>>This week on NewsNigh Conversations, from the swirling controversy over immigration to the implementatio of AI technology to fight crime, police agencies in Florida face a time of rapid change.

Tonight, Volusia County Sheriff Mike Chitwood discusses these issues and his futur in law enforcement having been reelected to a third term in office in November.

NewsNight Conversations starts now.

[MUSIC] Hello, I'm Steve Mort welcome to a special edition of Newsnight Conversations.

Tonight we take you to the Volusia Sheriff's Office Training Center near Daytona Beach for an in-depth interview with Sheriff Mike Chitwood.

>>Carolyn, you guys are doing a great job, what do you got?

>>A familiar fac to many residents in the county, for years he's been one of Florida's most outspoken law enforcement officials.

A former Philadelphia beat cop Chitwood went on to spend more than a decad at the helm of the Daytona Beach Police Department before running for Sheriff.

Over the years, he's been an opponent of racial profilin and a defender of undocumented immigrants, saying his deputies will come after anyone who has a warrant out for their arrest, but that it's not the job of local, county and state municipal law enforcement personnel to proactively be immigration officers.

>>They had brought up immigration and we pulled up your spreadsheet.

>>He now finds himself leading a sheriff's office at a time when Florida law enforcement agencies have been thrust into the national spotlight amid Governor DeSantis' laser focused on helping the Trump administration with its mass deportation efforts.

Like other police agencies i Florida, the Volusia Sheriff's Office has a cooperation deal known as a 287G agreement with ICE.

I recently sat down with Sheriff Chitwood to talk about that issue and others facing law enforcement agencies in the state.

To note, we recorded our interview before the recent appeals court decision, clearing the way for open carry in Florida.

>>Volusia County Sheriff Mike Chitwood, thanks so much for sitting down with us.

>>Thank yo for having me-- >>Appreciate it.

Volusia County has been active in implementing the 287 G agreements, that the state requires agencies now to have with, the federal immigration agency ICE.

How's that going for you and your deputies?

>>It's going pretty well.

I mean I think some things have changed under the Trump administration.

Some things have stayed the same as under the Biden administration.

And I say that because we've had a long term investigation into the Mongols motorcycle gang, from a shooting that occurred on State Roa 44 during Bike Week last year.

I think we lock up 31 people.

One of those people, is from Bolivia.

They have been fighting not to go back to Bolivia for 19 years.

So they are arrested and charged with aggravated rioting and with conspiracy, an they have a prior arrest record.

And we were told well, we're not going to place a detainer on him.

He has to be convicted.

>>But that was in the prior administration you're saying-- >>In the prior administration.

But it also holds true under this administration, because that story tha I just told you just happened.

When we were planning and discovered this person was here illegally and for 19 years has been fighting not to be deported.

We were told when we went hands on and arrested him, he would be right to federal custody and he detainer placed on him and he would be kicked out of the country based on his prior criminal history and the new charges.

Once he was arrested, ICE then told us, well, we kind of misspoke.

He's not convicted, so we can't do anything.

Well, that was what the previous administration would say.

You have to be convicted before we take action against you.

But the current administration, the Trump administration, is saying the opposite has occurred.

So that's not what we're saying.

We have a spreadsheet with we probably made 160 plus contact just through our basic policing, car stops, domestic violence, drug arrests, you know, well, ordinance violations and every one of those we contact ICE on and let them know, hey, we have a person here.

We suspect that they are here illegally, or they admitted they're here illegally.

What do you want us to do?

In 60% of those cases, roughly, ICE will take action, in the other 40% they tell us to release them.

>>You're not a criminal until you're convicted of something, right?

So it would.

It would make sense for ICE not to want to detain them if they were simply arrested.

Well, I would say you came into the country illegally, and then you committed an armed robbery.

I think you need to go.

I don't car what the courts say about that.

I think you need to go.

I think wha what the administration told us, they wanted from law enforcement was four area they want us to concentrate on.

They want us to concentrate on folks who are a danger to public safety.

They were a danger to national security.

They had been deported and reentered the country illegally, or they were one of the 1.4 million people who went through the process.

A judge said you have to leave the country.

You have 30 days to get your affairs together and get out of the country.

And they said, come get me if you can.

They were the areas that they wanted us to concentrate on.

>>Whe you say suspected in the country illegally, how do you determine that?

>>Well, it would be, the person doesn't speak English.

They have zero documentation on them whatsoever.

>>I don't have any documentation with me right now.

I got a driver's license.

>>You have a driver's license-- >>But that's it.

