Troy McDuffie for Sheriff: From Patrol Officer to Police Chief

Peter Pappas: Well, everybody, good afternoon and welcome to the Carolina Cabinet. I'm your host, Peter Pappas in studio with ⁓ Mrs. Laura Mussler Hello, hello. And joining us today is Cumberland County Sheriff's candidate, Mr. Troy McDuffie ⁓ Welcome, sir. Welcome. I'm trying to talk about being sheriff. Okay. Well, ⁓ we were discussing, ⁓ off air here. ⁓ you definitely have some roots. We definitely crisscrossed. I've definitely made you some sandwiches in my lifetime at the restaurant. anybody you haven't made sandwiches for a couple, three people that I didn't get to yet. Okay. So, I, then I found out that you, you and my parents share a neighborhood. So that's small world. really is. And then you shared a neighborhood with me before you moved to that neighborhood. So, so I guess I can't say that you're not of the area. No, definitely not. So what, Did you grow up here? Like, tell me about your origin story. Like, where did you come from? Well, my parents moved me to, we moved to Fayetteville when I was about five years old. Okay. I'm in my early sixties now, so that tells you how long I'm actually 62. Okay. So I grew up in Fayetteville. I'm a military brat. Again, born in Fort Knotts, Kentucky, but Fayetteville is my home. Fayetteville is the only home that I know. Okay. Fort Knox, Kentucky. What years were that? I was a, I was a, you were a bit, okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Right. Well, if my mom's watching, she's going to wonder because she and her father was stationed there for a little bit too. Right. Yeah. That was a big deal for her. So, all right. So you, basically you, you're, you're a Fay a billion. I am. That's it. That's all there is to this. Where'd you go to high school? Went to high school in the same area. live in San Diego. Really? Okay. Okay. All right. Well, So what was your first interest in law enforcement? When did you first get the bug? Well, it's sort of a strange story. know, law enforcement is not something that I grew up. You know, it wasn't in my blood. know, for me, it was an opportunity. However, I do feel that it's it was my calling all along. You know, mean, the Lord knew that. But I after high school, I joined while I was in college about a year. I did go back. my education, I left college and I started my career with the military that was in 1982. Went through my base and went through AI. Went through jump school training. I'm assuming Army, you didn't go to like Coast Guard or anything right? Nope. That'd be kind of anti-favorable if you went. No, I was Army. After all my training, after going through jump school. I returned to Fayetteville and I served with the 82nd Airborne Division from 1982 to 1986. After leaving the military, well, as I was making the decision to leave the military, Fayetteville Police Department was looking for police officers and that drew my interest. I wasn't for sure if I was going to stay in the military or if I was going too late. decided to start looking at law enforcement. I put in my application with Fairview. went through the process and I made the cut. And I ETSed or I left the military in November and started with the Fairview Police Department about two weeks later. Okay. Okay. So I know this is milestones in your life. How old were you when you? I can do the math maybe. What was it? 88, 89 when you do this? So let's see. graduated in 81. Started with the military in 82 and served there from 82 to 86. And served a couple of years as a guardsman, but I started with Fayetteville. police department in November of 1986. Excellent. Okay. So which, how many chiefs ago was that? Let's see. No, I was, was that chief Hanson back then? All right. Chief Hanson. So, um, I had a 16 year career with, Fayetteville. Okay. Um, started as a patrol officer, um, worked the road for about five years, moved on to investigation. And I probably spent the remainder of uh, career, um, in investigations from. you know, working property crimes, all the up to violent crimes. At a stint working in the child abuse section. I worked in that section about eight years. lot of opportunities for Fayetteville. The last, my last assignment with Fayetteville was a homicide investigator. I served as a homicide investigator for a few years. I did take a leave of absence for a year. I left Fayetteville and by the I think it was not 2000, 1999, 2000. I took an assignment with the UN Peacekeeping Force in Bosnia. I served as a civilian police officer there for a year before returning to Fayetteville in 2000. And in 2002, the late Sheriff Pedecken ran for the sheriff's position in Hoke County. He asked me if I would come. Lee said if I would come to Hoke County as his chief deputy. That's why I said I did serve as a deputy. Okay. All right. There you go. See, I wasn't totally off. Yeah. So there's a chief deputy. All right. Yeah. So, my career took me to Hoke County. That really started my, executive