The first public bout among the four Republican candidates for Sheriff produced no knockout punches last night, but it quickly became obvious that presumed frontrunner Eric Flowers will need to keep his guard up throughout the campaign.
Each of his three opponents – Indian River Shores Public Safety Director Rich Rosell, Fellsmere Police Chief Keith Touchberry and retired Sheriff’s Office Captain Chuck Kirby – repeatedly took shots at the Sheriff’s Office current leadership, which includes Flowers, a major who heads the agency’s law enforcement division and serves as its public information officer.
When those blows landed, many in the crowd attending the Republican Club of Indian River County banquet at Grand Harbor erupted in cheers.
Touchberry said the greatest challenge facing the next sheriff was to “fix the dysfunctional leadership culture that has resulted in poor service” to county residents.
“Deputies are not setting a good example,” he said, “because they don’t have a good example to follow.”
Rosell said the agency’s leadership is the reason “people don’t want to be deputies” here. He also told the gathering that he was the only law enforcement chief executive to refuse to serve warrants during last February’s prostitution sting because he “knew it was a bad case.”
Kirby cited a crime rate that, though decreasing, still remains higher here than in neighboring counties. He also criticized Sheriff Deryl Loar’s departmental structure, saying there are “too many layers of bureaucracy.”
Flowers, whom Loar has endorsed to be his successor, didn’t respond to the attacks, instead stressing his “passion for the community” and commitment to a job that he said demands “customer service.”
He defended the agency’s training of its deputies, saying they’re asked to make “split-second decisions that are judged forever.”
During the hour-long debate, the candidates fielded questions about the Sheriff’s Office’s $55 million budget making it a challenge to hire and retain good deputies, the next big crime issue, training deputies to make life-or-death decisions, and the primary administrative they would need to proactively address if elected.
