The Florida county police chief said he will entrust gun owners in his community with vigilance to quell any violent protests that his officers cannot handle on their own.
Clay County Police Department chief Darryl Daniels gave no indication in a three-minute video released Wednesday that there were any planned protests in his county located in suburban Jacksonville. Daniels also said he would protect any peaceful protest, but added that if someone starts to “destroy Clay County, that will not be acceptable.”
“If we cannot deal with you, I will exercise power and authority as the chief of police and appoint each legal gun owner in the county as special agents and appoint them for this sole purpose: to place themselves between illegality and civility,” Daniels said. , wearing a white cowboy hat in front of 18 officers.
Daniels, who is African American, said in the video that his department has a “great relationship” with residents, but “if you come to Clay County and think for a second that we will back down for you, you are very wrong.”
“The moment they come out of the protection of the Constitution, we will be waiting for them and we will give them everything they want: all the publicity, all the pain, all the glamor and glory for five minutes.”
Daniels, a Republican who is concluding his term, faces six adversaries in the next election. He is also the subject of an investigation by the Florida Police Department after his former employer, the Jacksonville Police Department, announced last year that he had an affair with a co-worker while operating the prisons. Daniels, who is married, was accused of having done so after the woman was falsely arrested. He issued an apology, but said he would not discuss the details.
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