Officer from New Hampshire details his move to Florida: ‘No brainer.’

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. – Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody launched the “Sunshine Salute Sit-down Series” that is designed to highlight out-of-state police officers who joined Florida law enforcement.

In the first episode, Moody sat down with Deputy Geoff Moore from the Pinellas County Sheriff’s office. Moore came from New Hampshire.

“The fact that Florida is just so well-known for supporting its law enforcement and how well we’re treated here in the state of Florida made it a no-brainer for us,” he said.

“I worked for the city of Rochester, New Hampshire, and then I worked briefly for the county up north,” he said. “They passed a bail reform law that essentially released 95%, if not higher, of your arrests back out onto the street, immediately.”

Moore said that it felt as if people he arrested were “walking out of the booking room” before he was even done filing their paperwork.

Moody discussed legislation that Florida has passed relating to bond and bail enforcement in order to “ensure that repeat offenders and violent criminals” aren’t simply released back into the community after being arrested.

“With a policy like that getting passed in the state of Florida, you’re working towards a goal,” Moore said.

“You can’t necessarily change people’s behavior,” he said. “So if someone gets out and they’re going to reoffend, they’re going to reoffend. But now they have to answer for what they did by staying in jail.”

He also mentioned that the morale in the Pinellas County Sheriff’s office is “Incredible” and he doesn’t feel like he works with people who hate what they do.

Moore said that if officers from other states want to stay in their career, moving to Florida is “what you need.”

“I don’t think it’s realistic to expect somebody to do 20-25 years in a climate that just doesn’t have the support like the state of Florida does,” he said. “And I don’t think you’d find another state that has more outright support of it’s law enforcement officers than Florida.”

“Everybody in the northeast knows that Florida supports their law enforcement,” Moore said during a press briefing with Moody.

“We will continue to capitalize on other states where they have failed to show the requisite support to their men and women in law enforcement, and we will show why Florida should be their new home,” Moody said.

According to a press release from the attorney general’s office, the series will include officers from other states such as New York and California who left their communities due to local governments adopting “soft-on-crime policies” and showing a lack of support for law enforcement.