Community Conversations: Policing and Race in Walton County [PREMIUM]

Story by STACY MARTIN

The Cultural Arts Alliance (CAA) and the Committee for Justice, Equality, and Fairness hosted their second community conversations that focused on policing and race relations in Walton County.  The guest speaker for Wednesday’s meeting was Walton County Sheriff Michael Adkinson Jr. The community conversation was held virtually on the zoom platform with panelists, Rev. Tyrone Broadus, Vice President of NAACP Branch 5486; Mike Bowden, Chair of Committee for Justice, Equality and Fairness; Rev. Raymond Jackson, President of NAACP Branch 5486; and community facilitators Lewis Jennings and Sabu Williams. 

Adkinson is a native of Walton County who graduated from Walton High School, has a Bachelor of Science degree in criminology, and a Master’s degree in criminal justice administration.  Adkinson has been serving in law enforcement for over 27 years and has been recently elected to serve his fourth term as Sheriff in Walton County.  

Bowden led the questions to Adkinson, asking him to address why the arrest records of Black residents in Walton County are two-three times more than their proportion of the population. The number of Black jail inmates is roughly five times more than their percentage of the population.    Adkinson started by stating that Walton County holds about 200 inmates from Escambia County, which accounts for the disproportions of race in the jail. Walton County Jail also holds federal inmates that are all not necessarily Walton County residents.  Adkinson also encouraged people to look at the Measures for Justice website (https://measuresforjustice.org), which is a national database website with a mission statement “To facilitate reform by making available comprehensive and reliable criminal justice data.”  Policing data is collected and compared with that of several states and counties, including Florida and Walton County, which are available to the public. 

Adkinson continued discussing the issues, breaking down the difference between prison and jail, based on the sentence time.  Adkinson said that there are about 10 to 12-percent African Americans in jail who are Walton County residents. The length of time in jail in Walton County, according to Adkinson, is, on average, 72 hours, and most of that comes down to the economics of being able to post bail.  “So, how long you are in jail, can be a direct function of whether or not you can make bail.”  

From the website, Measures for Justice, Adkinson said that one can see where Walton County leads the state for offering alternatives to arrests such as notices to appear in court.  “Walton County (WCSO) is the only agency in the state of Florida that teaches a customer service model to its employees. So we start from the idea of this being a service industry. “

Another point of interest that Adkinson pointed out is the difference between department and office. A department is a bureaucracy headed by an appointed official. An elected official heads an office, so the people have a say in how policing is handled in the county. ”The Office of the Sheriff is the only law enforcement level in the United States of America, where the people have a direct say.” 

Sabu Williams asked for comments on the topic of police brutality and police injustice.   Adkinson said that if an officer gets three complaints – ranging from rudeness to excessive use of force – within 18 months, he or she is referred to the Early Warning System.  

Addressing excessive use of force, Adkinson said that knee holds, or knee to the spine or groin area are not taught under any accreditation standards, which includes WCSO, and are off-limits.  

Another area of concern was how the WCSO demographics represent the county.  Adkinson said that WCSO has about 18-percent African American, and 34-percent women.  Adkinson added that he continues to try to recruit from the Black community.  “If you want to see change, you have to be a part of the change.”

Adkinson was asked by an attendee of the meeting about his thoughts on the recent protests supporting Black Lives Matter, and the Confederate flag’s removal.  Adkinson stated that his personal feeling is that they should have removed the flag years ago.  Adkinson continued, saying that he tries to be careful with that and tries not to get involved in the Board of County Commissioners’ business. “I probably shouldn’t have even said that. That is, I like to stay in my lane.”

Throughout the session, Adkinson offered questions not brought up by any panelists or attendees. The process of hiring and filing vacancies within the WCSO was one such issue brought up by the sheriff.  Adkinson stated that WCSO has a hiring board that also has members of the community, which allows for more community input on hiring individuals for WCSO.  

Adkinson also said that every two weeks, he holds a live Q&A session on several social media platforms where he answers questions from the public without any editing or censoring and encourages the public to participate in asking any additional questions or comments.