Woodward says Beaufort Co. police need a leadership change. What are his plans?
Making his third bid for sheriff, JoJo Woodward thinks Beaufort County’s law enforcement is in dire need of a culture change after nearly three decades under the same leadership.
“It’s all about solving crimes, community engagements,” Woodward told The Island Packet and Beaufort Gazette in a sit-down interview last week. “Where are we going to get (deputies) from? Where are we going to retain folks? You have to have a path for leadership, and I think I can bring that.”
Woodward, 61, joined the Beaufort County Sheriff’s Office in 1986 as a patrol deputy and was promoted to captain in 2013, resigning five years later to challenge Sheriff P.J. Tanner for the first time.
Woodward wants to curb traffic across the county and increase the department’s arrest rates, which he says have seen a worrying decline in the last two decades. If elected, he also plans to create a dedicated traffic enforcement unit, increase budget transparency and reduce the number of command staff to put more boots on the ground.
“I’ve done the budgets; I’ve had manpower,” he said, referring to his leadership experience at the sheriff’s office. “I still run a narcotics enforcement team out of Jasper County. Why? Because I bring people together.”
With almost 40 years in law enforcement, Woodward says he’s “the most experienced person for the job.” He was deputized as a U.S. Marshal and a DEA officer, commanded multi-agency drug task forces and commanded the southern half of Beaufort County during his five years as captain.
The Republican primary election on June 9 will test whether voters believe the county is due for a change in law enforcement leadership. Woodward’s opponent, 53-year-old Doug Seifert, is endorsed by Tanner. Seifert led by 20 percentage points in a mid-May straw poll conducted by the Beaufort County Republican Party, in which 187 ballots were counted.
‘Restructuring’ leadership to hire more deputies
Both candidates have plans to address the dozens of deputy vacancies that have plagued the sheriff’s office over the years. Those numbers mirror a nationwide shortage of police officers that began this decade, driven by COVID-19 and worsening public perception of law enforcement.
Woodward says there’s “too many people at the top” at the sheriff’s office. He wants to reduce the number of command officers by about 50% and use the resulting funds to raise deputies’ starting salary from $60,000 to $64,000.
“Our chain of command needs to be realigned, restructured, where we do put more boots on the ground, because that’s where we’re going to start solving crime right away on day one,” he said.
He plans to increase BCSO’s manpower by investing in reserve deputies and courting retired police officers. He also wants to expand the department’s school resource officer program, questioning whether one SRO per school is enough.
Increasing deputy numbers isn’t just about paying them more or offering the necessary benefits, Woodward said — it’s also about creating a culture where employees want to stay and rise up the ranks.
“Everybody knows cops are underpaid,” Woodward said. “We’re going to address that day one; we’re going to look and see if we could actually boost their pay. That doesn’t necessarily make the culture better. … They got to feel like they’re wanted, they’re needed and people are looking after them.”
Asked for specifics about how he would make his deputies feel valued, Woodward said he would “lead by example,” just like his superiors did when he was a rookie.
“These deputies, if they can’t afford to live here, then how come they can’t live in Jasper County?” he asked, referencing the current requirement for BCSO deputies to live within county lines. “I want to bring back the insurance. When (deputies) retire, they gotta have insurance.
“I know that’s a lot of tasks … but bottom line is, we gotta fight for these officers. Nobody else is going to do that.”
Budgets, transparency and drones
Despite BCSO’s $35 million budget that continues to grow, the county isn’t seeing proportional results in hiring or crime clearance rates, Woodward’s campaign has argued.
The candidate’s proposed solution is a regular “plain-language budget report” that explains where taxpayers’ money is going within the sheriff’s office.
“It’s the citizens’ money. What are we doing with that money?” Woodward said. “As sheriff, I want to do a line item that shows exactly where I’m spending your money … whether it’s crime equipment, or whether it’s going to cameras.”
Woodward’s official platform says the budget report would be released annually, but he floated the possibility of quarterly reports in his interview with The Island Packet and Beaufort Gazette.
“I don’t think we should wait until the end of the year,” he told the newspapers. “If I’m going to ask you for $36 million, shouldn’t I have a plan of what I’m going to do with that $36 million? I can tell you it’s not going to buy another helicopter.”
Woodward criticized Tanner’s decision to buy a used helicopter for $2.45 million, arguing drones would be a more efficient and cost-effective measure for patrolling Beaufort County’s skies.
“They’re doing testing out in California right now with drones, where when you make a 911 call, they dispatch an officer, right? Well, guess what else they dispatch: a drone,” Woodward said. “A drone will fly to that location, be there so fast it’s waiting on you. It can tell you who’s there, what’s there and what’s waiting on that officer.”
Woodward on ICE contract: ‘If you’re a violator, you need to worry’
Woodward and Seifert both expressed support for BCSO’s 287(g) contract with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which Tanner signed last summer despite pushback from some community members.
The 287(g) program, which has exploded in popularity under President Donald Trump’s second term, forms a partnership between the sheriff’s office and ICE and allows county deputies to enforce federal immigration law.
