Jesse Scheckner
Democratic Miami-Dade voters Tuesday will have four options in the race for Sheriff.
Only one carries Mayor Daniella Levine Cava’s stamp of approval: Miami-Dade Chief of Public Safety James Reyes.
He faces Miami-Dade Police Maj. John Barrow, ex-federal agent Susan Khoury and retired Miami-Dade Police Lt. Rickey Mitchell.
Miami-Dade hasn’t had an elected Sheriff since 1966, when county voters eliminated the position after a grand jury report revealed rampant corruption within the agency. Instead, the Mayor today serves as the de facto Sheriff and has since had an appointed Police Director or Chief of Public Safety who reports to them.
That will soon change, due to a 2018 referendum in which 58% of Miami-Dade voters joined a statewide supermajority in approving a constitutional amendment requiring that the county join Florida’s 66 other counties in having an elected Sheriff
For a while, it appeared former Miami-Dade Police Director Freddy Ramirez would be a shoo-in for the job. His attempted suicide on July 23 after a domestic dispute at a Sheriffs conference in Tampa ended that prospect. He dropped out of the race in September.
A flood of candidates followed, all hoping to assume control of Miami-Dade’s $1 billion law enforcement budget, 5,000 or so sworn officers and police employees, the county Corrections and Rehabilitation Department’s $500 million budget and around 3,000 prison and jail workers.
The winner of the Nov. 5 General Election — one of the four Democratic candidates or the winner of an 11-person GOP Primary — will be responsible for leading the transition from county government to the independent Sheriff’s Office.
Not that the Mayor or County Commission wanted the handover to happen. In June 2022, Commissioners approved legislation backed by Levine Cava to allow the Mayor to keep control over the Miami-Dade Police Department (MDPD) in unincorporated areas.
The Florida Sheriffs Association quickly sued the county over the “power grab,” which lawmakers nullified last year through a pair of measures granting Sheriffs exclusive policing jurisdiction in unincorporated areas and shared authority in cities and special districts.
One way to maintain influence over the county’s law enforcement apparatus is to be in good standing with its Director, and that appears to be part of Levine Cava’s strategy with Reyes, with whom she shares a campaign team.
Reyes is amply qualified for the job. He has worked in law enforcement for nearly a quarter-century, including 22 years with the Broward County Sheriff’s Office, where he rose to the rank of colonel. He spent his last four years there as the agency’s Executive Director, a role in which he oversaw budgeting and finances.
He served as Broward’s jail warden, led development and training efforts at the Sheriff’s Office and helped create the county’s Real Time Crime Center after the 2018 mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.
Levine Cava hired him in 2022 to run Miami-Dade’s Corrections and Rehabilitation Department, which soon after emerged from being under federal oversight for the first time in a decade. Less than a month after Ramirez left the Sheriff’s race, Levine Cava promoted Reyes to Chief of Public Safety, a role in which he oversees the Police, Fire Rescue and Corrections Departments.
Reyes filed to run for Sheriff in January, and Levine Cava endorsed him less than a week later. The nod drew the ire of Barrow, who said the Mayor was disrespecting voters by trying to influence the race.
Other endorsements followed from Broward Sheriff Gregory Tony, numerous local elected leaders, the Kendall Federation PAC, South Florida PBA and AFSCME Florida, among others.
Reyes vows, if elected, to bring back Miami-Dade’s Public Corruption Unit to investigate malfeasant elected officials — a priority of Barrow’s as well — while upgrading the county’s policing technology and partnering with community groups to strengthen trust of officers.
He said his leadership of Miami-Dade’s Operation Summer Heat initiative led to 3,000 guns being removed from the street. A co-responder model he launched to deescalate police interactions with mentally unwell people will “all but (eliminate) the use of force in those instances,” he told the Miami Herald.
Despite being the last entrant in the Democratic Primary, Reyes has raised more money than his three opponents combined: $730,000 between his campaign account and political committee, Miami-Dade Safe & Secure.
Reyes, whose legal name is “Jems Reyes,” has faced criticism for the fact that he still lives in Broward. After security lapses last month during the Copa América Final at Hard Rock Stadium led to dozens of arrests, a more than one-hour delay of the game and many ticketholders being unable to gain entry because others had illegally taken their seats, Republican Sheriff candidate Joe Sanchez called for a review of Reyes’ role in the carnage.
In an interview with the Herald, Reyes said that no information prior to the event indicated that so many people without tickets would show up and cause trouble. He promised there would not be a repeat of the debacle when FIFA World Cup matches come to the county in 2026.
Mitchell, whose recent social media posts have been exclusively aimed at bashing Reyes, raised the second-most in the race. But of the $295,000 he’s added to his campaign coffers since filing in March 2023, 93% came from his bank account. County records show $500 came from Khoury.
If elected, he plans to prioritize community policing, invest in ongoing education and training of police and residents, and crack down on discrimination within the county police force and the communities it serves.
He pledges to have an open-door policy and to “swiftly and conclusively” address claims of corruption and excessive force.
For nearly four decades, Mitchell has owned and operated a funeral home business in Miami. His campaign website says he holds a doctorate in higher education, a law degree and a master’s degree in criminal justice.
Barrow, an 18-year MDPD veteran, amassed more than $116,000 since he entered the race in September. He also notched endorsements from SAVE Action PAC and former North Miami Council member Scott Galvin, who made history in 1999 as the city’s first openly gay elected official. Barrow is a member of the LGBTQ community.
His platform prioritizes gun violence reduction, enhanced police training, adding more law enforcement officers to the force and creating a non-officer response unit for calls involving homeless and mentally unwell people.
He said he’d establish a Public Corruption Unit on Day 1 to “root out corruption and help restore residents’ faith in their elected leaders and local government.”
Khoury, a community activist, worked as a federal law enforcement officer for about 12 years, beginning with the U.S. Marshals Service before transferring to the Federal Emergency Management Agency and Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
She retired in 2004, relocating from Washington, D.C., to Miami-Dade to take care of her mother.
Her community activism began in 2018 after a Miami-Dade Schools Police officer dislocated her elbow and arrested her while she was filming cars illegally parking in her neighborhood. She sued the county and ultimately was awarded more than half a million dollars in May 2022. By then, she’d helped spearhead an effort to resurrect a citizen-run county board to oversee and conduct police misconduct investigations.
The same year, she ran unsuccessfully for the Miami-Dade Commission.
Khoury told Florida Politics that as Sheriff, she would implement law enforcement reforms recommended in a report Barack Obama’s “Task Force on 21st Century Policing” published in 2015. Among other things, she wants to increase police accountability and hire and train 25 social workers and 25 mental health professionals to join officers during calls.
She also wants to make community policing, mental health and family accommodations major priorities. That includes providing therapy services to police personnel and incorporating a day care center at every station so officers “won’t have to worry about their families when they have to work an extra hour or two.”
Of the $58,000 she’s added to her campaign coffers since filing in September, nearly all of it came from her bank account.
A May poll by Reyes’ campaign found that he leads in popularity among all Sheriff candidates on either side of the political aisle, with 38.5% of voters saying they planned to cast ballots for him in a theoretical matchup with Republican MDPD Assistant Director Rosie Cordero-Stutz.
Notably, pollsters found Cordero-Stutz trailed far behind Sanchez in the GOP Primary, placing third behind retired Miami-Dade Police Maj. Mario Knapp.
