CORRUPT SHERIFF's DAUGHTER RETIRES

St. Augustine Police Department Commander MICHELLE PERRY is retiring from St. Augustine Police Department. 

PERRY is the daughter of the late legendary louche corrupt St. Johns County Sheriff NEIL PERRY.
PERRY's mother, SYDNEY, ran the ISSUES GROUP, which helped foreign-funded "developers" pick their stable of whores on St. Johns County Commission, electing uncritical other-directed Republican hick hack shills to rubber-stamp tree-killing, wetland-killing projects, with some 70,000 homes authorized by St. Johns County Commission.

The PERRYS and their developer clients vetted and chose Commissioners like JAMES EDWARD BRYANT, CYNDI STEVENSON, BRUCE MAGUIRE, KAREN STERN and MARC JACALONE -- not a critical thinker or independent decision maker among them.  We will rue the day that the ISSUES GROUP and this Confederacy of Dunces made bad development decisions, tending to turn St. Johns County into an unreasonable facsimile of South Florida.

For at least a decade, political cognoscenti reliable informants believed that MICHELLE PERRY would be duked in as police chief, then Sheriff. She was being groomed for it. She even spoke to the Enterprising Women's Leadership Institution (EWLI), looking like a prospective political candidate.

But City Manager John Patrick Regan, P.E. chose Commander Barry Fox to succeed Police Chief Loren Lueders, effective December 1, 2016.

So now MICHELLE PERRY's quitting, claiming her retiring has nothing to do with her not being promoted to Police Chief.

I don't believe her.

Do you?

During anti-war protests, Commander MICHELLE PERRY routinely coerced, restrained and intimidated First Amendment protected activity at the foot of the Bridge of Lions, yelling at protesters, including septuagenarians and octogenarians, once ordering that no metal yard sign anti-war posters be stuck in the City's precious dirt -- only a few feet away from an ice cream vendor's sign, which she did not molest. PERRY had a reputation for unfriendliness, meanness, discrimination and violence.

PERRY will not be missed. Not one little bit.  Good riddance.

Michele Perry to retire from St. Augustine Police Department

Posted: July 28, 2016 - 12:02am  |  Updated: July 28, 2016 - 5:01am

Perry_Michele

By JARED KEEVER

jared.keever@staugustine.com

After more than 25 years with the St. Augustine Police Department, Cmdr. Michele Perry, says she is leaving for work in the private sector. 

“I got a job offer I just couldn’t refuse,” she said Wednesday. 

Sitting behind her nearly empty desk, with the walls of her office now bare, Perry said leaving is bittersweet. 

“It’s a little sad and scary ... [but] I’m happy,” she said. “It’s just a litany of emotions you go through because this is my family.

“It was probably one of the more difficult decisions I’ve ever had to make.” 

Her last day is Friday.

Perry didn’t give a lot of details about her new job, but said it would include some traveling and that she would be working for an organization that helps “rehabilitate victims of all types of human trafficking.”

“This gives me the opportunity to step outside of the box and help victims all over the world, not just the people of St. Augustine,” she said. 

Perry’s exit marks the third retirement this year from the city police department’s command staff and the loss of more than 100 years of collective experience. 

Cmdr. Stephen Fricke — who was the city’s longest-serving employee — retired in March after 42 years. That announcement came just after news that Chief Loran Lueders is planning to step down at the end of November and that newly appointed Asst. Chief Barry Fox will be taking over.

Lueders has been with the department for 35 years. 

Perry, who is the daughter of former St. Johns County Sheriff Neil J. Perry, said that becoming chief of the city department had been a goal of hers.

“I told my field training officer I was going to be chief one day,” she said, recalling her first days on the job.

But, she said, missing out on the promotion earlier this year has nothing to do with her retirement and that she is looking forward to the challenges of a job outside law enforcement. 

“God has a reason ... maybe it was to do this job,” Perry said of her decision to take a new path. 

Lueders told The Record on Wednesday that Perry would be missed and that she had been a “trendsetter” within the department and the first female officer to be promoted to sergeant and commander. 

“It pulls on your heartstrings to lose people,” Lueders said. 

“She’s done an outstanding job for us, and we wish her well,” he added. 

While he acknowledged the loss of what he called “institutional knowledge” with the three retirements, he said he is hopeful that efforts made in “succession planning” would leave the department in good hands.

Perry, who has recently been working to help the department achieve accreditation, seemed to think it would be.

“It’s been a pleasure and an honor to serve the citizens where I grew up,” she said. “I’m very proud of being a member of the St. Augustine Police Department. It’s an excellent agency.”