Sheriff Grady Judd is a high-profile, beloved figure in Polk County, but his public persona and storytelling should not be mistaken for the day-to-day reality on our streets; he is not the person making arrests or interacting with residents face‑to‑face, and those deputies deserve the same scrutiny as anyone else.
Too many in our community have grown skeptical of deputies because of repeated allegations of misconduct and conflicting accounts between officers and the people they stop, and that skepticism is not limited to any one neighborhood or race—white residents report problems just as often, which makes this clearly an accountability issue, not a racial one.
We’ve been so normalized to the sheriff’s sideshow-style press and viral moments that transparency gets traded for entertainment, and a funny or dramatic narrative from the top does not equal the full truth.
The bystander video showing a deputy with a boot on a person’s neck for what appears to be an extended time raises urgent questions about protocol: it is not routine to keep someone prone and unsecured…