That contract was the basis for Beaufort County deputies’ participation in an ICE operation in Bluffton last week, where immigration officers arrested more than 15 residents as they targeted people who had allegedly violated deportation orders.
Woodward highlighted the 287(g) program in a statement outlining his safety program for Sun City, saying the federal partnership makes the age-restricted community safer by authorizing deputies to “identify, process and detain dangerous criminal immigrants.” But the program benefits the entire county, he argued.
“I think it’s a topic everybody wants to hear,” Woodward said. “You see what they’ve done with the border since Donald Trump. It’s incredible how many people are not coming here. So now we’re going to have to deal with the people that are here. And that program, that’s what it’s here for.”
Woodward said he took part in March’s ICE operation in Jasper County that targeted a purported cockfighting ring. Many of the arrested suspects were allegedly undocumented immigrants.
“We had like 200 or 300 officers out there,” Woodward said. “We’re getting the most violent people out of here. If you’re a violator, you need to worry. If you’re not, then you don’t have to worry. … Obviously, we want the most serious criminals, and we need that resource from the feds to give us that information.”
Plans for a ‘dedicated’ traffic unit in Beaufort County
Managing Beaufort County’s traffic woes has been a centerpiece of Woodward’s campaign since he filed to run in March. He’s criticized BCSO’s lack of a dedicated traffic enforcement unit and has promised to assign “at least 10” deputies to such a team if elected.
“There’s definitely a need for a traffic unit, and my plan would be that these are dedicated officers. This is all they do,” Woodward said. “They might have to jump on an emergency call (for shootings or similar incidents), but their job, when they get to work, is to stop the speeders, distracted drivers, people running red lights and people doing all other kinds of violations.”
Woodward also has a plan for the regular car wrecks that bring commutes to a crawl at the Hilton Head Island bridges and other traffic pain points: pre-position deputies and roadside assistance trucks near the problem areas.
“Why wait and call a wrecker that’s going to be 45 minutes to an hour to get there? Have them pre-positioned, whether it’s at the bridges or somewhere down near the bridges where they can actually respond,” Woodward said. “I want to be a proactive sheriff, not a reactive sheriff. Traffic is a problem for everyone.”
Is Beaufort County safe?
Woodward was among the vocal group of residents who took issue with a May campaign video in which Seifert argued Beaufort County was safe.
“The crime rate in Beaufort County is significantly lower than the other counties within the 14th Judicial Circuit,” Seifert said in the video, citing S.C. Law Enforcement Division Statistics that show home break-ins, larcenies and aggravated assaults have decreased in recent years.
But Seifert added in the video that “even one violent crime is one too many,” citing his plan to put deputies in high-crime areas and focus on apprehending “career criminals.”
Woodward sees a different story in the SLED statistics, criticizing what he calls Beaufort County’s “clearance collapse” — wherein the rate of crimes resolved through arrests or other means has declined from 46.67% in 2010 to 32.51% in 2025, reaching a low of 24.97% in 2022. Woodward’s campaign website cites a national average clearance rate of about 19%, meaning less than one in five crimes are resolved by police departments across the country.
For Woodward, the solution to those declining rates of crime-solving is to connect further with the community and increase the manpower behind investigations. He plans to build sheriff’s office substations in Sun City and St. Helena Island, and engage residents to build trust in deputies, especially north of the Broad River.
“14 (homicides) in 2024. Unheard of,” Woodward said. “They’ve done probably the best job they could with what they had, but we want to put more efforts, because there’s a lot of families out here still waiting to hear what’s going on with their case.”
Woodward’s experience: ‘I know how to bring people together’
Woodward touts his experience as an investigator at the 14th Circuit Solicitor’s Office, saying his four years in the job taught him more about how police and prosecutors can better collaborate to close cases.
“Me and (Solicitor) Duffie Stone have always had a good relationship,” Woodward said, saying he wants his officers to be communicating with solicitor’s staff from “day one” of a case.
His history with the region’s chief prosecuting agency is an advantage he has over his opponents, Woodward argued.
“(My relationship with the solicitor’s office) is gonna be better because I’m gonna be in your face every day,” he said. “We’re going to be talking: ‘What can I do better? What can my officers do better?’”
Asked whether his eight years away from the sheriff’s office would hamper his ability to effectively lead it, Woodward said returning to his longtime workplace would be “like riding a bike.”
Woodward also argued Seifert doesn’t have enough leadership experience to command a staff of over 200 deputies.
“Doug’s a good guy, but Doug doesn’t have the experience. … He just got promoted to lieutenant; that’s his first command job,” Woodward said. “Check my record — I’ve been a command officer forever. I mean, how many people has (Seifert) supervised? Not sure, but I can tell you it’s not 60 people; it’s not running half a division.”
Even though he’s been away from the sheriff’s office for quite some time, Woodward said his resume reflects his ongoing work in policing and advocacy work.
“I’m still commanding where I’m at. I’m a co-chair at the (Lowcountry) Human Trafficking Task Force … same thing I’m doing over (in Jasper County) at the Narcotics Enforcement Team,” he said. “I know how to bring people together, and that’s what that sheriff’s office needs right now.”