>>Some people, you're pulled over for driving a vehicle, for example.

>>Yeah.

>>And you have no driver's license.

You have no documentation whatsoever.

So the deputies will then do an investigation to ascertain are you here legally?

And at that point in time, they will then contact ICE to follow that up.

Because if you look a what happens in law enforcement, everybody in law enforcement uses NCIC or FCIC in Florida or PCIC in Pennsylvania.

ICE is the only one has their separate tag.

>>Those are databases.

>>There's your databases.

>>Okay.

>>ICE has their own database that we can't access.

You have to have ICE access that database.

>>Okay.

>>The only reason we were even able to access their databas now is they dumped 1.4 million warrants into NCIC in March.

So we have people that hav never saw a deportation order, nor do they have the power to enforce that deportation order stopping a car in a car sto and discovering this person has a deportation order there can't take any action because you're not federalized.

That was the purpose of 287 G. So that when these things popped up, you would be able to take that action.

Because immigration law, a civil law, we can enforce federal civil law.

[RADIO CHATTER] >>You said in 2018 to the PBS NewsHour, why are we focused on immigration?

Our job in law enforcement is t protect victims and witnesses.

It doesn't matte what your immigration status is.

Why does it matter now?

>>It matter - It doesn't matte what your immigration status is if you're the victim or a witness to a crime.

>>Yeah.

>>And let me also say there's collaterals in here.

I'll use the term collaterals that some of my other fellow, Sheriffs use and I did scribe a collatera with somebody who has been here for 20 years.

They've been here illegally, but they have a job, they're paying taxes.

They've raised their kids to either go into the military or get a college degree.

There has to be a way in this to assimilate those folks into American society.

It's the folks that are coming across the border.

And in those four categorie is what we now have to focus on.

>>But as a sheriff, there's not much you can do about that, right?

You have to do what the federal government or the state tells you to do.

>>And here in Florida, the governor has issued a directive.

If you refuse to cooperate with ICE if you refuse to cooperate with the federal government, if you refuse to follow the governor's directives, you as an elected official, any elected official will be removed from office and personally fined $5,000 >>So what do you think of that?

What do you think of that policy?

>>You know, he's the governor and he sees the problem.

You know, in a way, it removes discretion from everybody.

But I do understand tha where he is headed to in this.

>>Yeah.

I mean, you've said that we're not going to be going out proactively to be immigration officers.

And you said, I believe that's not what our job is as local, state and county municipal law enforcement officers.

But that's not really how it is in Florida now.

I mean, you have to tell ICE if you think somebody is in the country, without permission.

That sounds like being an immigration officer.

>>Well, let me say we have always done that.

You know, ICE has always been part of our narcotics task force.

So every time we go out an serve a narcotic search warrant.

ICE was always there with us.

They just never took any action.

If we arrested somebody for a robbery or driving without a license, we would always notify them.

But under the previous administration, it got to the point where they wouldn't even answer the phone anymore.

So everybody was kind of like, well, why?

Why are we wasting our time here and now under this administration, we want to be notified of everything you do.

We're not going to Home Depot.

We're not going into construction sites.

I'm not going on the farms.

We're basically doing our job.

And anybody that we encounter while we're doing our job car stops, domestic violence, drug sales, car crashes, you know, they're the things that when we come across you, we will then make that notification and be guided by what they tell us they want done.

[MUSIC] >>How do you balance that immigration enforcement part of the puzzle with maintaining trus amongst immigrant communities, of which you have a large one, in Volusia County?

That was something you've prided yourself on in developing relationship with those communities are you sure you can keep that trust now?

>>I think we have we have me repeatedly with our immigration, with our immigrant community, especially our farmworkers.

And we stressed those four areas that we talked about.

>>Yeah.

>>You know, the 1. million warrants, public safety, entered the country illegally, were deported and sent back.

And overwhelmingly, they support that.

They understand that they don't want criminals in their neighborhood.

They don't want child molesters or rapists or drug dealers or domestic violence.

Batterers.

In there.

So they they get that where they are, where they're looking for help and where I think somewhere along the line, you know, you can mention the a-word amnesty without being disloyal or whatever.

There has to be a way to focus on that group.

And it's probably and I'm going to just throw a number out there.

There's probably 18 to 20 million folks that are here illegally who play a huge role in our economy.

>>And the president has alluded to that, and particularly with regards-- >>So you-- >>To agriculture.

