Sheriff Grady Judd: Florida J6er family "sovereign" cell "has not been violent toward us"

The soft-on-crime Polk sheriff's sympathetic press conference about the Doolin/Pollock family cell speaks loudly about who he considers "us" -- and who he doesn't.

Dec. 9, 2022

The following exchange happened during a weird, subdued press conference in which Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd announced the arrest of 27-year-old Samuel Doolin of unincorporated North Lakeland. Samuel Doolin is the older brother of Capitol Lynch Mob defendant Joshua Doolin and cousin to Capitol Lynch Mob fugitive and accused cop-attacker Jonathan Pollock. Full background here on the charges against the Pollack/Doolin friends and family anti-American cell.

Reporter: How concerned are you with that family and their thought process being in your county in North lakeland?

Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd: Well there’s 750,000 people in the county and 20 million in the state of Florida Every now and then you’re gonna run across somebody who presents to be dangerous. This family by and large has not been violent toward us — ever. We’ve had traffic stops on some of the family. Given some traffic Samuel has chose to have this gun. But he wasn’t dangerous or violent toward us. He had the tools to be violent and dangerous but he wasn’t. Thank goodness. So at the end of the day we take everyone serious who poses a threat. Our statement to Mr. Doolin and to his family is: behave, follow the law. This law is created to protect all of us, the Doolins and the Pollocks and everybody else in the US

At the end of this article, I’ve reprinted two other recent Grady Judd public statements — of very very many — that excoriate the thought processes and “ideology” of people he doesn’t like. The juxtaposition with his shrug at the Doolin/Pollack cell is striking.

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In the last week, Lakeland Police and the Florida Highway Patrol have taken the initiative to protect the Lakeland-area public from drag-hating Nazi boys and a more immediately dangerous “sovereign” citizen, who is the older brother of a Capitol Lynch Mobbist.

This newest Doolin family threat, 27-year-old Samuel Doolin, was driving around Polk County defiantly without a tag, carrying an illegal arsenal of illegal automatic weapons he explicitly described as a violent deterrent against law enforcement officers. As a self-declared “sovereign,” Doolin claimed he answered only to Sheriff Grady Judd, the elected sheriff. He said this while refusing to comply with law enforcement orders.

Deputies with the Polk Sheriff’s Office arrived later to support the very alert and professional FHP trooper who stopped Doolin and perceived his threat. The trooper and deputies took great physical risk to detain Samuel Doolin. They had to approach Doolin — and his weapons designed to kill cops — with tactical shields. They had to tase him; and they had to bust out his rear windshield.

The account of those dangers came straight from the mouth of Sheriff Grady Judd during his Friday press conference to announce Doolin’s arrest.

I thank the intrepid trooper and supporting deputies for their prompt and risky professional law enforcement work. They protected my community and my family — my “us” — from heavily-armed, anti-American home-grown terrorism.

Yet, I remain flabbergasted and disgusted that Grady Judd — Polk County’s top law enforcement officer and most powerful elected official — will not criticize the ideology and morality and “thought process” of either the Nazi boys from two weekends ago or the Doolin/Pollack family cell of Capitol Lynch Mobbists.

Watch Grady tell us clearly who he is

Judd had ample chance to do so in the press conference he himself called to announce the Doolin arrest. Instead, he talked about the Doolin/Pollack family in the gentlest terms one could ever imagine for a law enforcement and representative government-threatening terror cell.

I’ve never seen a Grady Judd press conference in which Grady Judd showed so much sympathy for the well-being of the accused criminals and their wider culture of criminality.

Watch the whole thing, especially the Q&A at the end, and be honest with yourself about what you’re witnessing.

I suspect Grady’s core media advisors, who remain honorable people in an increasingly untenable moral position, pushed him do this press conference. It was the moral thing to do; and they’re moral people, I think.

But this was a colossal PR mistake — if anyone actually watched it closely.

The sheriff clearly did not want to be there. He was sullen throughout, showing none of his usual enthusiasm for violent rhetoric and Nazi-boy porn I wrote about in the last article. He offered up no joyous fantasies about turning a Doolin or Pollack into cheese or shooting off their junk or “blowing them out of doors.” None of Grady’s stupid Christmas-in-jail half-jokes landed. They were just awkward and uncomfortable.

And you can sum up this entire press conference in one sentence:

This family by and large has not been violent toward us — ever.

Beyond the Atlas-level lifting “by and large” does in that sentence, it’s the single most revealing thing Grady Judd has ever said.