career in law enforcement. Cause you've been hands on up till then. You weren't a white shirt for most of your career. No. What was the biggest difference between being a hands on to going into the executive area? big difference, you know, Hands on, you worry about yourself, pretty much. You investigate your cases. You don't have the responsibilities that you have in the executive branch. Moving into the executive branch, you start running the organization, supervising employees. Big difference. You're managing a lot of other folks, and you have a lot more responsibilities. What did you find was your biggest obstacle in making that switch? My biggest obstacle, again, probably the management of personnel, managed employees, especially some of the employees that you once worked with. But it wasn't a big adjustment for me. Well, I mean, look, across America, we know that law enforcement's under pressure. You know, you know, I joke before that we grew up with these great rap songs of, you know, F the police, but now it's become a reality. know, recruitment's down. People are not happy with police. So because you've been there, I would say before the before time. Okay. Were we always kind of short police or do you remember a time when we were overabundant with having people that were replying and wanting to serve? I can't say we were overabundant, but you know, Looking back on my earlier years, there wasn't a struggle like it is now to recruit and retain police officers. Big difference. Of course, you didn't have the budget, even Fayetteville itself, you didn't even have the population. So you didn't need as many police. You look at the annexation. Yeah, that was the big boom annexation they called it. That made a big difference. for the Federal Police Department. Okay. So about the annexation, that happened 98, 99 sometime around there. We'll just call it 2000. But wouldn't the Sheriff's Department, being that it was all county, wouldn't they have had deputies assigned to that area and couldn't it just been a shift of if they were deputies, maybe they could have been hired on at Fayetteville? We had a big bucket of law enforcement officers. Did some maybe just not switch over? Were you really active back then? Really, mean, during those times, and again, I didn't go into the executive branch until 2002, but if I have to look back during that time span, I probably would say that the sheriff's office, they didn't have probably the manpower that was, know, that course that they have now. And I'm sure they only had the manpower, you know, to cover a lot of the areas, well, the county areas that they had jurisdiction over. It's good question. just think, they did redeploy, you you had this whole section of the west end of Carmelite County that wasn't annexed, you had to have deputies covering it. So. there had to be a shift. mean, just, those deputies go, well, that's the thing. Where did they get reassigned? You know, right. And then we had all the stuff that's happened in last five, six years that really, you know, down the reputation of law enforcement. it really led to a bad apple situation. It's not everybody. so after you came back from Bosnia, right, you were with fable for like another year or so. then you know, the two years. That's when I served in the homicide unit. served in the homicide for my last two years at Fayetteville. And again in 2002, I left and took the position of Chief Deputy with Holt County. Moving on, I served under Sheriff Hubert Piedek in probably about three and a half years. And in June of, think it was June of 2006, I was approached about applying for the vacant police chief position with the Red Springs Police Department. So I applied for that position, went through the assessment process, and I was hired as the Red Springs Police Chief and actually, know, I in June of 2000. How long did you serve out there? I served about three, again, three and half years as the police chief in Red Springs. Much, much different. in Robertson County where Red Springs is a tough, tough rural. I don't know how anybody would commit crime. He's like so calm and like just talk with Well, that's what you want after you just show true love to your domestic violence partner. I'm just saying. How can anybody commit a crime around you? You know, I hear that a lot. You know what? Trust me, there's another side. I was going to, I was going to ask you, you know, you did two years with homicide. It's like, wonder if he aged like dog years, like that's gotta be a tough, stress job. So for every year you age three, probably being on that role. mean, yeah. did you, did you just find a good way to cope with it? And you were able to, I do, you know, my, my way of coping, again, you know, what you hear and see, you know, in front of this camera today, that's just me, you know, but again, And my, you know, folks that have worked for me know that, um, you know, when you have to turn that level up, I've never had a problem