'It's like the passing of an era'

Maj. Ken Remming's legacy at the Sheriff's Office includes work with mentally ill inmates. He will retire at the end of June.

By DEBORAH O'NEIL

© St. Petersburg Times,
published June 20, 2001

It's a story Maj. Ken Remming forgot during his 37-year career at the Pinellas County Sheriff's Office.

But Sheriff Everett Rice sure remembers.

More than 30 years ago, Remming was a sergeant in charge of a patrol shift and Rice was one of his patrol deputies. The Sheriff's Office was a much smaller operation then, and the cars -- with their V-8 engines, dual exhaust and no air conditioning -- were notoriously clunky.

One day, a patrol deputy got on the radio to ask Remming whether he could swap his patrol car for another because it was running on only seven of its eight cylinders.

"Well I came on the radio, and I told him he should keep it, because that's pretty good odds," Rice said.

Remming was not amused by the young deputy's breach of radio discipline. "He reprimanded me and took four hours of vacation time from me," Rice said.

Decades later, with a collection of promotions and awards under his belt, Remming, 61, can only chuckle about having punished the future sheriff. "He got over it, apparently," Remming said.

At the end of June, Remming will retire after nearly four decades in the county's largest law enforcement agency. His career has spanned four sheriffs and countless changes, both physically and philosophically, in county policing.

The Sheriff's Office grew more than 18 times bigger as the county's population soared, law enforcement technology made enormous strides, the 49th Street criminal justice center was built, a federal consent decree ordering the county to improve jail conditions came and went and another jail expansion opened with a modern approach to inmate housing.

Remming, commander of the 1,100 employees at the county jail, has never been a headline maker. But for decades, his low-key and by-the-books leadership has put him in charge of thousands of deputies and helped improve the jail, particularly its treatment of mentally ill inmates, colleagues say. His colleagues know him as a dedicated family man who brought fairness and compassion to his police work.

"Ken Remming is one of the best people we've ever had," Rice said. "It's like the passing of an era."

Rising in the ranks

The son of a truck driver, Remming worked his way through a Catholic high school in Rochester, N.Y. He joined the Air Force and married his high school sweetheart, Penny. When his military stint ended in 1961, the couple moved to Pinellas County, where he applied to numerous local police departments.

He worked for the city of St. Petersburg utilities department for a year until Treasure Island offered him a police job.

"When I started with Treasure Island, I had to buy my uniform, my gun belt, my gun," Remming said. "The only thing they gave you was your badge."

In 1964, Pinellas County hired him as a patrol deputy.

"Back then you patrolled the whole county," Remming said. "Sometimes there was only one or two deputies for the whole county."

Through numerous promotions, Remming worked in patrol and as a juvenile crime detective. He has headed internal affairs, forensics, dispatch communications, crime records and patrol, which includes warrant, marine and SWAT team units. He worked in local schools before there were school resource officers and once ran the old jail behind the courthouse in Clearwater.

"To attain the rank of major and last that long, you have to be pretty squared away," said Capt. Frank Holloway, commander of the North District Station in Dunedin, who has known Remming for 36 years. "He's the kind of person you seek out to ask his advice. He has a vast amount of experience, from patrol to corrections."

Since 1997, Remming has run the jail on 49th Street, a sprawling campus that books 45,000 people annually and houses an average of 2,700 inmates every day.

"The operation of the jail is a major task," Rice said. "That institution is larger than most state prisons. He's done a great job."

A people job

Forget the cruel and merciless prison warden of movies such as The Shawshank Redemption. Remming laughs often and easily. Blue-eyed and sporting the same militaristic buzz cut he has worn since he started at the Sheriff's Office, he is a devout Catholic, the father of three daughters and the grandfather of six.

"He's a very dedicated family man, and that has carried over into his police work," said Sgt. Greg Tita, a sheriff's spokesman who once worked under Remming.

Remming says his basic philosophy about law enforcement and the jail is pretty simple and has not changed.

"It's still a people job," Remming said. "A lot of it is the ability to communicate with people. I don't mean shout them down. I mean being able to talk to them so they see your point of view. It's much better if you can talk people into doing that than forcing people."

With the people behind bars, Remming said: "You have to remember you're dealing with inmates, but you have to treat them humanely. You don't have to talk down to them, you don't have to order them around."

Perhaps Remming's greatest impact has been in the arena of mentally ill inmates. In the 1980s, Remming was part of a task force that studied issues relating to the Baker Act, which allows officers to commit people for psychiatric evaluation.

That was the beginning of about 15 years of volunteer work Remming has done with Personal Enrichment through Mental Health Services, or PEMHS, a mental health hospital that accepts Baker Act patients and acts as a countywide advocate on mental health issues.

Remming is now president of the PEMHS board of directors.

"Being involved as president is very time-consuming," said PEMHS Director Tom Wedekind. "He's at 7:30 a.m. meetings. In the whole time he's been with us, he hasn't missed one meeting. Maybe one."

Remming said his work with PEMHS helped him recognize that some of the people housed at the jail don't belong there. Instead, they need treatment for mental illness. Over the years, Remming and PEMHS have worked hand in hand to improve treatment for mentally ill inmates.

For Wedekind, the example Remming sets from the top is what makes the most difference.

"When you have somebody in a position he's in, it opens so many doors and shows all the officers his respect for the mental health system," Wedekind said. "It reflects through the whole department."

Remming plans to continue volunteering with PEMHS after his retirement. There are no fancy plans in sight. He plans to spend more time with the grandchildren and his wife of 41 years. To work on his model train collection. Maybe to buy a new Chrysler PT Cruiser.

"I think I was extremely fortunate to go into my profession," Remming said Wednesday in his office, where a "Countdown to Retirement" clock sits on his desk. "I've certainly enjoyed it."

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