>>So there has to be common sense from both side here to come together and say, how do we come together with a plan to go after the go - when I say go after, go after in a good way to go after these folk that they are part of America, they they've raised their kids here, their kids serve in the military, their kids go to college, their kids work here they're United States citizens.

So how do you look and say, okay, you came in illegally 30 years ago, but you've been here and you have done nothing but be a model citizen.

How do we now move those folks toward citizenship and then focus on the bad guys?

Go after the bad guys.

>>But of course, a lot of people would oppose amnesty.

They would say that that simply a magnet, that more peopl are going to come to the country if they think they're going to get a free pass.

>>And I think there has to be a way with common sense.

If you seal the border, and this is just me talking, if you seal the border and nobody else is coming in, and you could focus on the criminal element, and then you can focus on the folks that we need to bring into the country, assimilate them into American society.

We should do that.

Now, to your point, which is a great point.

When Ronald Reagan did this in the 1980s-- >>1980s, yes.

>>The just the effect that you said just happened.

He gave amnesty.

They did all these things.

And actually illegal immigration went up under that, under that proposal.

>>We hear the word fear a lot in immigrant in immigrant communities.

They fear that by going out, say, a tail light is out and the police officer pulls them over.

They don't want to risk that.

They fear that that means they're going to be turned over to ICE then again end up in Alligator Alcatraz o other some detention facility.

Is that going to happen if one of your deputies pull someone over, they've got no documentation at all for a minor traffic infraction.

>>I have not seen-- >>Are they in trouble?

>>I have not seen that yet.

>>Right.

>>And that's what ou immigration spreadsheet shows.

If you stop somebody who don't have a driver's license and IC doesn't put a detainer on him, which in 40 or 50% of the time they do not.

>>Yeah.

>>Th person goes through the process like anybody else does without driving, without a license.

And ICE says, yeah, we'll come and get you another time or we'll do paperwork another time.

So it's, it's it's no what you're seeing in the media.

And I can only do it from my perspective is everybody that gets comes in contact with law enforcement is automatically sent t Alligator Alcatraz or deported.

That's not what's happening.

And I'm going off the top of my head.

60% of the time, IC may take some sort of an action.

It's not every single time that they do.

>>You talke about the witnesses and victims and that's that's not your target.

What would you say, though, to say somebody who is the victim of domestic abuse, who is not in the country with permission.

What do you say to them?

Why would they call law enforcement?

They're going to be afraid to do that.

You acknowledge that.

>>In the state of Florida, it is illegal for us to go after a victim or witness to a crime.

It's we just it's illegal.

You can't do it.

And I and I will share with you a an anecdotal story.

I just signed the paperwork.

Now, there is a young woman who came to the country illegally, and she joined the church, and she was sexually assaulted groomed and sexually assaulted by the pastor.

It took a while for her to come forward for a multitude of reasons, immigration being one of them.

But today I just sign off on the fact that she is truly a victim and that goes toward her immigration case, that she was a victim, came forward and reported it, and clearly we took a molester off the streets.

>>You instructed your deputies some years ago not to racially profile.

There is concern, and we hear it all the time that racial profiling is going on.

When it comes to immigration enforcement, are you confident that your deputies, that people that work for your force are not involved i that kind of behavior?

>>I am.

I can only speak for me, and I am confident in what we're doing that, that, that that happens.

You know, we just had an incident about, a month ago where we gave a citation out for a dog on the beach, and it turned out that the person admittedly said, hey, I'm in the country illegally, and we called ICE.

ICE had put a detainer on that person.

We took him into custody and by the time we got to jail ICE said, yeah, we're we'r going to lift that detainer now.

So the big thing was you profiled he because she was Hispanic woman walking her dog on a beach with no leash.

Now, people may say that that's not a big deal.

Well, here in Volusia County, they want the death penalty for anybody that walks their dog without a beach, walks the dog without a leash on the beach.

So we were able to supply every citation that we have writte for the past six months and say, please take a look at thi and show me where you see racial profiling on all the white people that were stopped and given that same exact citation to.

So I'm, you never in the world say 100% confident, but I'm 99% confident that we're doing what we're supposed to do for all the right reasons.

[MUSIC] >>It feels like a long time since those massive Black Lives Matter protests.

During the pandemic, I guess in 2021, and the work of police departments and sheriff's offices that took place, around that tim to build trust with communities, I guess that feel marginalized or overpoliced.

From your perspective, does that work continue?

>>I believe it does.

And one of the thing that you're sitting in a place right now where we train all of our new recruits.

>>Federal, state laws exists to protect officers.

We no longer depend on the state college to train our new folks.