with that. Okay. So how large of an agency is Red Springs? And I'm not, I'm not poo-pooing it at all, but like how many, how many sworn officers did you have there? Red Springs, think, um, I had about 20, maybe at the, at the max, I had about 25 sworn officers. And what was the budget? Oh, back then, um, well, that was back in 2006. Wasn't much. know that maybe a million, you know, a couple of million. That's a lot with a little. Right. Right. Right. And so in 2009, well, think the Spring Lake police department collapsed in 2008. That was where I was going to ask you. knew you were with Spring Lake and I'm going say, look, was he there the before time or the after time? So definitely the after time. Definitely the after. Definitely the after. And, you know, a lot of folks get that or, you know, some folks, you know, get those times mixed up. You know, I came in at the AC Brown. We used to work together with the federal police department. know, maybe it's just, you know, AC Brown, you know, was a African American and I'm coming in behind him and they assumed that, you know, that it was me that was responsible for. what happened in Spring Lake. Certainly it was not. came in, I was brought in to fix it. Right, right. And I did apply for that job in 2009. through a lengthy assessment process. In December of 2009, I was hired as the new police chief in Spring Lake. For me, it was an opportunity to come back to Cumberland County. I still lived in Cumberland County most of the years that I spent in in Hope County and even in Robinson County, but it was an opportunity for me to come back to Cumberland County. I feel like I was a perfect person for that job. You you needed somebody to come in to work with the, you know, the elected officials work with, you know, I worked with Ed Granis. well, let me ask you that part of the interview process for Spring Lake, because, you know, they, the That's what local government commission had basically taken over the finances. The commonly kind of sheriff's department had taken over the policing of anything, felony and up. think they still had Spring Lake police doing misdemeanor. No. No. Doing nothing. No police powers. Okay. So, I mean, you were starting from scratch. how different do you think your interview was compared to just a regular, have an operating agency and we just need a new chief. mean, what were they looking for? What were they, what qualified you to jump in there and do that? Well, my career, my experience in Cumberland County, well, remember Ed Granis was a district attorney. One of the things that I left out, I worked at the district attorney's office for about a year as federal police, as their liaison. So I had a relationship with Mr. Granis. The key players involved, the... Beth Cleaver, was the Chief District Court Judge, of course Moose Butler, he was the Sheriff. all of these entities, know, they were familiar There was a close relationship beforehand. Exactly. But were there any extra steps maybe taken because of the state of where the town was? Do you think that they were, I don't know, did they expand their search? Did they just try to say, look, let's get somebody that we know to restart this thing? And I'm not, not, you're your qualifications. I'm just, I'm thinking you had to start from zero. Well, the search was nationwide. Okay. I just made the cut. Okay. You know, I think we started off, it was like, 60 applicants, you know, but I think my application stood out because of the fact that I was a local, you know, And they didn't have to pay moving expenses. Yeah. see, you know what? I'm joking. I'm probably did. But you know, that's one thing that does aggravate me with city, county, government and management. You know, they'll pay 50, 60, $80,000 for a nationwide search. Right. And then we go with the guy that we already knew that we knew he could have done the job to begin with. Right. And I mean, that just frustrates the absolute hell out of me. Well, they used, they hired out a, they used the consulting. Of course, they love doing that. Come on. exactly. So, but anyway, you know, it, it, it worked out. Again, I took over in December of late December of 2009 with absolutely no police powers. think I had about eight officers at that time and they were serving under an interim chief. Right. But we had no police powers. Well, they had no powers. What were they doing? Just training. administration. Because there was a, I guess there was a back and forth decision as to whether or not they wanted to just completely disband the Spring Lake Police Department. I think the town sort of pushed back on that. They wanted an opportunity, which was a, I felt like it was a good decision on their part, regardless of the size of your community, having your own local police department, the department that knows the community, the gets to know the community is important. Well, and as I went around the county last year, or in 24, there's some police departments with