Pasco County Sheriff's Office

The Pasco County Sheriff's Office (PSO) is the law enforcement agency responsible for Pasco County, Florida. It is the largest law enforcement agency within the county, and serves as a full service law enforcement agency for the over 600,000 citizens of Pasco County, Florida.

History
The current Sheriff is Chris Nocco, who was appointed by Governor Rick Scott. Former Sheriff Bob White announced his early retirement effective May 1, 2011. On April 25, 2011, Florida governor Rick Scott appointed Major Chris Nocco to fulfill the remaining two years left on Sheriff White's term. Nocco ran unopposed in the 2020 election cycle, securing another four-year term.

In February 2015, the Pasco Sheriff's Office (PSO) was the first Sheriff's Office in the central Florida region to adopt a full-scale body camera program. The PSO issued a body-worn camera manufactured by TASER Inc to every one of its Deputy Sheriffs on patrol in the county.

In 2016 the Pasco Sheriff's Office developed a new hashtag called the "#9PMROUTINE" to remind people to lock their doors. This hashtag ended up being very successful for the sheriff's office as they saw thefts from vehicles drop by about 35% in just a few months. The hashtag got so popular that the sheriff's office ended up copyrighting the hashtag that now over 100 different sheriff and police departments use across the country. The reason for the copyright is so it "doesn't get used for bad" according to the sheriff's office. The Pasco Sheriff's Office now posts the "#9PMROUTINE" every night on their social media pages and has been since 2016.

In November 2020, the Pasco County Sheriff's Office got into controversy after an article was posted by the Tampa Bay Times highlighting how the Sheriff's Office was using Pasco County Schools district data, students grades, and students abuse history to predict "future criminal behavior". According to the Pasco County Sheriff's Office there were four hundred and twenty kids on the list and how the program goes back 20 years. The Pasco County Sheriff's Office then put out a statement defending the program saying "the list is used only to help the deputies assigned to middle and high schools offer mentorship and resources to students". Ten "law enforcement experts" still questioned the sheriff's justification for going through thousands of students education and child-welfare records, calling the program "highly unusual" and that it "stretched the limits of the law". In 2021, the Pasco County Sheriff's Office was sued by a family that alleged harassment against them after the PSO identified the son in the family as a likely future criminal using his school district data, and the police proceeded to interact frequently with the family. The PSO program has been subject to widespread criticism from civil rights experts and legal experts.

In the opinion of American University law professor Andrew Ferguson, "They basically built this system as a justification to chase the bad kids out of town, to monitor them in over-aggressive ways with no intention to help them but to make their lives so miserable that they would leave." Tampa Bay Times printed their own opinion, that this form of policing is "more like terrorism" or communism with total disregard to human rights and the Constitution.

TV Appearances
The Pasco County Sheriff's Office has starred in two hit television shows. In 2015 the TV show Cops (TV program) filmed with the Pasco County Sheriff's Office for 8 weeks in hopes of highlighting the deputies work and to bring in new recruitment. Then in late 2017 the Pasco County Sheriff's Office signed a deal with A&E Network to take part in there new TV show Live PD. The sheriff's office took part in this show for 2 years with the show bringing them lots of new followers on their social media sites and revenue on merchandise that they sold to fans of the sheriff's office. They did receive some backlash as local county commissioners Jack Mariano and Kathryn Starkey questioned if the show was bringing a bad look to the county and was worried it would cause investors to not want to do business in Pasco based on what they saw on Live PD. Shortly after, the sheriff's office said they were debating if they were going to renew their contract with Live PD. Then after 2 seasons and 2 years on the show on March 9, 2019, the Pasco County Sheriff's Office put out a Facebook post saying it was their last night live on the show and they wanted to give the spot to another agency.