Even the sycophantic reporters seemed perplexed that Grady wouldn’t answer their repeated softball questions about the threat the Doolin/Pollock family cell poses to society.

Who is the “us”?

Grady seems to be talking about law enforcement when he says “us” — but that’s obviously not true. The Doolin/Pollock family cell is accused of participating in one of most violent public assaults on police in American history, one that left officers dead and maimed.

So maybe he just means they haven’t been violent to uniformed Polk County Sheriff’s deputies, specifically, in Polk County.

Well congratulations on your immunity, sheriff. You’re in the Doolin/Pollock “sovereign” circle, just as they’re in yours.

Indeed, based on his press conference, I have to conclude Grady Judd himself would have handled that traffic stop much differently than the FHP trooper did — sending “sovereign” Doolin on his way with a wink and a warning to “behave.”

But the rest of us, who aren’t “sovereign,” consider driving around with illegal arsenals of illegal automatic weapons explicitly designed to kill police officers a barely latent form of nihilistic violence that could visit us at anytime.

Grady Judd told everyone clearly in that press conference how breathtakingly small — yet open to criminality — his “us” really is. And yes, he was talking to Republicans who don’t hate non-Republicans or RINOs, too.

Bottom line: if you don’t own an AR-15 arsenal or a “Let’s Go Brandon” flag on your truck, you are not in Grady Judd’s “us.”

He’ll take your tax money; but he’ll only protect you from his “us” if an alert FHP trooper forces him to. And even then, he won’t do it morally.

If you do own an AR-15 arsenal and a “Let’s Go Brandon” flag, you can count on Grady Judd for public sympathy, tolerance, and protection of your “thought process,” no matter what you actually do or believe.

Maybe this is why Grady Judd can’t get a handle on Polk’s murder rate spike

Judd’s references to Pollack — cousin to Samuel and Joshua Doolin, indicted Capitol Lynch Mob cop-beater, and fugitive from justice — are … something.

Here’s how Judd answered after reporters ask him if the Doolin arrest might help find the Doolin cousin Pollock:

I don’t know whether or not Jonathan Pollack is his cousin or not. If he is, he is.

What stunningly lazy and indifferent investigative oversight and knowledge from Polk County’s top law enforcement officer. He doesn’t know or care — or at least pretends not to.

It’s pathetically incurious and soft on crime.

Perhaps that soft-on-crime “mindset” helps explain Judd’s “eat a moon pie” indifference to his 70 percent rate murder rate spike, the largest for any big Florida county. Perhaps it explains his moral and legal protection of Polk School Board Member Rick Nolte, the Ron DeSantis-endorsed, self-described campaign felon, who is fond of writing Facebook posts about “developing” T.I.T.S.

If you are in Judd’s circle of “us,” you can attack legitimate American government and law enforcement without any fear of political or moral judgement or criticism of your “thought process” from Grady Judd.

You can openly declare crimes and write “T.I.T.S. needed to be more developed” manifestos, as Nolte has, and still be given power over children with Ron DeSantis’ blessing and Gray Judd’s silence.

If you’re not in that circle of “us,” Grady Judd will try to dictate what your children can read or publicly target you as a “groomer” or otherwise dominate how you live with his dystopian lies and violent ideas about society. He will demand to co-parent with you.

That does nothing to protect any Polk citizen from murder. Indeed, it encourages murder, not to mention illiteracy.

Nobody decent cares what’s best for the Doolins or Jonathan Pollock, Grady

Grady went on to talk about Jonathan Pollock as if the sheriff is a football coach talking to a wayward 16-year player accused of shoplifting. It’s all about teaching a young man life lesson — not neutralizing a dangerous, cop-beating, violent coup participant now on the lam.

The bottom line is he can have this looming over his head for however many years he wants to. The charges aren’t going away. It would be much better for him to turn himself in. Man up. Take responsibility. Use your lawyer; go to court. If he did nothing wrong he’ll be found not guilty. And if he did, he’ll pay the price.

Listen to Grady.

He likes this young fugitive Capitol Lynch Mobbist. He wants what’s best for him. You know it and I know it. Listen to him. I wonder if Grady’s ever met Pollock — or knows him personally. It would not surprise me.

And what’s the worst thing Grady can bring himself to say about Pollock’s cousin Doolin, the supposed former Army Ranger with an arsenal explicitly, illegally designed to kill cops who are not sheriffs?

He has a “screw loose.”

Several times Judd even seems to lament that good ‘ol Doolin could have kept his illegal cop-killing arsenal if he had just obeyed the FHP trooper who made the traffic stop — as if that would have been fine. Watch and listen for yourself.

