We had a bit of a local dust-up a couple of weeks ago. While the extreme Western Florida Panhandle is still pretty reliably conservative on its face, we, like many other popular places in the middle of a population influx, are slipping ever leftward.
These progressive characteristics are far from being dominant by a long shot, but they do surface often enough nowadays that longtime residents have prog-detecting antennae that spring up at the first tickle of something amiss.
And that’s what happened recently in the search for a new police chief for the city of Pensacola proper. Our mayor is a youngish, more progressive-inclined guy, and, happily, an acquaintance of mine. D.C. Reeves is from a well-established, politically connected family in town, but has done really well for himself on his own. Opened one of the first breweries here in town, for instance, and has shaken the dust off the old naysaying guard in a lot of ways even before being elected. This continues the work begun by the previous mayor of bringing Pensacola out of the 60s in terms of governance and mentality, and has changed the whole atmosphere immeasurably for the better from what it was when we moved here 30 years ago.
This is a different, far more interesting, and infinitely more vibrant place to live now.
Some things we all count on remaining static as part of that bargain, and that’s the integrity of our Escambia County sheriff and the Pensacola police department. We’re enormously proud and fond of both of those two, and most of the county, particularly long-time residents, feel personally invested in them. Everyone knows a cop…or four. Or a sheriff’s deputy and a dispatcher live in the neighborhood – that kind of thing. When Cops films episodes here, we’re not thrilled about the neighborhoods, but seeing the guys in action is great, especially if you know one of them.
One of the things that has been a constant is promoting from within or between the Sheriff and the Pensacola PD. For instance, the former police chief is now our elected sheriff. These guys love it here as much as we do, earn their trust, and tend to stay home, career-wise. We’re that kind of place.
So it came as an unsettling surprise a few weeks back when the mayor announced the new police chief, and we were all, like, ‘WHO? From WHERE?!‘
Pensacola Mayor D.C. Reeves has named Eric Winstrom as the Pensacola Police Department’s new chief.
Winstrom has been the chief of police in Grand Rapids, Michigan, since 2022 and served in various leadership roles at the Chicago Police Department for 21 years, “taking on multiple leadership roles and guiding tactical, investigative, and administrative teams through some of the department’s most challenging periods,” Reeves said.
“Choosing the right person to lead our police department is perhaps the most important decision I will make as your mayor,” Reeves said. “My focus was on finding the person who is the right fit for our community with the ability to lead PPD into the future. After much consideration and feedback from the community throughout this selection process, I look forward to working with Chief Winstrom to help write PPD’s next chapter.”
And I will admit to being part of a bit of the collective community meltdown at first notice.
Where we were always comfortably local, suddenly a ‘foreigner’ was bad enough, but with everything going on in the country, Pensacola’s top cop was going to be a guy from Michigan who, even worse, had been a Chicago beat cop?
Oh. My. Lord.
NO.
Unfathomable decision.
People were snorting fire.
And I just thought it was so strange, but as I don’t live in the city proper, it was also really none of my beeswax other than grumbling along with everyone else.
Then, as things go in this job, I ran across a most enlightening bit of video that I had to share on our local Escambia County Facebook page.
It was Chief Winstrom’s farewell press conference in Grand Rapids. What he told the press about his reasons for leaving was so reasonable and resonated so strongly that I had to let the folks here know, ‘We can’t prejudge this guy based on previous zip codes.’
The man was speaking our language at this conference.
He’s a great Police Chief, if this doesn’t make the public replace city leaders nothing will!
— Irish 🇺🇸 〽️ 💚🍀 (@irish89x) February 8, 2026
It could just be that we were the lucky ones coming out on the end of this deal. After watching it with hundreds of ‘thanks yous’ later, I think many of my fellow Pensacolians agreed.
Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad at all, and lucky us, huh?
But that then makes one wonder what on Earth could be so bad to force what, for all intents and purposes, seems like a truly decent public servant out of that primo job in Grand Rapids?
I found the answer to that late last night, again by chance.
The mayor of Grand Rapids is a progressive nightmare, and that’s no exaggeration.
We’ll start with the kinder, gentler, silly stuff.
Ten days ago, on the 16th, Mayor David LaGrand asked folks to ‘Adopt an Intersection.’ You know, so you can get out there and shovel the ice and snow that plows leave behind.
He’s just got the most winsome, toothiest grin, doesn’t he? Makes you want to get out there and shovel away.
