{"id":125449,"date":"2026-01-20T21:58:07","date_gmt":"2026-01-20T21:58:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/125449\/"},"modified":"2026-01-20T21:58:07","modified_gmt":"2026-01-20T21:58:07","slug":"st-lucie-county-sheriffs-marine-unit-expanding-to-enhance-water-safety","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/125449\/","title":{"rendered":"St. Lucie County Sheriff’s marine unit expanding to enhance water safety"},"content":{"rendered":"

ST. LUCIE COUNTY, Fla. (CBS12) \u2014 In St. Lucie County, extra efforts are underway to keep you safe on the water. The sheriff\u2019s office will start allowing deputies to cross-train for their marine unit.<\/p>\n

Public safety doesn\u2019t stop when the water gets rough. In fact, that’s when the St. Lucie County Sheriff’s<\/a> marine unit springs into action.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of people don’t know what they’re doing. They just got boats, are new to it. So, we’re telling them the speed zones, how to find out, how to become educated, how to get the knowledge on to be a safe boat operator. We do a lot of rescues, assist to kayakers, paddle boarders,\u201d said Marine Deputy Britt Reynolds. “We work with a lot of animals. We work a lot of injured animals.”<\/p>\n

But it\u2019s only a team of three doing all that — covering 22 miles of coastline between Indian River and Martin Counties.<\/p>\n

“We are capable of doing everything by ourselves, but it’s very difficult at times,\u201d said Deputy Reynolds.<\/p>\n

See also: Inside the St. Lucie County Sheriff’s Office: Growth puts spotlight on public safety<\/a><\/p>\n

Reynolds says that’s because the marine unit doesn’t operate like standard road patrol or other units.<\/p>\n

“The first thing is that our boats don’t have park, that’s what I always say. We’re fighting the winds, we’re fighting currents, everything like that. So, if I\u2019m actually tied up to boat and engage and I\u2019m by myself, that’s kind of a hard situation to do,\u201d said Reynolds. “We don’t have backup, like on road patrol, that can get to us in a heartbeat.”<\/p>\n

\"InIn St. Lucie County, extra efforts are underway to keep you safe on the water. The sheriff\u2019s office will start allowing deputies to cross-train for their marine unit. (WPEC)<\/p>\n

But that’s changing soon.<\/p>\n

The sheriff’s office is launching a program called the ‘Tactical Marine Operator’ Program (TMO).<\/p>\n

“If it’s something besides operating a boat and you need another set of hands, that’s where it’s a big asset, or even if something’s major going on and I get hurt or something, then I\u2019ve got someone else on the boat that can drive it in,\u201d said Reynolds. \u201cSo, the Tactical Marine Officers Program will be zone deputies who can respond to certain areas where we could pick them up quickly. They can jump on the boat, and then they’re with us.”<\/p>\n

TMO’s will go through an interview process, be required to pass a swim test, and be trained on boater education and marine knowledge.<\/p>\n

“We\u2019re just looking forward to having additional help again, because it just spreads it, and that also opens a gateway to have more permanent, full-time people here, so that if we do lose somebody, we’ve already got people pre-trained that can come over,\u201d said Deputy Reynold.<\/p>\n

At this time, it\u2019s unclear how many deputies will be cross-trained. But we\u2019re told any extra set of hands will be a big help.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ST. LUCIE COUNTY, Fla. (CBS12) \u2014 In St. Lucie County, extra efforts are underway to keep you safe…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":125450,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[171,173,172],"class_list":["post-125449","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-port-st-lucie","tag-port-st-lucie","tag-port-st-lucie-headlines","tag-port-st-lucie-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125449","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=125449"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125449\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/125450"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=125449"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=125449"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=125449"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}