Florida Sheriff's Video Warning Heroin Dealers to 'Run' Goes Viral

Produced in-house, the video had more than 700,000 views on the Sheriff's Office's Facebook page and garnered more than 1,000 comments by Monday.

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(TNS) -- There's a new sheriff in town, and he is out with a stern videotaped message for Lake County, Fla., heroin dealers: "We are coming for you. Run."

Flanked by masked deputies wearing bulletproof vests, Lake County Sheriff Peyton Grinnell says in the video posted Friday on the agency's website that dealers linked to overdose fatalities "will be charged with murder" and asked for the community's help in capturing them.

"Enjoy trying to sleep tonight wondering if tonight's the night the SWAT team blows your front door off the hinges," Grinnell, a Republican who was elected in November, says in the video.

Produced in-house, the video had more than 700,000 views on the Sheriff's Office's Facebook page and garnered more than 1,000 comments by Monday. The clip also scored the sheriff an interview with the "Fox & Friends" television show Tuesday.

"It's really, you know, I guess they say -- gone viral," Grinnell said in an interview Monday with the Orlando Sentinel. "I'm just doing what I'm elected to do."

Some have said the deputies next to Grinnell remind them of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

Others say it looks like a clip from a terrorism video.



"What's with the ninjas?" read a Facebook post.

"Looks like an ISIS recruitment video," another person wrote on Facebook. "Suppose to protect & serve not intimidate & scare."

"Get em," wrote another person. "This goes for all across the country -- every county."

Lake County Commissioner Sean Parks said he appreciated Grinnell's hard-hitting posture toward heroin dealers.

"I think it might be tough for some," Parks said. "But it sends a tough message to those that are selling in our neighborhoods and destroying our community."

He added that Grinnell's video "is in line with President Donald Trump's focus on opioid abuse."

Last month, Trump appointed New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie to head the new Commission on Combating Drug Addiction and the Opioid Crisis.

Since October, Lake County has recorded 24 opioid-related overdoses, causing four deaths. Florida heroin fatalities have increased 279 percent from 2013 to 2015, according to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement.

The issue of heroin has come up "every time I talked with a civic organization" since he was elected, said Grinnell, who served as chief deputy under his predecessor, Gary Borders. "I realized that we need to take a proactive stance against this epidemic."

He said he's not worried about some of the reaction the video has generated.

"I've seen some of the comments where some wanted to say this looks like an ISIS video, and I will tell you that those drug agents working up there with me, they're the ones working in the dark world ... that's what they do on a daily basis," he said.

Grinnell has instituted several changes since taking office, including a more aggressive stance toward drunken driving and the formation of a Community Engagement Unit, which produced the video.

He said there will be "weekly, if not daily" public service announcements to let residents know about crime trends in the county.

This article was originally published in The Orlando Sentinel. 

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