Latest news with #TommyFord
Yahoo
5 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Bay County Chamber of Commerce hosting annual Hurricane Preparedness Seminar
PANAMA CITY, Fla. (WMBB) – As hurricane season approaches, the Bay County Chamber of Commerce is taking action to ensure the community is ready. The 2025 Hurricane Preparedness Seminar will take place Friday, June 6, at FSU Panama City. The seminar will begin at 10:30 a.m. and will be open to the community. Admission is $20 per person with lunch included. The annual event has become an essential resource for individuals and businesses seeking to prepare and recover from the impacts of a hurricane. June 1 marks the start of the 2025 Atlantic Hurricane season According to a news release, with an overwhelming number of attendees last year, the chamber is once again bringing together top-tier experts to educate and inform. The featured speakers will include Chief Matthew Lindewirth, Sheriff Tommy Ford, Chief Meteorologist Chris Smith, and Sheryl Parker. This year's seminar will cover: 2025 Hurricane season predictions, insurance coverage guidance, home & business preparedness, business continuity planning, available community resources before and after a storm, and more. 'Our goal is to help our residents and business community stay safe and resilient,' Director of Foundation at the Bay County Chamber Lisa Moore said. The Chamber has decided to add vendor spaces this year. It will offer local businesses an opportunity to showcase services that support storm preparation and recovery. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
16-05-2025
- Yahoo
WATCH: BCSO holds news conference about ‘Operation Staycation'
PANAMA CITY, Fla. (WMBB) — Sheriff Tommy Ford held a news conference Friday morning at 10 AM at the Bay County Sheriff's Office. Sheriff Ford discussed details of Operation Staycation, a joint operation between The Bay County Sheriff's Office, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security Investigations/ICE, the U. S. Department of Justice, The Panama City Beach Police Department, the Florida Highway Patrol, The Panama City Police Department, and the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
21-03-2025
- General
- Yahoo
BCSO officials remind the community about their special needs registry
BAY COUNTY, Fla. (WMBB) – The Bay County Sheriff's Office special needs registry allows deputies to arrive on the scene with information on individuals with special needs. Sheriff Tommy Ford says the more information a deputy has, the better they can handle a situation. 'There are certain people that have certain things that triggers them. Like sirens and things like that. So if we know that ahead of time, we could turn off the sirens or certain ways that we may be able to to speak to an individual with special needs,' Ford said. Ford says the idea came from a Bay real-time operations center analyst. The program was running by the end of 2023. 'They fill out a form on the county sheriff's office website and that goes into a database that we have. We put are able to put an address alert. So if we're called to that address, it will show that this person's in the special needs registry and we're able to bring that information up and preferably the family member can say, you know, this person that they're missing or you're responding to a certain situation that they're in the special needs registry,' Ford said. Sheriff Ford says since the start of the program, just over a hundred individuals have signed up. But he knows there's still more people the program could reach. Ford says not only is it easy to register, but there's limited restrictions to encourage the community to take advantage of the program. 'This is a very open program in that we don't narrowly define who can sign up for this. It's basically up to the individual or their family to sign them up for this. It could be a patient with Alzheimer's or dementia. It could be an autistic child or an autistic person really anybody that they think we need additional information on,' Ford said. Ford says the information is confidential and they hope to advance the database in the near future to bring up the information on a map. That way if there's a situation, deputies can be sensitive to the needs of people in that area, and have family member's contact information at their disposal. To sign up for the special needs registry, click here. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
20-02-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Bay County Sheriff's Office assists ICE in arrest of 45 illegal aliens
BAY COUNTY, Fla. (WMBB) – The Trump Administration has a number of priorities, but securing the border and deporting illegal immigrants is near the top of the list. Federal immigration and customs enforcement has welcomed help from local law enforcement, like the Bay County Sheriff's Office. Last week the sheriff's office executed a search warrant in Panama City Beach where they say they seized 1 pound of fentanyl. Florida State Panama City Hosts Annual Black History Event They arrested an illegal immigrant charging him with the distribution of fentanyl. They say they also discovered two other people were in the country illegally. They were arrested on Monday. Bay County Sheriff Tommy Ford says they'll be able to help even more, once ICE institutes its local officer training program. Since Donald Trump took office in January, Bay County Sheriff's deputies have assisted ICE almost daily, arresting 25 illegal immigrants with criminal records, and arrested another 20 illegal immigrants during their routine operations. Sheriff Tommy Ford says they're also assisting ICE by transporting criminals to ICE detention facilities, some as far away as Mississippi. 'We're basically a force multiplier for them. We can help them gather intelligence at end of the determine the criminal history of individuals and things like that and be out there with them another another law enforcement officer there with them to back them up. But we don't have immigration authority to put out to arrest somebody on an immigration violation,' Ford said. Ford says their only interested in people facing charges. 'The focus right now is on criminal illegal aliens. And that would be either somebody that's in the country illegally or overstay, that was here on a visa but did not leave when the visa indicated that they were supposed to leave, that has criminal charges either an active warrant for their arrest or previous criminal charges that ice evaluates and determines that they should be either removed from the country or detained,' Ford said. Sheriff Ford has submitted 20 of his detention deputies to go through warrant service officer training. It is a one-day training that allows detention deputies to serve ice paperwork. He's hoping the 287(g) program is reinstated. Deputies complete 6 weeks of intensive training to receive federal immigration authority. Ford says local deputies participated in that program some years ago. Seaside, 30A communities prepare for Spring Break crowds with new curfew 'Under Sheriff McKeithen we entered into the 287 enforcement agreement where we actually had deputies that were trained to go out into the field and conduct an immigration-related investigation and make arrests and process them through the ice process,' Ford added. The program ended in 2012. Local deputies applied again in 2019, but ICE has not offered the training. Sheriff Ford says is he anxious to learn about the new training, but it may take time for ICE to offer it again. Until then, he says they'll continue to work with ICE as needed. If deputies find an illegal immigrant in the jail, they give the information to ICE. They can order the suspect to be detained for an additional 48 hours after completing their time. That's when they're transported to an ICE detention facility. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
