27):
Because we keep talking about I know we've heard all
this stuff over the years about gangs and all these
various troubles and they say, well, the various departments are
not communicating with each other, but we're going to work
on that. But we've kind of jumped over that now, right.
Speaker 3 (07:38):
Right, absolutely. You know, Chief Humphrey, we have each other
on speed dial, and Chief Healey and Paul Humphrey all
know each other very well and so we talk on
a regular basis about different things and we'll continue to
do so. So we were there to help and they're
(07:58):
there to help.
Speaker 1 (07:59):
Funding an issue for the Sheriff's Office because so many
other government agencies are going, well, we don't have what
we used to have. Are you seeing that, David?
Speaker 2 (08:08):
Right now, we're doing great.
Speaker 3 (08:10):
You know, I would say that funding seems to be
going Okay, I'm only two days in right, but it
seems to be going great. You know, the funding issue
is not the issue for either LMPD or the Sheriff's Office.
As far as hiring people, it's just trying to hire people,
trying to get people interested in law enforcement.
Speaker 1 (08:29):
That's what Chief Humphrey says, Steve. He's been in here
multiple times and we always say, what's your head count
on the number of officers sworn officers? And it's like we're
a couple hundred short. It's like, that's mind boggling to me.
Does does city feel safe with a lower number of
law enforcement people working here? Are they getting it done
(08:50):
with the people they have?
Speaker 4 (08:51):
I think we could always do better. I think, you know,
you need to come downtown. You know it's safe to
come downtown. You can't look at a few isolated incidents
and think that it's not safe because it is LMPD.
They do a great job down here, they really do. Yeah,
they are short George County Sheriff's Office. They do a
(09:13):
great job. We have so many talented law enforcement officers
that really want to do the very best they can
for the community. It's just we have to get people
to want to come back into the law enforcement profession.
And you know, I've always said, if you want to
see change, be part of that change and come join us.
Speaker 3 (09:35):
And part of that messaging is taking effect. Just talking
to Chief Humphrey the other day, and LMPDE has a
class of forty four recruits that it's going ready to start.
That is amazing because I can remember over the last
few years we had classes of nine, ten, twelve people
and so being back up to forty four people in
a recruit class is excellent.
Speaker 1 (09:56):
The tide is turning.
Speaker 2 (09:57):
The tide is turning.
Speaker 1 (09:59):
They've raised a pays somewhat, but it still seems to
me like it's low. It just still feels like officers
deserve more than they're receiving, whether it's sheriff's deputy or
city police officer. It's just one of those parts of
society that I think that we underfund. And so you know,
you guys have been in it all this time and
(10:20):
you know it. But there's a certain type of person
that's drawn to law enforce when they have to love
the community and they don't want to be part of
the solution.
Speaker 3 (10:28):
I think they have to love the community and they
have to be willing to put their life on the
line for people they don't know. And I don't think
there's a dollar amount that you can pay for that.
But do I think that law enforcement as a whole
or paid less than what that is valued at.
Speaker 1 (10:41):
Yes, it feels that way to me.
Speaker 2 (10:44):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (10:45):
But Steve, you had a love of this as a
child and this was always your vision or how did
you fall into it?
Speaker 4 (10:50):
Well, we were looking at the military first, because I
I've come from a long line of veterans, and I
just fell in love with law enforcement. I've I can't
see myself doing anything else. You know, I don't have
the money to be a professional bass fisherman.
Speaker 2 (11:09):
And go on tour.
Speaker 4 (11:10):
So now that that dream's been squashed, I still have
this dream. And to me, law enforcement it's the most
noble profession there is. And it's just like Sheriff James,
it's in our heart, it's in our blood. That's what
we do. This is a calling to do this job.
Speaker 1 (11:30):
No doubt. How do people reach out, by the way,
who want to look at considering being part of the
Sheriff's department.
Speaker 3 (11:38):
So you can come to the sheriff the Jeffson County
Sheriff's Department Facebook page, and that's where we do a
lot of our recruiting through. Right now, part of our
conversations over the last twenty four hours have been we
need to be on Instagram and TikTok and all those
other things because we need to do some recruiting, especially
with our volunteer staff. So we have an entire volunteer
(11:58):
Deputy Sheriff's division. Right now, we're down to sixty five
we're up to one hundred at one time, I'm told,
And so those are the individuals that are volunteers in
a community, just want to help, and so we really
need some help there right now.
Speaker 1 (12:11):
So fantasticook TikTok's a place to be for the people
you're looking for in.
Speaker 2 (12:15):
The age category. Absolutely have to learn that.
Speaker 1 (12:19):
And please don't dance.
Speaker 2 (12:20):
Okay, both of you guys can't dance swing man, I
got it, tell me too, you.
Speaker 1 (12:26):
Need to do a dance on TikTok asad brother, I'd
rather just walk away from my career. Guys, it's great
to see you. It's great. Singst of luck with the
Jefferson County Sheriff's Department. David James as our new sheriff.
The chief deputy is Steve Healey h E A L
E Y. I spelled that right, didn't.
Speaker 2 (12:46):
You got it?
Speaker 1 (12:47):
There you go. Absolutely, congratulations to both of you.
Speaker 2 (12:50):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (12:50):
We can be of any help around here. Let us
know we're.
Speaker 2 (12:52):
Neighbors, all right, appreciate thank you.
Speaker 1 (12:53):
Man back in a minute on news radio eight forty
wh S