St. Cloud Police Chief Darryl Holliday, after serving the St. Cloud community for 22 years, will retire from the force Friday.

By Juliana A. Torres
Staff Writer

After 22 years at the St. Cloud Police Department, Chief Darryl Holliday will be turning in his badge Friday, retiring from a law enforcement career that saw him through every rank in the agency as the city he protected grew and developed.

Holliday said he always intended to put off retirement until he was 55, but after turning 54 on the last day of 2009, he started considering when would be the best time to leave. With the upcoming year’s budget to be prepared in April, he decided it might be best to leave sooner rather than later in the year.

“It wouldn’t be fair for a new chief to try to come in and pick up where I left off for the upcoming year,” he said, explaining his reasoning. “Why not just go now?”

Holliday leaves behind an administrative staff at the department that has followed each other through the ranks, becoming family along the way — a trend that started with former Chief Mark Faucett, Holliday’s longtime colleague and predecessor.

“I’ve looked at him as a bigger brother and also as a boss throughout the stages of my development … like a mentor, someone to look up to, to get answers about work and answers about life in general,” Capt. Dave Pierson said.

It’s a sentiment echoed from the others in leadership at St. Cloud Police Department.

“I’m going to be sad to see him go. When you work 21 years with somebody, you can’t help to be friends as well,” Capt. Bret Dunn said. “We’re all going to feel like we’ve been orphaned.”

The New Jersey native moved to Central Florida as a teenager, around 18 or 19, he said. While Holliday didn’t imagine ever becoming chief, becoming a police officer was always an ambition.

“It never was a job for me. It was, I believe, a calling,” Holliday said. “It was kind of like I knew all along and I never gave that up.”

But at the beginning of his young adult life, there were height and weight requirements for most departments. Holliday was about two inches too short. So he started working at Disney, got his mechanical license and began a 13-year career in air conditioning.

When he met some St. Cloud officers at the gym where he worked out, he got a chance to do some ride-alongs with them. Eventually, he became a reserve officer and then attended the law enforcement academy to get his full certification.

When the St. Cloud Police Department offered him a job as an officer, he took it, along with a cut in pay of about $4 an hour from his air-conditioning career, he recalled. But he quickly rose through the ranks, working as a K-9 officer, becoming a sergeant, moving from patrol to criminal investigations, working in evidence, writing policies within professional standards and eventually becoming a deputy chief.

He took over the position from Faucett just over a year ago. As chief, he emphasized the role of the police department within the community.

“My motto has always been to the officers: You never leave a call until that person believes you’ve done everything you can to solve their problem or issue,” Holliday said.

And that means everything, even if it has nothing to with crime, and more to do with making a call about a streetlight that’s out, Holliday said.

Holliday said that the department’s biggest success since he’s taken on a leadership role – beyond the falling crime rate, the new mounted patrol and the implementation of the street crimes unit – is communication between all aspects of the agency. His command staff added more.

“I think his greatest contribution was he really instilled a sense of pride and camaraderie within his management team as well as the officers, to where it created an environment more of family,” Capt. Raina Scaglione said. “I think that was a welcome thing that was definitely lacking there for a little while.”

Holliday has a relaxed way of managing people and is very approachable, she said. Trying to stay in touch, listening to his subordinates and making a decision that still encompasses broad goals and perspectives of the department was the best part of being chief, Holliday said.

“It’s making decisions where you balance out the liability and protecting the city and the community as a whole to what your command staff’s asking,” he said.

Recently, he, Deputy Chief Vinny Shepard and the three captains hit the streets, giving the patrol units a night in the office while they patrolled the city.

“It was a way for me to let them know that we don’t think we’re better or that we just sit behind a desk and don’t know what it’s like,” Holliday said, adding with a smile. “It was for (the officers) to get a little bit of joy out of seeing us struggle.”

Holliday said he isn’t sure what he’ll do next, but figures his retirement will be the first time he’s had to relax, or even just take time off from work. The 54-year-old has more than 1,200 hours of sick leave racked up, hours that will roll into this pension and have allowed him to retire a bit earlier.

It will be hard, he said, to leave the control of the department to someone else, though he’s glad to leave the worry for the safety of his officers.

“I’m not going to miss that stress. That’s stress that you have that you don’t even realize takes a toll because you never do have really free time,” he said, explaining that as chief, he would always have his phone by his side, ready to come back into the office if his worst fear were realized and one of his officers got hurt.

However, he said he would miss his interactions with the community as a civil servant.

“You have to admit, you’re the most recognizable person when you wear a uniform,” he said. “I think it’ll kind of be hard not being a police officer, to walk down the street and not be so cognizant about what’s going on around you.”

Holliday said he wanted as little fanfare about his leaving as possible, admitting that he’s “pretty reserved” and would be uncomfortable standing in front of a crowd to accept the department’s appreciation.

“I don’t want no party. That’s not me. I came in, did the best I could do,” he said. “I always said my entire career: I just want to leave knowing the place was a little bit better with me being here when I left.”

And that’s it. If anyone wants to say anything extra, they can come into his office, Holliday said, waving a hand at the open door.

As he stepped out of the office to have what might be his final picture taken in a St. Cloud uniform Wednesday afternoon, he’s told some good news. The preliminary crime statistics for 2009 have gone down by 11.7 percent, almost 2 percentage points more than he had been anticipating.

“See? We probably won’t ever make that again,” he said, in surprise, given 2009 will be the second year in a row the department has reported a drop in crime of more than 10 percent. “What a way to go out.”