two members or one member in some of the small like, I can't remember if it was Godwin Falcon. had just hired somebody. He was the chief and he was the chief of himself because there was nobody else working. But I think it is important to have somebody local. although with all the trouble Spring Lake went through, my opinion was. enough. You know, they, they're trying so hard to be independent. It's like, look, there's, there's a economy of scale, right? To use with the larger agency and things that the larger agency can do. But you were able to go in and rebuild. Exactly. The department, which I think is, mean, that's just very impressive that you did that. How many officers did you get up to before you, how long were you there? I was there. from 2009 and again, I had to go, submitted a four phase plan to get the Spring Lake Police Department back on track so that it was a fully functioning police department. That's all I knew. I didn't want a department where we only did the misdemeanor crimes and maybe your violent crimes, but not homicides, not sexual assault. I felt like under my leadership, I had that experience. had did a lot of these things. It was, you know, my job to lead the... You wanted the whole buffet. You didn't want all the cart. Exactly. But anyways, anyways, answer that question. When I left, I, I, 2009, I led the department up until 2017. and at that time, the department was a fully functioning department. It took me about, three, probably about four years to get the all of the, you know, the investigation back, homicide was the last investigation. So that took, you know, it took about four years. So we were a fully functioning department. We had reconnected with the community. We were able to rebuild that trust with the community. was no longer us against them. The department was back on track. don't, it should, it's never us against them with any of these local departments, but it gets perceived that way real quick. Well, you know, Again, you look at the leadership at times. Leadership, I've always said, it starts at the top. the top, in my opinion, dictates how these officers go out and please their communities. I want officers to go out there and do their jobs, and I support that. And anybody that have worked for me know that. But I never want a situation where... where officers go out and do their own brand of policing. So just a reconnect with the county, I mean, I'm sorry, with the citizens went a long ways in building the trust back with the department. But I did retire, in 2017 I retired and they hired a new chief. They brought in an assistant chief from Fayetteville. I won't name his name, but anyway. He took over as a police chief. After I left, they went through the same assessment process. And he stayed about, probably about eight months before he left and took a job at another state. the town manager at that time contacted me and wanted to know if I would return on the basis to hire the new chief. Well, I agreed to that, so I returned about eight, nine months later. As the, took over as interim chief, that town manager decided to move on. took another job. had another town manager. went through, they just fired one two days ago out there. So I probably went to around 10, interim and a permanent managers doing my stand in spring lake. You know, again, fortunately they had you to call on speed dial and say, come back and do what's a solid. see that, that right there feeds into why I felt like spring Lake should not be a spring Lake because there's too small. It's too close. It's too, personal politic. Forget the party politics stuff. Way too personal. mean, the vote the other night was three to two and the mayor was in the one of the two votes to keep the town man. Or they fired the man for no cause, which I'm sure I've been told there's going to be other details coming out. There probably was cause, but they call it no cause now. but you can't keep swapping these people and have any continuity for the community. Yeah, that's, that's always been, something, you know, it's been an issue, you know, which mainly trust me. I went through enough of it and it's always difficult as the police chief, you know, that was my closest relationship, relationship with the town. town manager. reported to the town manager. But a town manager would come in and we'd establish a good working relationship. And next thing you know, it moved on. you have built another relationship and that was, that was difficult. Well, yeah, you're always in the building phase. You can't operate. Right. Exactly. You're distracted with all this. Well, let's get started again, instead of can we police? Right. mean, you know, so small town, small town. I would call it in our office politics. I even in our agency. That's like in our office. You're all, aren't they all in the same building anyway? The police department, were they not co-located with town hall and everything before? they are one of the things that, excuse