Evaluating America’s Sheriff

Similar to America’s Angola Prison in Louisiana, America’s Sheriff, who is actually Polk County, Florida, Grady Judd, is a big fan and seller of merch. Lots of it: cups, t-shirts, and bobbleheads. Hey, all he wants to do is make forced detention fun! Doesn’t he? It’s the age we live in, a sort of return to incivility and, even, barbarianism in far too many instances. In Judd’s career as Polk’s Sheriff, however, he’s been inhumane in his responses far too many times. (A sign of his style of Christianity? Certainly many Christians don’t behave like him.) Anyway, following is a chronology of his worse instances since early on in his tenure.

• 2006 – Asked why Polk law enforcement officers (LEOs) shot a criminal 68 times, Sheriff Grady Judd told the Orlando Sentinel, “That’s all the bullets we had.”
• 2013 – LEOs spy on Poor & Minority Justice Association meeting.
• 2014 – At a cannabis forum at Polk State College’s campus in Winter Haven, LEOs were packed near exit doors, entrance halls, and the parking lot. Judd is known to loathe users.
• 2015 – Grady Judd loves his job but doesn’t recognize when he is not on the job, so he appears to wear his uniform all the time, such as when signing bobblehead dolls, when selling merch, or when preaching in church. The Freedom from Religion Foundation mailed Judd a complaint about his preaching in uniform, which he found “humorous and entertaining,” distinctly disrespecting his own voters, as the complaint originated from a Polk resident. Moi.
• 2017 – The allegedly complicit Judge Mark Hofstad forced child-rape victim Taylor Cadle to write two apology letters: one to Judd’s office and one to her rapist. Overall, according to The Ledger “… Polk County juveniles were charged with obstructing justice, which includes false reporting, at more than twice the state average.” (Editor Gary White, 10/16/25, p1.) We see similar statistics on his handling of his department when it comes to animal control.
• 2025 – Judd rebuffed animal advocates who requested neglect and kill improvements at his shelter.

No one in Polk has ever had real freedom to campaign against Judd, because no LEO can run against him lest they lose their employment, so he remains our Forever Sheriff. Am I the only one who sees something seriously wrong with this pattern of inhumanity in this Judd character and, likely, a little lack of law adherence himself?