Year after year, in good times and bad, Sheriff’s Deputy Teddy Floyd was there for them – handing out turkeys at Thanksgiving, delivering toys at Christmas, participating in community cleanups.
He was there when they needed to talk to someone who would listen and hold what they told him in confidence. He was there when they needed someone they could trust, so much so that they’d allow him to arrest them and take them to jail.
That’s how Floyd will be remembered by county residents – especially in the Black community, where he spent so much of his time – when he retires on April 30, after 30 years with the Sheriff’s Office.
That’s his legacy as the face, heart and soul of the agency’s community-oriented policing efforts for the past quarter century.
“He spent the lion’s share of his time in the Gifford community, but there’s no section of this county that doesn’t know Teddy’s name,” said Sheriff’s Deputy Chief Milo Thornton, who has known Floyd for more than two decades and considers him a friend.
“He’s not just a big guy, he’s bigger than life,” Thornton added. “He’s got this bubbly personality. He’s always smiling. He’s always trying to find ways to help people and make this community better for everyone.
“He’s a rock star.”
Freddie Woolfork, former president of the Gifford Progressive Civic League and longtime administrator and spokesman for the Gifford Youth Achievement Center, took his praise of Floyd a step further.
“That man should wear a cape,” Woolfork said. “He’s a Superman.”
In fact, when asked if he’d like to talk about Floyd’s contributions to the community and his impact on its relationship with the Sheriff’s Office, Woolfork responded: “You got 24 hours?”
Woolfork said Floyd “took policing to a more human level” by developing and nurturing relationships to a point where “people feel they’re not talking to a stranger with a badge,” but to a person they know, who knows them, and who they can trust.
“And it’s authentic,” Woolfork added. “Teddy is the reason community-orienting policing works here.”
While the badge gave him authority and his beaming smile gave him access, it was Floyd’s presence that gave him the community’s respect.
But it wasn’t easy.
As Floyd tells it: There was no working relationship between the county’s Black community and its Sheriff’s Office when then-Sheriff Gary Wheeler launched the agency’s community-oriented policing initiative in the mid-1990s.
“There was hostility and distrust – on both sides,” Floyd said. “But Sheriff Wheeler wanted to change that, and I wanted to be a part of it.”
Wheeler initially assigned then-Sgt. Leroy Smith to head the unit, which included deputies Donald Hart and Mark Buffington, all of whom patrolled on bicycles as well as in cars.
Floyd was added shortly afterward when the detail was expanded. His first partner? Former deputy and now County Commissioner Joe Flescher.
“I’ve got photographs of us riding bikes together,” Floyd said.
To this day, Floyd, an openly religious man, believes community-oriented policing was his calling.
“I played football at Florida A&M University, and there was a time when I thought about doing something in the game,” said Floyd, a former linebacker for now-retired Hall-of-Fame coach Rudy Hubbard. “But looking back, I truly believe this is what I was supposed to do.
“It’s certainly been the best part of my career.”
Floyd said improving the relationship between the Black community and the Sheriff’s Office was merely a matter of caring enough to put in the time and effort needed to convince people they were on the same side – that it didn’t need to be an us-against-them tug-o-war.
“You can’t just sit around and talk about it,” Floyd said. “The people need to see you, need to feel comfortable talking to you. They want to see you roll up your sleeves and show them you’re there to help make their lives and their community better.
“You’ve got to get out of your car and meet them, interact with them, let them know you’re there and you care,” he added. “It’s what we do in the community and for the community that people will remember.
“That badge is worth only $11.50. Its real value is in the man who wears it.”
Over the years, as the community came to know him, people would invite Floyd to join them for meals or dessert or even midday snacks.
The practice no doubt contributed to Floyd’s longtime battle against the bulge, but those relationships paid off.
“People have turned themselves in to Teddy, and on serious charges, too,” Thornton said. “And the information people funneled through Teddy has led to a lot of arrests and a lot of cases getting solved.
“We’re going to notice when he’s gone and we can’t say, ‘Just call Teddy,’” he added. “He’s going to be missed, and not just by the community.”
To be sure, Floyd doesn’t want to retire, but he entered Florida’s Deferred Retirement Option Program (DROP) five years ago, and he’s required to leave the Sheriff’s Office at the end of April.
The program allows him to return to the job after one year, and he said he hopes Sheriff Eric Flowers will take him back, so he can resume his work in a community filled with people who continue to stop him and want to chat when they see him out in public.
In the meantime, Floyd said he plans to get his bachelor’s degree online – he was a few credits shy when he left FAMU in 1986 and moved to the Vero Beach area to start a life with his then-wife and now Sebastian Elementary School principal Letitia Whitfield-Hart – and lose weight.
He shed 60 pounds last summer, when he tested positive for COVID-19 after helping a homeless man return to his family and became so ill that he was hospitalized for more than two weeks, and he wants to drop a few more.
A member of the GYAC board and defensive line coach for the Vero Beach High School football team, Floyd said he’d continue his work in the community. He also plans to spend more time with his wife, Terri Lynn.
“Out there doing my job every day, I had forgotten all about DROP until I got the notice,” said Floyd, who has received numerous awards from local civic groups, recognition from several Florida governors and a certificate of appreciation from President Barack Obama. “I hate that I have to retire.”