…In the video, Mayor LaGrand acknowledges something we have all experienced. While, the city does a solid job plowing the streets. Crews work long hours and move fast when storms hit, and those plows push snow out of the roadway which often leaves behind a thick, heavy block of snow and ice at the end of sidewalks. (Especially at intersections.)
If you live on a corner lot, you probably get exhausted battling these tiny snow pack nightmares. Technically, it is the property owner’s responsibility to clear the sidewalk, including that dense, frozen ridge left behind. But plenty of people feel frustrated that they are the ones breaking their backs over snow that was pushed there by city equipment just doing its job.
Grand Rapids use to be a conservative strong hold.
When it fell, it really fell hard.— David Chase (@SirDavidChase) February 18, 2026
Harmless enough. It’s kind of a smaller version of Commie Mamdani without the required paperwork and ID, right?
Two days later, there was a police-involved shooting of an armed suspect by a K-9 officer. Chief Winstrom, who is still there, said Grand Rapids cops had received reports of a possible armed suspect on a bike.
…Johnson was on parole and should not have been in possession of a gun. The Kent County Sheriff’s Office confirmed he had been released from the jail on bond earlier this month. Court records also show he had an open drug case stemming from an arrest in October. It’s unclear if the officers had information about Johnson’s criminal history.
Patrol officers located Johnson near Miss Tracy’s Liquor Store on Martin Luther King St SE and tried to stop him, but Winstrom said Johnson rode away.
Police chased him to the parking lot of an apartment building near Eastern Avenue and Sherman Street where Johnson dropped the bike and, according to police, continued to resist.
In bodycam video released at a GRPD news conference Thursday, officers can be heard ordering Johnson to comply as a K-9 raced toward him.
“Get on the ground! Hands up! Show me your hands!” an officer yelled. “He’s reaching. Right arm…. Stop reaching man, you’re gonna get shot. You got a gun in your hand? Let it go! Drop the gun! Drop the gun!
It was at that point that an officer opened fire.
Johnson was pronounced dead at a Grand Rapids hospital.
Winstrom said officers located a handgun under Johnson’s body.
But critics of the police shooting pointed to citizen video that shows a different angle and calls into question whether the shooting was necessary or justifiable. In the video, Johnson is lying on his stomach with two officers over top of him. The K-9 has what appears to be Johnson’s bicep in his mouth.
One of the officers, who appears to be straddling Johnson, shoots him three times, the witness video shows. The dog appears to stay latched onto Johnson in the seconds after the shooting.
As the K-9 expert consulted for the above story reiterates, just because a dog has one arm, it doesn’t mean a suspect can’t use the other to fire a weapon. Additionally, he notes, police are not required to see a weapon or have one pointed at them before using deadly force.
That’s not how Mayor LaGrand sees this at all.
Had that been his dog, he says, he’d have it put down.
Huh. Can’t imagine why your police chief moved to my town.
— tree hugging sister 🎃 (@WelbornBeege) February 26, 2026
...“If you need to chase somebody in a backyard why couldn’t you do that with a drone? If my dog did what I saw in that video, I’d put my dog down.”
A week later, Mayor LaGrand was castigating all legal gun owners, who, he said, should ‘be ashamed‘ for owning a weapon.
NEW: The video of Grand Rapids Mayor David LaGrand blasting gun owners has surfaced.
When asked if law enforcement should be disarmed following an officer-involved shooting, he stated: “I think if you’ve got a gun you should be ashamed of yourself. I really do.”
Estimates show… pic.twitter.com/K3NkXhJDus
— Grand Rapids Businessman (@GR_businessman) February 24, 2026
…Estimates show 35% households in Michigan own guns — 180,000 in the GR Metro alone.
LaGrand won his mayoral race by 21,297 votes or 63% of the vote. Prior to running for Mayor as a non-partisan, he served as a Democrat in the state legislature.
A healthy majority of Grand Rapids voted for this grand asshat.
They are certainly getting what most of them voted for.
As for their pretty decent police chief, Pensacola sure isn’t paying him to leave.
NOW: GR’s Police Chief took a $25,000 pay CUT to leave — according to local business leaders Johnny Brann and Mike VanGessel.
“There is only one reasonable conclusion: this departure speaks to something deeper than salary or title.
It speaks to a cultural drift in our… pic.twitter.com/chQfpqcGZb
— Grand Rapids Businessman (@GR_businessman) February 23, 2026
…It speaks to a cultural drift in our community — a drift away from supporting the institutions and individuals who work every day to protect us.”
But I’ll bet we look like Heaven on Earth from up there right now.
Chief Winstrom’s gonna take a while getting used to ‘normal,’ I think.
I’ll bet he likes it.
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