We go right to the consumer.

We want you to come to work here, and we train you here.

And part of that training is there's a huge focus on de-escalation training still to this day.

And I am proud to say that our use of force is down probably over 60%, which is a huge number.

Complaints against police are down dramatically.

We do all things about race and policing, differen religious backgrounds, autistic.

We do all kind of stuff to train you so that when you step out the door you know what the mantra of the county sheriff's office is.

And that mantra is we are going to treat everybody fairly.

We're going to do our best to deliver the highest quality service and do their best to treat everybody fairly.

Thank you.

>>And all these comments.

>>And I think from I'm out speaking engagements all the time, churches, synagogues, schools, rotary clubs.

>>Yeah.

>>I feel the feedback that I get is we're doing a good job.

And I think that that's the type of deputies that we're hiring now that we can train them and have eyes on you for 36 weeks before you ever wal out of the door of this academy.

>>Have you had to adjust, though, how you talk about this issue, particularly in recent years?

The culture wars, the war on woke, that kind of thing?

How do you persuade people that you're not sort of a victim of sort of a woke ideology when you deal with these diversity issues?

>>Well, you'll hear of people who are not my supporters, who don't want to vote for me, will say that that I am that this, this, this, this, the descalation policy is B.S., you know, going into these churches, hiring minorities.

What's he doing all that for?

He should be just hiring the top, you know, the best candidate to get the job.

And we do do that.

The best candidates get the job with no matter wha your color or your religion is.

We want the best and the brightest.

So you have to you just hav to put your fingers in your ear and not listen to the that the, the white noise out there and you know what you're doing.

Because again, at the end of the day, the community gives you that feedback.

And I think I got pretty good feedback six months ago when I got 82% of the vote.

>>I want to move on and talk about, technology.

Schools recently started back in most parts of Florida.

This year, Volusi is adopting the ZeroEyes' AI gun detection system, to detect guns on campuses.

Does that make your job easier as a force?

>>That is a great question.

If the gun gets on campus, we failed.

That's the way I look at it.

The whole objective is to prevent that gun or that weapon from getting on-- >>In the first place.

>>In the first place.

That's the goal.

But with this, this technology, it's kind of a backup force.

Now we've only it only was used one time.

That usually activated once last year.

And it was a young man had a toy gun on him.

That's how good the technology was.

They couldn't tell it was a toy gun.

It said the student has a weapon on them, and when he was confronted, he said, oh yeah, it's a toy gu that he brought on the campus.

So that was a beautiful thing for me.

But it's also a force multiplier force when you think of it, yo everybody can't be everywhere, all, all times.

But using AI and thi technology, it's a game changer in that force multiplier category.

>>So it's just a tool.

>>It's just a tool.

It's one of all the other tools that we have.

You know, the metal detectors.

>>Yeah.

>>The behavioral, unit that we have.

>>Yeah.

>>You know those things are all together, a holistic approach to keeping the schools safe.

>>Your department's adopted new technologies as well.

AI-powered cameras, facia recognition, that kind of thing.

>>License plate readers.

>>I wonder how this use of technology can be done ethically.

How do you answer criticism that there are privacy concerns when it comes to AI facial, recognition technology?

What are your how do you view that?

>>That is a great question.

And technology is only as good as the ethics and morals of the people that deploy it.

>>Yeah.

>>So facial recognition, for example, it's only used for a crime.

Okay.

That's all it used for.

And to the best of our ability.

And human beings can circumvent any path.

To use it you have to log on and say why.

You know, wh are you using this technology.

And we're consistently looking to see what was it used for?

Was it used to identif who your ex-wife is now dating, or was it actually use because, hey, we had a robbery and there's really good video of this guy.

And based on that, we use we use the facial recognition and we get an ID.

Now, that's only a lead.

That's not to say, oh, that's Chitwood, he did it.

No, you have to go out and follow up that lead with other technology.

>>But you can't use that kind of technology to just go out, scrape up people like fishing expedition.

>>We don't use it for protest.

You don't use i for any large mass gatherings.

It is using the policy is strictly for a crime has occurred.

You discuss it wit a supervisor chain of command, then you use it, and it's all documented in the system of why you used it.

Lo and behold, if we discover you used it to identify your wife's new boyfriend, you're going to get fired.

[MUSIC] There's als the Halo law, which establishes a 25ft buffer zone I guess, around first responders that requires bystanders to maintain, distance when instructed.

What do you think of that?

Is that necessary?

>>I think it was.