Why does anyone, much less the top Polk County law enforcement, care what’s best for Jonathan Pollock or Samuel Doolin?

Law enforcement leaders should care about what’s best for the law-abiding citizens and communities Pollock and his family cell threaten. They should care about the society the Doolin/Pollock cell openly rejects with firearms modified to more efficiently kill the police whose authority they don’t recognize.

Why doesn’t Grady Judd?

Grady is now openly dangerous; but thankfully, his deputies seem much more professional as a whole

If I were an honorable public affairs person suffering through this deteriorating, late-career Grady Judd, the failure to address “T.I.T.S.” Nolte in any way would have already pushed me to resign.

But that “us” quote would force me to resign.

It’s that indefensible.

I don’t know what to about this but say it: a Grady Judd who is openly sympathetic to the Doolin/Pollock family terror cell, who believes they’ve “by and large” never been violent to “us,” is a menace to our society in the same way the Doolin/Pollock family is.

At this point in his life, I think this Grady Judd is capable of doing basically anything to someone not in his “us.” And I just want to write that now to document that I said it for posterity — just in case.

I also want to thank Lakeland police, FHP troopers, and Grady’s actual deputies for their professionalism in handling the Nazi boys and the cop-abusing Pollock/Doolin cell. Thank you for treating them as the nihilistic, anti-social threats they are.

We will just have to keep hoping Grady’s professional deputies and — and non-elected police agencies led by those who don’t hate the people they’re supposed to serve — keep standing between our “us” and Grady’s “us.”

Destroying Grady’s false mythology for the historical record is the best I can do

I think this is who Grady Judd has always been; but his late career deterioration and loss of emotional control are revealing a bitter, crankish viciousness that his fake folksy charm and media savvy long obscured. All of you know it — even those who have enjoyed the persona or loved the man in the past.

I would love to stop writing about Grady Judd and the threats he both poses and ignores in my community. But he won’t do his job and won’t get out of everybody’s life. So I can’t stop. Those of us not in Grady’s tiny, anti-social “us” cannot afford to ignore him.

Today, Grady Judd is just Ed Shoemaker or Saga Stevin or J.C. Martin (or maybe a Jonathan Pollack or an Elon Musk) with unlimited power and weaponry and access to TV cameras and microphones. Think about that.

I can’t stop him.

Nobody can, really.

Grady’s public persona, built up over years of total impunity and leading NewsChannel 8’s broadcasts with violent humor, cannot be penetrated at scale with reality because media and politicians are unwilling or unable to try to penetrate it.

I’m not unwilling to try, although I know the limits of my power quite well.

Most people are still pretending the polished Grady of 10 years ago is still here with us. And Ron DeSantis agrees with Grady about Doolin, Pollock, Nolte, and the Nazi boys. So he won’t do anything, obviously. He won’t even remove Nolte.

But I can tell you the truth about Grady Judd in public — and provide a record, not a sound bite, for his grandchildren to read years from now about the type of sheriff and man he was.

And you can judge by his very uncharacteristic silence toward me whether he knows it’s true.

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Here are the quotes I referenced at the beginning, which make such powerful context for the sympathetic treatment of the Doolin/Pollock “thought process.” We’ll dive into the second one in a future article.

June 1, 2020

This is from a much-hyped press conference amid George Floyd protests. This happened a day after Judd invented a “riot” in Lakeland that didn’t happen, where no fires were set, no one was hurt, nothing was stolen, and their was no property damage. In this presser and statement, Judd was amplifying a white supremacist hoax about “threats” from “Antifa,” with true venom dripping from his mouth. More specific background here.

“The people of Polk County like guns. They have guns. I encourage them to own guns. And they’re going to be in their homes tonight with their guns loaded. And if you try to break into their homes to steal, to set fires, I’m highly recommending they blow you back out of the house with their guns.”

Oct. 7, 2022

Here is Grady Judd explaining to a constituent in a letter why he wants access to Toni Morrison’s Beloved and other books restricted. He falsely accuses their authors of trying to “groom” children.

“I can tell you with a great deal of professional experience, there are passages [in the books he wanted restricted] designed specifically to desensitize the developing child’s mind and to groom children for unhealthy sexual engagement ideology.”

By contrast, Sheriff Grady “unhealthy sexual engagement ideology” Judd has had nothing at all to say about this piece of literature from sitting DeSantis-endorsed GOP Polk School Board Member Rick Nolte:

Obviously, the sheriff considers “T.I.T.S.” Nolte to have a healthy “sexual engagement ideology.”

He should explain why.