It’s been six months since Rick Wells was sworn in after being elected Manatee County Sheriff following the retirement of his immensely popular predecessor, Brad Steube. Wells, the only second-generation Sheriff in the county’s history, inherited a department that consistently reduced crime under Steube's watch but has been heavily taxed by a heroin epidemic that demands a growing share of department resources. He recently took time to sit down with TBT and reflect on his first six months in office and the challenges that lie ahead.
Wells is the son of Manatee County’s most famous–and some would undoubtedly say infamous–lawmen. Charlie Wells had been Sheriff of Manatee County for 22 years when he retired in 2007, overseeing its transition from a sleepy, sparsely-populated community laced with tomato farms, cattle ranches and fishing villages into a burgeoning haven of growth and development. He lorded over Manatee at a time when Florida Sheriffs were typically the most powerful countywide elected officials. Charlie Wells personified that breed of cowboy lawmen, and his departure seemed to signal the end of an era.
While the younger Wells, a tall and broad shouldered man whose grey hair gives the only indication of his 51 years, bears much physical resemblance to his father, his demeanor is quite different. A bit more subtle and disarming than the senior Wells, who could probably be described as the antithesis of subtlety, he comes off as measured, thoughtful and surprisingly candid when discussing even sensitive matters facing the department and community. In short, he’s his own man and seems to have mostly shaken that large shadow in a remarkably short period of time.
That individuality has been a theme in his career, which began at MSO in 1984 but saw him move to the Florida Highway Patrol when his dad was elected Sheriff shortly after. He returned in 2007, following Charlie’s retirement, before becoming chief of the Palmetto Police Department at Mayor Shirley Groover Bryant’s request in 2010.
Wells left the Palmetto PD to return to MSO in 2015 as Steube’s number two, and had a good handle on the issues facing the department when he was sworn in this January after winning an uncontested election in November. As a result, he has enjoyed a smooth transition, carrying forth many of Steube’s initiatives and claiming some quick wins on important issues, particularly the heroin epidemic.
In late May, the department announced the results of an intensive operation to arrest opioid dealers that included 200 charges against 75 different suspects, taking 7,000 hits off the street. But Wells explained that it’s not as simple as catching the bad guy when it comes to this deadly plague.
The people who county Sheriffs answer to, namely voters and the politicians who make budgetary decisions, often like to see results in terms of quantifiable data, making it tempting to focus on inflated arrest numbers driven by users and low-level dealers working to support their own habits. But Wells is nothing if not pragmatic and says his department wants results, not meaningless arrests that can actually compound the problem.
"We’re not out there looking for addicts to arrest,“ said Wells. "That’s not our focus. Addiction is a disease, and these people who are using can’t help themselves. It’s the dealers we’re interested in, the people who are putting this poison on the streets of our community. Now, there are obviously situations in which someone’s addiction is causing them to make bad decisions and they’re out in our community committing crimes, robbing and stealing in order to support their habits, and that’s where we end up arresting them. But in terms of fighting this epidemic, our focus is to target and arrest dealers.“
Wells explained that there are usually two to three levels between the street dealers and the so-called kingpins, a small handful of high-level dealers who procure and distribute drugs like heroin and the much more dangerous fentanyl (along with related compounds like carfentanil) throughout the county. These criminals, however, are rarely if ever involved in the sort of out-in-the-open transactions law enforcement officers are most likely to bust. The strategy is to flip low level dealers who can lead detectives toward the higher-ups.
Because of the danger involved in turning on a high-level dealer, Wells says that many of the street dealers are willing to go to jail rather than turn informant, weighing a jail sentence against the threat of death. Even when they are able to work up the ladder, Wells acknowledges that the best they can hope for is to slow down the process by temporarily disrupting the hierarchy.
"We can disrupt the flow and slow things down a bit,“ explained Wells. "But someone else will fill that void. As long as this enormous demand for the drugs exists and a fortune can be made in selling it, someone will always be willing to take the risk.“
Wells said that the rise of fentanyl has been a "game changer," a drug far more deadly than heroin or the prescription opioid pills they have replaced. The cost-effectiveness and steady supply from China has made it an easy business decision for dealers looking to maximize profits against increased risk of arrest.
"We’ve never seen anything like it," said Wells. "It’s so powerful and addictive that it’s not a matter of if an addict who uses it is going to O.D., it’s when."
But the deadly nature of fentanyl, a potent, synthetic opioid with a rapid onset and short duration, hasn’t dampened demand. In fact, when opioids gain a reputation for being particularly deadly, whether it be a purer cut of heroin, a heroin/fentanyl mix, or straight fentanyl, demand for that drug among addicts looking for the strongest possible kick actually rises. As a result of all these factors, the presence of fentanyl has loomed large in Wells’ battle.
"It comes in mostly from China and then makes its way up from Mexico or down from Canada, or sometimes directly into the U.S.,“ said Wells. "The Mexican cartels, from what we’ve seen, have really made a commitment to cornering the fentanyl market, and that emphasis has made it much tougher to battle because there’s just so much of it out there. When you’ve got an enormous demand for the drugs and a constant supply pouring in, you end up playing defense more than you’d like to.“
Wells has had to direct more resources to this, just one aspect of his mission, than he would obviously like, and the Sheriff recently asked the county commission for a modest increase in resources that would directly and indirectly aid those efforts. Wells requested that 12 additional employees be added to the 10 recommended to the BOCC in the county administrator’s presentation. Two of those positions would be narcotics detectives, while others would help to shore up the less patrolled eastern portion of the county and put more deputies at the county jail, a chronically understaffed operation that the Sheriff also has to manage.
"Sheriff Steube worked very hard to chip away at (the jail’s staffing shortage), and it’s much better than it was a few years ago," said Wells, "but we’re still challenged. Even though the ratio (of deputies to inmates) has improved, it’s the times when a few deputies are on FMLA or out sick that we run into situations where we're stretched thin. We’ve also committed a lot of resources to the recovery pods, which have been a success but are manpower intensive."
Here again the opioid crisis rears its head. In a creative initiative that attempts to fight the battle on a different front and in a more pragmatic and efficient way, they’ve developed two pods for 60 inmates (30 males and 30 females) who voluntarily enter an environment in which recovery services are offered to drug-addicted inmates seeking to kick their habits before they are returned to the streets.
"We put them in an environment in which everyone is there because they want to be," explained Wells. "Even the deputies assigned to the pods volunteer to be there. They want to be part of the solution, part of the healing. We bring in the Salvation Army and some volunteers from various faith-based organizations, and we get them started in 12-step programs with the goal of getting them clean so that they can survive on the outside. That’s the time when you want to get them thinking about rehab, while they’re incarcerated, not when they get out. When they’re on the inside and they’re away from that network of destructive influences in their lives, that’s when you have the best chance of reaching them, not when they’re back on the streets and everything and everyone around them are a temptation to return to the drugs."
Wells said that the program is still in its infancy, making it impossible to say what the long-term results will be, but that he’s encouraged by the number of success stories they’ve seen in the short term and word from participants who have said that it saved their lives É at least so far.
Law enforcement at a county level is a broad and challenging enterprise, especially as an elected official. The perspective of the average taxpayer tends to be myopic with a resistance toward spending money on the parts of public safety that aren’t out front, jails being just one example. Results are often perceived by things like crimes committed rather than crimes solved, when police have much more ability to perform the latter than to prevent the former. For his part, Wells seems to bring the right temperament to the job, and earns high marks for the first half year in office.
