This Sheriff Is a Star on TikTok. Why Won’t He Acknowledge His Office’s Mistake?

In his Morning Briefing series on TikTok, Polk County, Florida Sheriff Grady Judd posts daily videos about criminals who have been apprehended by his office. The clips are just a taste of the popular Sheriff’s personality. He’s irreverent, often characterizing the arrest of prisoners with aphorisms: “Play stupid games, win stupid prizes,” or “He said he wanted to go to heaven. We made the arrangements for him,” about a suspect who died in a gunfight. Video captions are often more succinct: “Don’t do meth, K?” While his office prides itself on being extremely tough on lawbreakers, he has a special vitriol for child predators. “We will go to the ends of the earth to arrest you if you victimize children,” the five-term Sheriff once said at a press briefing. 

This content strategy has made Judd a bonafide star on TikTok, where videos are posted daily to his 700,000 followers. But after a now-viral report from the Center for Investigative Journalism (CIR) and PBS Newshour found that detectives in Judd’s office accused a 12-year-old girl of lying about her sexual assault claims — claims she was forced to collect her own evidence until they were proved true — citizens off- and online are demanding answers. So far, they’ve been met with silence. 

Taylor Cadle, now 21, was only eight years old when she was adopted from foster care by her great uncle, Henry Cadle, and his wife. But what was meant to be a dream home quickly turned frightening, as Henry began sexually assaulting her. In 2016, Cadle told an adult at her church, who called the police. Melissa Turnage, the detective from the Polk County Sheriff’s office, arrived. And she didn’t believe her.(The Polk County Sheriff’s Office did not respond to Rolling Stone’s multiple requests for comment.) 

According to the (CIR) and PBS Newshour, which includes audio from Cadle’s 2016 interview, Turnage accused her of making up the story. “If you’re mad because you got your phone taken away, let’s say that now and be done with it,” she can be heard saying the clip. Cadle was charged with filing a false report and, with encouragement from the adults around her, pleaded guilty. She completed a year of community service and was required to write a letter of apology to both her great-uncle and the police. And she returned to Henry’s home.

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Rachel de Leon is the reporter behind the story and featured in Netflix’s 2023 documentary Victim/Suspect, which explores cases in the U.S. where women who report sexual assault are criminalized instead by police who believe they were lying. “I had been looking into adults who were being charged with making false reports of sexual assault,” de Leon tells Rolling Stone. “I wasn’t even aware that it was happening to kids.” 

Cadle continued to live in the home for another year. In 2017, she was assaulted again by Henry. This time she had a plan. She took covert photos and videos using her cell phone, taking extra care to note things the detectives couldn’t find evidence for last time, like the time, location of the vehicle, and even a box of condoms Henry had bought. But even when she had concrete proof on her cellphone of her experience, she still considered not calling the police again. 

“Even with the amount of evidence, I still had so much of a hard time trusting that they would believe me. I’m looking at these pictures, and I’m still trying to talk myself out of calling the cops that night,” she tells Rolling Stone. “I figured I had the evidence, and if there was a chance for them to believe me, that it was now or never for me to make that phone call. Henry initially denied the allegations, but was arrested and pleaded no contest. In 2017, he was sentenced to 17 years in prison and is registered as a sexual predator, according to the Lakeland Ledger. Cadle’s original charge was dismissed, but her experience still left her feeling nervous. “Throughout that whole process, I didn’t trust anything that they were saying,” she says. “It felt like something was around the corner to get me at any minute.” 

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Now a mother of two, Cadle decided to reveal her story, and face, with de Leon’s help. “I feel as though being public with my name and having my face shown was a way of me gaining control back over my life, because I was no longer being forced to stay silent and sit back and watch things unfold,” she says. “It was a way for me to own my story.” Since her segment first ran on PBS NewsHour and posted on TikTok, the video has gotten over 2 million views on the app alone, with thousands of comments sharing their support for Cadle and praise over her bravery. 

So far, however, Judd has not acknowledged the story. In the past seven days, he has posted on TikTok about Halloween, voting in the presidential election, and even a story of a woman charged with a felony for allegedly trying to steal a chihuahua named Felony. The lack of a response is making Cadle furious. 

“I was silenced. And if it wasn’t for my evidence, I would still be sitting here silent today,” she says. “Even though there’s millions of views and thousands of comments, you’re still pretending like nothing ever happened. The fact that [Turnage] is still able to walk around and hold a badge and say that she still works for the Polk County Sheriff’s Office completely blows my mind. I think it’s absolutely unacceptable.” 

It has been over eight years since the Polk County Sheriff’s Office dismissed Cadle’s case, acknowledging that she was telling the truth about her assault. But she’s never heard a single word of apology. Representatives for the Polk County Sheriff’s Office declined an interview and did not answer requests to comment on de Leon’s reporting. They also did not respond to multiple requests from Rolling Stone regarding Cadle’s case, Turnage’s initial treatment of Cadle, or any questions about discipline. For de Leon, whose reporting consistently challenges police departments’ handling of sexual assault, she hopes that the next step in Cadle’s story is some kind of feedback directly from the Polk County Sheriff’s Office. “I hope for transparency. I hope for answers,” de Leon says. “I want to know if anything in their protocols or processes has changed so that this can’t happen to a child again.” 

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Her assault, Cadle says, has forever changed her perspective. She doesn’t trust easily. Now a mother after giving birth at 16, she still doesn’t trust anyone with her children. It’s been frustrating, especially with the outsized response to de Leon’s story, that Judd refuses to acknowledge the department’s mistake. But Cadle says it’s been too long for a half-hearted apology. She wants to be seen. And she wants them to do better. 

“I hope that if there is another victim out there, I just want them to know that you’re not alone,” she says. “I am fighting very hard for some type of change, for some type of acknowledgment, not only for myself, but for any other victim who has been through it, so no one has to encounter such a thing in the future.”