GREEN COVE SPRINGS – Every time David Barnes gets into his patrol car after a call, he asks himself the same thing:

“Did I make it better or did I make it worse?”

Now the Director of Investigations and Special Operations with the Clay County Sheriff’s Office, Barnes still believes and utilizes that strategy when he’s working with younger deputies. He hopes that becomes one of his legacies once he officially retires after 34 years in law enforcement – 25 with CCSO – on April 23.

“One of the things that as a watch commander way back in the day, I used to tell my folks, and we still joke about it,whether it's a traffic citation, a domestic violence call, traffic crash, whatever, ‘Did I make it better or did I make it worse? And if you made it worse, then maybe you need to reassess what you're doing,” Barnes said. “We're in the service business. We're here to make it better for people. You know, a lot of times we encounter people on the worst day of their lives. It may not be something that’s a big a deal to us because we see it every day, but to them, maybe it’s the first time it ever happened.”

Barnes will take a wealth of knowledge and experience into this retirement. He will trade long nights of SWAT, Dive Team assignments, investigations, patrols and administration duties for play dates with his grandchildren and additional attention to his cattle.

“I was going in September anyways,” he said. “That would be my completion of my fifth year in the drop. I've got a young grandbaby that likes pop-pop to be home, and some parents with some health issues that I'm having to help out.

“Plus, we have a farm with cows and things. I’ve got a lot of responsibilities. My wife and I talked about it, and it's time to go. I'm not going to look back.

“I've got great friends and family at this agency. We've all worked together for 25 years. We love each other. We're going to stay in contact. But as far as my law enforcement career, it's time to pass the torch and let somebody else do it.”

A career that almost ended on Day 1.

When he started, Barnes was a detention guard at the state prison in Raiford after serving four years in the U.S. Army. He couldn’t work as a deputy until he earned his certification from the Florida Department of Law Enforcement’s Criminal Justice Standards and Training Commission.

He then worked for the Bradford County Sheriff’s Office before moving over to Clay County in 2021.

Barnes vividly remembers his first day with Bradford as his most difficult. It almost made him second-guess whether he wanted to be a cop.

“First time in the car in Bradford County, riding with my training officer, who is the Chief of Police in Lawtey right now," he said. “We went to a 10-year-old that had been hit by a horse trailer and ran over and killed in the road. It was the most horrible thing I've ever seen, and it almost caused me to get out of law enforcement. I went home and hugged my kids. I remembered that like it was yesterday. I'll never forget that. You know, unfortunately, I've seen a lot more than that over the years, but that one stuck for some reason.”

He’s also watched the county grow. When he started, Fleming Island and Lake Asbury were essentially scrubland and empty roads. Oakleaf was filled with empty fields and Palmetto bushes.

Now they are thriving communities with thousands of residents and commerce.

And as the population grows, the need for the sheriff’s office to maintain its report with the community will be increasingly important.

“When I started riding a beat, there wasn’t hardly anything out in Middleburg,” Barnes said. “Fleming Island was basically just (U.S. Highway) 17 and (County Road) 220. It’s just growth. I mean, it depends on what side of the fence you are on if it’s good. If you like growth and things like that, there's a lot of growth and there's a lot of people moving in.

“Of course, with growth comes problems. Good and bad. We've done a great job. I'm so proud to be a part of this agency. We've done a great job over the years of keeping the crime rates down and the crime clearance rates up. We're always way higher (clearance) than the state average. So, we've got a ton of great people here, and they do great work.”

Barnes said deputies clearly have a great relationship with most county residents. He said it’s common for customers to offer to buy their lunch while they’re on duty.

“We have a great relationship with our community,” he said. “We work really hard to keep that. We police differently than anywhere else. I mean, our goal is when we send people out, regardless of what type of call it is, don't tell them there's nothing we can't do. Let's figure out how we can help them even if it's not a law enforcement problem. You don't get that in a lot of agencies.”

Which seems to answer the basic question if they made it better or if they made it worse.