me. the main, part of the police department is, inside of town hall. Right. but we had a police annex. Okay. That was one of the things that, that we did while was my tenure there. We completely read, restored our police annex expanded it. And that was most of my operations, the evidence room, your detectives, all the special units, any special units that I had, we, they were housed at that was like the spring Lake police. shed. That's where they went away to do the work. Yeah. And they did not be bothered with the, the she shed, he shed, whatever. But I stayed in it and, and when returning they had another town mandatory he asked if I would, stay on a permanent basis for a few more years, which is what I did. So I ended up probably another four years before finally retiring again. And I think it was like March in 21. Okay. but, I retired in March of 21 from Spring Lake, you know, for good. I was retired probably for maybe another six months and I cut my retirement short again. I took a position. a glutton for punishment. I was going to say, you're married, right? I'm married. Okay. Does your wife not want you at home or something? Like what, you getting pushed out. Well, there was a lot of things that, that sort of took place in between. if I get a chance, I'll go into that. But I, my wife's a, my wife's a school teacher, so she's still working. Okay. And in between, I think my. retired or I retired in 2021. My wife and I were extended our family. She didn't have any kids. I was remarried. So I have a four year old son. from at the leave in Fairview, I mean, I'm sorry, Spring Lake, I was deputy chief with the VA police services. I held that position probably not very long. Maybe about seven months. Where was that based? Okay. the police services for the, we were responsible for the Ramsey Street location, Rayford Road location, Jacksonville, a couple more small. So it wasn't just the two here. was other sites. Right. So I pretty much ran the Ramsey Street location and the chief, was the head of chief of police. I was a deputy police. Chief of Police. I stayed in that position for six or seven months, but then with the birth of my son, my father was, you know, we dealing with him with his dementia, helping taking care of him. I left the position after about seven, eight months and dedicated my time to my family for the last three and a half years. And that's, that ends the story. That's where I was until I made the decision. to run for election for sheriff. what was the catalyst that made you decide to run for sheriff after taking time with your son and your dad? What said, you know what, I don't want to be home anymore. I want to go and deal with all of this all over again. What was the catalyst? Well, that's not the case. I'll be honest with you. I think it, by this time my son's a little bit older, my father passed. Oh, I'm sorry. A couple of years ago. And I was approached about considering coming out of retirement and running for sheriff. it When you say you were approached, did we not have any other good quote unquote candidates or did you know who was running or? I don't know about the other candidates. All I can tell you is that I was approached. Okay. And so- I thought about it, I considered it. I sit down, wife and I, you we talk and I made the decision. Okay, you know, if this is a calling, if the community, Cumberland County community, I know this community, I know what I bring, you know, to the table, you know, if I can bring that type of leadership to the Cumberland County Sheriff's Office, then I've made the decision. to run for a Cumber County Sheriff. Okay. So there's a trust gap between some communities and law enforcement here in the area. So what specific steps would you take as sheriff in your first 90 days to increase transparency and to rebuild trust, especially in underserved neighborhoods? I think my career will bow well in that. Looking at the Nekoma County Sheriff's Office, it's an established, accredited agency. think what I will do is do some evaluation. I spoke about it before, my experience of rebuilding trust. I don't think you're going to find a more perfect example than the example that we talked about earlier in Spring Lake. you know, part of what had to take place in order to get the department back on track. So some of the things that I, you know, look forward to is just engaging more, you know, with the community, just evaluating to see, okay, what's in place now, and then focusing, you know, on, you know, just building stronger relationships. And again, just piggybacking to what it took. Yeah, smaller community, but still, you you're going to run into that same issues if there's a lot of distress, you know, with the agency in the community. I don't see where there's that level of distress now with the Cumberland County Sheriff's Office in the Cumberland County community. you know, just some of the... The things that we did and then, know, billing trusts and spring lake, I'll