Mike Chitwood Sworn In As Sheriff Of Volusia County

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Volusia County, FL - Mike Chitwood was sworn in as Sheriff of Volusia County on Tuesday, January 3.

After the ceremony, he held his 1st press conference as Sheriff and touched on some of the issues he said would be the focus of his administration.

One of the things Chitwood frequently touched on during his campaign was pay. "I'm gonna work hard to do everything I can within my budget now to come up with innovative ways to save money that we can use to better pay our deputies," said Chitwood. According to Chitwood, law enforcement officers should be paid more because they're the ones putting their lives on the line every day and they're the ones working when no one else is.

In a speech he gave during the ceremony, Chitwood said during his time as Sheriff he was going to stress the sanctity of human life. He wants to make sure his deputies get home safely every night, but he also wants to make sure criminals make it safely to jail.

During the post-ceremony press conference, he discussed his plans to better engage with and protect migrant communities in West Volusia. "We are going to reach out to the head of the migrant workers to set up focus groups with them where we can sit down and explain what we want to do, how we want to help the community."

Another focus of Chitwood's is implementing technology to help law enforcement officers find and catch criminals. "The more information we can get in the hands of the deputies and the officers, the better decisions they can make," he said. "To give you an anecdotal story, we had a bank robbery at the Wells Fargo at Clyde and ISB. Within 10 minutes the analysts had identified the car that was used, by then the video came over from the bank with facial recognition and identified who he was, and the guy was in custody in 15 minutes."

Copyright Southern Stone Communications 2016.