Q+A with Jay Romine

Jay Romine, director of Manatee Technical College’s law enforcement program, is the new chairman of Florida’s Criminal Justice Training Center Directors Association. The appointment means the 54-year-old Mill Creek resident and Manatee County native’s reach will expand beyond the school to law enforcement training centers throughout the state.

Romine served as a police officer in Palmetto from 1979 to 1981 before joining the Holmes Beach Police Department in December 1983, where he stayed until retiring as police chief in January 2013.

Romine shares details about his new role and what he hopes to pass along to law enforcement’s next generation.

Q: What does your new position entail?
A: I’ll oversee the 39 other directors of law enforcement training centers at technical schools, community colleges and other institutions throughout the state. There’s a little travel involved, but I’ll mostly work with the directors electronically between quarterly meetings.

Q: When did you know you wanted to be a police officer?
A: It’s a funny thing. People in law enforcement say they always wanted to be an officer. That really was the case for me. My brother-in-law took travel accident pictures for the Florida Highway Patrol. He’d drive up and down U.S. 41 and would wait for the radio to tell him there was an incident. Sometimes, I’d ride with him. I became really interested in traffic and developed a huge desire to be a part of it somehow. Then, on my 18th birthday, I went on a ride along on a 4 p.m. to midnight shift…That ride shaped my police officer philosophy that I still live by today.

Q: What’s your police officer philosophy?
A: Just because you have a badge and a ticket book doesn’t mean you have to use it all the time. I learned that firsthand when I watched (Officer Mike Rushing) pull over three different drivers on S.R. 70. The first two drivers were speeding, and he issued tickets for both of them. Then, we drove further east on S.R. 70, and he gives a warning to the speeder going the most over the speed limit. Rushing said he saw a baby in the backseat. He looked dirty and didn’t have any shoes on. He said he knew that $25 ticket wasn’t going to come out of a beer fund; that money was going to come out of money for that baby.

Q: In what scenario did you often issue citations?
A: I’m not flexible with speeding in school zones. That’s unacceptable.

Q: Do you remember your first shift alone as an officer?
A: I vividly remember it. Everyone today goes through field training. But, 36 years ago, we didn’t know what that was. We had a handgun, a badge and a ticket book. I remember pulling out of the Palmetto station and all that was next to me was a briefcase. That was the, “What do I do?” moment.

Q: Did you have role models throughout your career?
A: My first night in the law enforcement academy at MTI, Ted Litschauer walks in. His suit was pressed and he looked the part...I thought that was how an officer should look.

Mike Rushing, whom I ended up replacing at MTC after he retired in 2012, taught me about philosophy and compassion, and A.E. Gene “The Chief” Hambacher hired me for my first full-time law enforcement job at the Palmetto Police Department in 1979. He was a man of few words, but he taught me about the importance of honesty.

When he interviewed me, he knew I wanted a position at the Holmes Beach Police Department. He asked if I would take that position if it were offered to me after I was already hired in Palmetto. I said yes.

Afterward, I thought maybe that wasn’t a great thing to say. Years later, he said if I lied, he would never have hired me.

Q: What do you hope to teach law enforcement trainees?
A: I want them to learn that community policing means more than writing tickets. It means learning your route — observing the typical crowd and taking note if something seems out of place. An officer should have a certain level of empathy, too. Ultimately, the goal of an officer is compliance with the law. A good officer can get someone to comply by giving them a warning, just as they could with issuing a ticket.

—Amanda Sebastiano