bring that right here to Cumberland County. And transparency was one of the things that I think a lot of the local news reporters that work with me, if you go with and you can just read some of the articles. I've always tried to be transparent and keep things out and open. and not shut the department out, excuse me. So this big thing about civilian review boards, how do you feel about them? And if you're against them or opposed to them, what kind of alternative independent oversight would you propose? Civilian review boards, I'll be perfectly honest with you. That's just not something that I've had to deal with, that I dealt with in my career. I can't say that I'm opposed to them. Again, it goes back to transparency. It's something with my command staff that will sit down, will see what the expectations are or what they are expecting from the organization. And then I'll move forward in how we work with these agencies or if they are put in place. I mean, I think my perception of them up till now has been that they're reactionary. agree. You know, it's not that. And nobody can see what it's like to be under assault or in a situation if you've never been in that situation. think civilian review boards should be civilians prior police. Right. I agree. They need to have some kind of training as to what they're seeing. I don't agree with them being able to pierce the veil of getting into HR. records and, you know, forcing the release of certain body cam footage, honestly, to me is more incendiary. Uh, I, I've been operating on the 72 hour rule lately. You know, when something happens, just give it a time, give it a minute. Right. Let it, let it percolate through the channels of whatever, before I start with my, uh, online Facebook jurist doctorate degree and start pontificating on what I saw, you know, like, so I think we need to give you the hired. or in this case, elected professionals, chance to do your professional stuff and knock it out. I hope. Well, one of things I will say, you know, a leader throughout my career, I believe in running my department with the sheriff office, whether it's a police department or with a town manager. One of the things that I used to always have the conversation with the town managers. know, okay, I respect your position. I respect who I report to, but you have to let me run this police department. I expect to run the police department. You you run the town. You know, you can't have civilians running police departments. And I never had a problem with it. mean, there was a, lucky for you if you get elected sheriff, you're, you're in, can't see, nobody can really tell you anything unless you mess up so bad that the North Carolina legislature calls you up for a visit and Macklinburg County, their sheriff, their district attorney, and I believe the police chief were called. There was a hearing yesterday, but I think this whole week they've been having hearings, because of what happened last year with the young lady being killed on the. Rapid Transit, they passed Irina's law and now they're basically saying, okay, Charlotte, you got a problem. We need to see you. Right. Because they're really the only legislative body that can essentially call a sheriff to the carpet. Right. I don't know. think County Commission, their only string with you is they can make your budget pretty anemic, pretty quick. They hold the purse. But they don't really have oversight because you are an independent elected. Exactly. Between you and the DA, you're the tops. Exactly. That's it. And that's what I believe in, especially when it comes to a law enforcement agency. You have to let the elected leader or if it's an appointed leader, run the agency. Tell him what you think about elected leader. There's no such thing as an elected leader. Okay. They do not exist. If you are elected, you are not a leader. You are a representative of the people that put you in office. You do not lead other than your staff, but you are not an elected leader. And that was exactly one of the responses I gave to. can agree with that. So, you know, I know the different knowledge. I can agree with that. Yeah. Well, we want you to lead, but we want you to represent us. Right. Right. That's I and read the way we want to be represented. But and I have. Okay. So Facebook is just a horrible place. I have actually defended the sheriff in Mecklenburg. I troll them most times, but this time they were calling him a DEI hire. So said, Hey, he's not a hire. He was elected by the people that wanted him to be in office. There's no hiring with the sheriff, right? You know, but then I do troll them a little bit when he's not showing up in his uniform. I'm always like, Hey man, where's your uniform? Come on. So you're to be a uniform sheriff or a suit wearing sheriff. Uniform. Okay. I'm a both though. Okay. You I do believe you can have casual Fridays. You can wear a suit. Yeah, I do believe in, you know, there are occasions, you know, especially, um, you