It's necessary when you deal with these First Amendment "frauditors", because that's what I want to call them.

"Frauditors".

When you're there's a group that runs around with video cameras, you want to videotape everything.

>>Yeah.

>>Which is their their have every right to do that.

But when you interject yourself into an arrest and you're not standing back filming and you're injecting yourself into that arrest, then you get arrested for that.

And I think that's what the purpose of that was, because there were actions where my back is turn my guns out.

Me and you were grappling and you have one of these people leaning right over your shoulder filmin while you're making an arrest.

Why can't you stand 25ft back?

>>Was that happening righ there, right over your shoulder?

>>Right.

There are some places where it was right over.

They were right in the middle of the arrest filming, and they were not involved in it.

>>Yeah.

>>They were riding around with a scanner on, heard it, drove through the scene and then interjected.

They got so close that it became a officer safety issue.

And I think that's wha the legislature passed that on.

And I'll tell you, it has worked because we've had that here.

And when you turn and say you're not 25ft away, overwhelmingly they'll back up.

Nobody's telling you not to film.

We're just telling you, let us do our job.

You do whatever you want to do with the video.

>>What do you make of the argument that some might give that these kinds of moves just serve to sow more suspicion about police?

The people always, and probably rightly so, have suspicions about their elected officials, about the people that that serve and protect them, that there should be 100% transparency.

The people should be able to interact with, those public servants as they wish.

How do you answer the criticism?

These kinds of thing just kind of erode that trust.

>>Well, first, I agree with everything you said.

I agree, but you have to balance that with what is officer safety.

And in today's day and age, if you look at the numbers, the number of law enforcement officers assassinated in an ambush attack, it's it's that number is higher than it's ever been since they've been recording that number.

It's like 98 or something.

Officers have been ambushed, I think in the past over a little over a year.

So that's something that's on your mind.

You may be coming from, not you, but somebody could be coming from the perspective, you know, protecting my constitutional rights and I'm videotaping you.

Well when you're three feet behind me and I'm wrestling with somebody and I'm all by myself, I really look much concerned about what you thin your constitutional rights are.

My right is to take this person in custody and go home to my family.

So I think that's where the mix comes from.

Is that.

And there's, you know, there's a gray area with everything you know, everybody has a perception that this is horrible from a law enforcement perspective.

I just step back and do what you got to do, something we need to do, bu give us the room to do our job.

>>I want to wrap up by asking you what comes next for you.

We've talked a lo in this interview about change.

It's a time of you know, rapid societal change.

Your work is under constant scrutiny from all side on the the political spectrum.

What keeps you going?

Do you want to keep doing this?

>>I love it, I mean, I love it.

I can't wait till my feet hit the ground in the morning to get out and be part of thi community and this organization.

And I think that plays a role in me saying, hey, I'm absolutely running for sheriff again.

You know, either the voters or Mother Nature are going to stop me.

I don't see mysel doing anything other than this.

I live and work in an incredible community, and I live and work with a incredible group of individuals.

If those things weren't active, maybe I would say it's time to go golfing, but it's not and the challenges out there.

The technology challenges.

You know, I started when you didn't have computers in your car and now you're able you're so much you can do.

There's so much good work that you can do, and you're still a lot of good things to do.

It's scary.

You know, AI scares me.

We're using it, but AI scares me.

Drones scare me.

You know what's going o in Ukraine that affects us here.

You know, somebody with ill intentions is looking at what's going on in Ukraine.

Is it a matter of time before they fly a drone into the crowd and kill hundreds of people?

So there are a lot of threat that are out there that I think I'm still on top of my game, that I want to be.

>>And you don't mind the intense criticism and scrutiny that you've got to get all th time, particularly these days.

>>I would rather them scrutinize and criticize me, than scrutinize the men and women that are out there on the street doing their job day in and day out.

They're going to make mistakes, criticize me, support them for better training, and do a job better.

But feel free to come after me.

What's the worst thing they're going to do, they can't eat me.

>>Volusia County Sheriff Mike Chitwood, thank you so much.

>>Thank you.

>>I appreciate it.

Sheriff Mike Chitwood talking to me recently at the Volusia Sheriff's Office Training Center near Daytona Beach.

You'll find this conversation along with every episode of Newsnight Conversations o our website wucf.org/newsnight.

You can also watch on our YouTube channel.

In the meantime we'll be back with our regular look at the top stories in Florida on NewsNight next Friday night at 8:30 here on WUCF.

But for now, from all of us here at NewsNight Conversations.

Take care and have a great week.