{"id":434185,"date":"2026-10-22T00:50:08","date_gmt":"2026-10-22T00:50:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/434185\/"},"modified":"2026-10-22T00:50:08","modified_gmt":"2026-10-22T00:50:08","slug":"miami-dade-sheriffs-office-132000-cowboy-hat-order-draws-mixed-reactions-this-is-all-part-of-the-rebranding","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/434185\/","title":{"rendered":"Miami-Dade Sheriff’s Office $132,000 cowboy hat order draws mixed reactions: “This is all part of the rebranding”"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Miami-Dade Sheriff’s Office<\/a> has ordered 1,000 cowboy hats for deputies at a total cost of $132,000, drawing mixed reactions from voters and prompting officials to defend the purchase.<\/p>\n

The hats cost $132 each. The sheriff’s office says they are optional and will be paid for from its existing uniform budget.<\/p>\n

A social media video of deputies putting on a cowboy hat and passing it along drew attention to the new uniform option. Sheriff Rosie Cordero Stutz appears at the end.<\/p>\n

“We’ve always worn a badge. Now we’re adding a sheriff style to it,” Cordero Stutz says in the video.<\/p>\n

Some residents questioned the spending.<\/p>\n

“My paycheck, our taxes, and as a 20-plus-year resident, I’m very disappointed,” said Eliseo Abreus, a Miami-Dade<\/a> voter.<\/p>\n

Voter Beatriz Morejon Paniaga, speaking in Spanish, acknowledged the cost but said she did not think the hats were a bad idea if they help protect deputies.<\/p>\n

Stedman Stahl, president of the South Florida<\/a> Police Benevolent Association, supports the purchase and called it part of the agency’s rebranding.<\/p>\n

“This is all part of the rebranding,” Stahl said.<\/p>\n

He also pointed to the practical benefits of a wider brim for deputies who work outdoors, particularly those directing traffic in the heat. Comparing the cowboy hat with a baseball cap, he said the hat gives more coverage.<\/p>\n

“Your ears are going to burn up, your neck will get burned up,” he said of wearing a baseball cap in the sun. “This gives you a lot more protection.”<\/p>\n

Stahl also said Cordero Stutz has saved the county money through other uniform decisions. At a news conference with Gov. Ron DeSantis<\/a>, Cordero Stutz said that keeping the agency’s existing brown uniforms, rather than switching to green, avoided about $4.8 million in costs. She said the hats fall within the uniform funds deputies receive each year.<\/p>\n

In a statement to CBS News Miami, the sheriff’s office repeated that the purchase does not require a new budget allocation.<\/p>\n

“The cowboy hat is an optional addition to our deputies’ authorized uniforms, not a new budget item,” the statement reads. “It is purchased using funds already allocated in our existing uniform budget.”<\/p>\n

The agency said deputies may also choose to wear no hat.<\/p>\n

In:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Miami-Dade Sheriff’s Office has ordered 1,000 cowboy hats for deputies at a total cost of $132,000, drawing…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":434186,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[123,125,124,26203,8181,807],"class_list":["post-434185","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-miami","tag-miami","tag-miami-headlines","tag-miami-news","tag-miami-dade-sheriff","tag-police-officers","tag-south-florida"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/434185","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=434185"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/434185\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/434186"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=434185"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=434185"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=434185"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}