know, sort of connecting, you know, to the community where a civilian entire, you know, can be appropriate, but for the most, um, you know, throughout my career, um, um, I've done both. Okay. I've done both, but, um, the latter part of my career, I think I'd settled down. more into the uniform. That's just easier. don't have to choose what you got. This time match that. it, got, do. So, sheriff's office budgets are under scrutiny. So if there are some budget cuts that are proposed, where would you make cuts without harming public safety? And how would you protect officer training and community programs? Well, again, I mean, it's a good question. Thanks. know, just, Every once in a while I get a good one. It's a good question, but it's a difficult question for me to answer because I really don't know the structure of the sheriff's office. One of the things that I've tried to do throughout these interviews is to stray away and talk to folks. I folks want to know, they want to ask these questions, what I'm going to do. You want to come in and do this young I like to take a time to evaluate what I have, what's in place when it comes to a budget, what's putting the biggest strain on the department. And once I can get in office and really get a in-depth look at the Sheriff's Office budget, then I think I can make that determination as far as where I'm going to have to make these cuts. Um, well, currently we know that we're 40 % short in officers. only staffed at 60%. So what is it that you're going to bring to the table to increase, um, officer turnout and get, recruit more officers. We'll sit down, you know, with, with my recruiting team. I think, um, you know, my, my position of, of, of, of being coming into the sheriff's office. with the years of experience being in law enforcement for over 35 years. So many officers that have worked with me, that are still working. I think that will go well. Just my not to tout or brag about my can brag. It's okay. You should be bragging. You're running for office. Brag. Brag away. You are the greatest of all time. Hey, you got to think that. But I think that will go well with recruitment. just the, the number of, you know, the, and of officers that have contacted me, not that's just going to be a small percentage. And then, you know, I think that's just going to bowl well with recruitment, how we'll bring in officers. incentives. I think the pay is up, you know, that will help recruit and retain officers that we have. And also, you know, when it comes to retaining, you know, my job is to come in and look at the morale, build that morale. You know, you'd be amazed when officers, you know, when they respect their leadership, you know, you, the morale is lifted up in agency. It goes a long way. the respect it's, know, give me some leadership that's respectable and we'll respect you. Right. You you know, you got to put out what you want to get back. so what about body cameras? How do you feel about body cameras on all officers at all times? And are there ever any exceptions? Because there's a big thing push for ICE to have body cameras. So how do you feel about the sheriff? There was a sheriff department that policy is already in place. They have body cameras. My experience with body cameras, most of the agencies that I've led, they've been useful. And most of the time they've been more helpful in clearing an officer versus catching them doing something that they shouldn't have been done. But that policy is already in place, even the sheriff officers, the deputies have body cams. well, it certainly gives me TikTok videos to watch when people want to mouth off on the side of the We're not allowed to see those videos though. have to like petition. Well, somehow they get out. I mean, it's like an act of Congress to get them out there. Well, yeah. To release the full thing because it's considered, I think it's considered, HR or something. How does it, how does it get prevented to be released? What, what, what's the protection around that video? It goes back to, you know, a state legislation, I mean, because it's evident. You know, you know, so I think we should have live streaming. I w I'd watch that all day. I think we did. think Fayetteville or one of the agencies had a live PD episode recently. No, I'm just talking about like, can tune into certain officers and watch them work. is enough stuff on my social media. don't need more feeds. You could find it out on social media probably. so listen, you know, Laura asked you what you're going to do and all. I think it's incumbent of our, it's very American as Apple pie to us lately. It's what are you going to do in your first hundred days? We want our leaders to go in. I'm sorry, land is with a go in with a plan, you know, and so, you'll have some time between, election night, November, if you get past this primary, right. to being sworn, I think you have two weeks until you're sworn in. So you better think quick. but have you started putting together. What you would consider your first hundred days plan. I have it. Okay. Be honest with you. That's why I, because he's got to make it through the primary. Exactly. Exactly. You know, reason to make undue work. you make it past the primary, then we bring you back and we talk about, all right, there's our hundred days. Then I really kick in. Fair enough. But it's enough. you know, you know, the campaigning for the prom primary. coming out of retirement, but I really focused, you know, on getting past the primary. If, you know, Lord willing, if I am the, you know, the candidate, then certainly I'll be glad to come back and we can really sit on, then I can, you know, kick out. I'm to pepper you with phone calls. So you come back. We're just going to aggravate the hell out of you till you do. do you, I'm not ready to wrap it up. We're about 43 minutes. you have a question that you have to ask. Oh, I do. You ask all the sheriffs. okay. We can't let him get away. No, I'm not letting him off the hook. He can handle this. So, there's been part of, you know, the hubbub around Irina's law. And then of course the national temperature of ice ice baby. What, what is the role of the County Sheriff when it comes to ice detainers and stuff like that? Can you tell me a little bit about how, what you know about it and maybe how you'd handle it? Well, it's a good question. We have a lot of good questions here. Again, I'm going stay within the parameters of the law. What does that mean? What are the parameters you got? The parameters. If ICE places a detainer on an individual and the law states that I have to, or we shall detain this individual until such time, then certainly I'm going to work with her as Is it open ended or is there a certain amount of time that you're supposed to hold onto him from ICE? Right. I can't answer that question. I'll be honest with you because I've worked as a police chief. That's the functions of a sheriff's office. Right. You know, when I was with the whole county sheriff's office, was 27 years ago. But I can't answer that question for you. I'll just be honest with you, you know. So, but I will say this again, you know, if legislation requires me, you know, to operate within certain parameters and certainly that's what we will. Well, and that legislation was passed last year around the time it was Irene's law. And I really need the bill number for what it was, but it was compelling all 100 County sheriffs in North Carolina to cooperate with ICE. Now we've had certain sheriffs that I feel like put politic in over policing and they're publicly, we're not going to agree. We're not. And to me, the, the supremacy clause of the constitution says I'm federal government. We're here, you you got to follow along. But I don't think it's compelling you to go out and find people for ice. Right. It's just saying if you book them and they flag as detainer, then you hold on to them until ice. But I don't think ice has several months to go do it. I think they have to do them in a reasonable amount of time. They got to pick them up. Because what does it cost to house a prisoner nowadays in Cumberland County jail? I mean, any idea? No. Okay. Yeah. I mean, it's a hundred dollars a day. mean, I wonder if ICE is going to reimburse us. And even with that, you know, and saying the federal government is responsible, you know, for, you know, if you, if you detain a, a, a federal detainee, then it's their responsibility to cover the cost of housing that individual. Well, I hope so. And I hope it's not tough to get reimbursed, you know. I hope we make the receipts in triplicate and make sure it goes to the federal government and we get our money back here. So, um, so Mr. McDuffie, it's been a pleasure having you today. but Laura, we didn't ask his website, nothing. feel bad. was waiting for your ice question today. Ice ice baby. I'm done. Okay. Very, very good. So, okay. So tell me, I am a, uh, constituent and I want to get up with you and I want to give you money or I want to work the polls for you. How do I get ahold of you, Mr. McChuffee? He's got a great pair of heels for that too. Yes. Thank you. You're welcome. You can reach me at ElectroyMcDuffy.com. That's my website. On that website, you can donate, you can volunteer, any contact information that you're seeking, you can reach it at ElectroyMcDuffy.com. It's on the screen now. just put it on the screen. And I will tell everybody once again, my little speech. Campaigns run on money and not everybody has money. So everybody has time though. So if you cannot give money, then you support Troy McDuffie, then you should volunteer your time. Please, please, please. And remember early voting begins tomorrow. smokes. Today's the 11th. Today's the 11th. So we're recording on the 11th and February 12th. D-Day. That's the main event for you Politico type. So it is good luck to you, And ⁓ everybody watching. Thank you for tuning in until next time. We're the Carolina Cabinet