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💬 Officer Gerard Bhagwatsingh of the Fort Walton Beach Police Department is a leading voice in community policing, focusing on empathy over enforcement.
👮♂️ He’s helped connect homeless residents with housing, addressed addiction crises, and fostered trust in neighborhoods often neglected.
🌟 From personal interventions to public events, Bhagwatsingh believes community policing is about relationships — not just responding to calls.
FORT WALTON BEACH — Officer Gerard Bhagwatsingh doesn’t wear a cape. He wears a badge, a soft voice, and a determination to help people, especially the ones others might write off.
Nearly a year ago, I was one of them.
Picture this: it’s a hot day in Fort Walton Beach, not a cloud in the sky.
I was a reporter for the Northwest Florida Daily News, covering the grand opening of Jay Odom’s Freedom Tech Center. You know that place, it has that giant American flag that would make the President blush.
However, as is often the case, people more intelligent than I decided to hold this ceremony at around 2 or 3 p.m.
Hot weather + lack of hydration = a bad time.
While there were copious amounts of water bottles on hand, plus a tent that seemed to fill up by the minute, my focus was taken off the story as I had to deal with a sudden vibration from my wrist.
A warning on my smartwatch said my heart rate was high.
Now, I know when it’s hot, your body works overtime to keep you cool. I decided to grab some water and carry on through the event.
As I stood sweating beneath a tent, my smartwatch buzzed: 120 bpm… 130… 140… finally peaking at 174.
Now I know that I probably psyched myself out, but then I wiped my forehead and came to the realization that I wasn’t sweating.
Having some knowledge of what was going on due to having a mom who spent her life as a nurse, I thought I could have been in the early throes of heat exhaustion…or worse.
So as I looked around, I saw a man—a man who at this moment was the only thing standing between me and a full-blown panic attack.
“Excuse me, I know this may be a bother, but I feel a bit sick and I have seen you around. Would you mind if you took me to my truck so I can get in the air conditioning?” I said to Officer Gerard Bhagwhatsingh, of the Fort Walton Beach Police Department.
“Sure, man, let me help you out,” he replied, grabbing two bottles of water and loading me on a golf cart.
As we arrived at my truck, I thanked him for helping me out and asked if he could stay a while until I felt better.
“Yeah, man. No problem,” he replied.
For close to an hour, Gerard and I sat in my truck, cranking the AC, talking about life, work, and video games — the holy trinity of male conversation.
Once I felt better, I thanked him for his time, sent him a friend request on Facebook, and said our goodbyes, as my job as a reporter would eventually put us on a path to meet again.
Almost a year passed before it did.
Earlier in June, I was covering the “No Kings” Protest in Fort Walton Beach. After obtaining the interviews and photos I needed, I decided to stay and see who else I knew was there.
And sure enough, there was Officer Bhagwatsingh, helping others as he had helped me, talking to two women who were in the back of the Community Police Unit mobile truck, also escaping the heat.
“That’s why we are here, to help others,” Gerald said.
This led to a conversation that eventually ended with him agreeing to give Mid Bay News a ride-along earlier this month, during which we could learn more about him and how the Community Policing Unit is one of Fort Walton Beach’s most impactful services, ultimately benefiting the community.
Born in 1991 on a naval base in Charleston, South Carolina, Bhagwatsingh’s early life was shaped by the military.
His mother, a U.S. Air Force servicemember, was stationed in Germany when he was a toddler. His first memories date back to base housing overseas.
At age four, the family relocated to Dover, Delaware, where he spent most of his childhood.
“My mom’s from here [Fort Walton Beach], so we’d vacation down for spring break to see her family — cousins, grandparents, the beach,” Bhagwatsingh said. “But Delaware was home. That’s where I went to school.”
He spent his freshman year and part of his sophomore year in Delaware, but everything changed when his mother, then a reservist, took a Master Sergeant position at Duke Field near Fort Walton Beach.
Suddenly, he was the “new kid” at Choctawhatchee High School — a Hot Topic-loving, comic book-reading, anime-watching teen with long hair and a passion for acting and wrestling.
“I was literally a Disney Channel movie,” he laughed. “New kid stands up, says ‘Hi, I’m Gerard.'”
Despite the transition, he found a core group of friends in Shalimar, Kyle, and Eddie, who remain his best friends to this day. He fell in love with the area, the people, and a girl.
But at the end of his junior year, his mother announced they were moving back to Delaware. Devastated, Bhagwatsingh left behind his girlfriend and new life. He graduated from high school in 2009 but couldn’t stop thinking about returning.
“I didn’t apply for scholarships or college. I just wanted to come back,” he said.
After high school, he took his mother’s offer: a one-year phone bill and a promise of independence if he returned to Fort Walton Beach.
He moved back in the summer of 2009 to live with his grandmother and got his first job at The Track, a local go-kart venue in Destin.
From there, Bhagwatsingh explored his next move. With his mother still in the Air Force, she encouraged him to join the military, but in the reserves, so that he could stay local.
He enlisted in the Air Force Reserves in October 2009 and left for basic training in May 2010, returning in November after completing tech school.
In 2015, he deployed to Southeast Asia with the Air Force for a seven-month period. When he returned, he used the GI Bill to attend college, primarily to earn money for rent.
In 2017, driven by a long-held interest in law enforcement, Bhagwatsingh entered the police academy. He worked at The Track on weekends to pay bills and was hired by the Fort Walton Beach Police Department before graduation. He swore in as an officer in August 2017.
His path wasn’t without tragedy. A close friend, Ray Hamilton, an Okaloosa County Sheriff’s Deputy, was later killed in the line of duty on Christmas Eve 2022.
Still, Bhagwatsingh pressed on, determined to make a difference.
He deployed again in 2019 and returned just as COVID-19 began spreading. That same year, he married his now-wife and worked patrol until June 2021, when he joined FWBPD’s Community Policing Unit, where he has been ever since.
In Officer Gerard Bhagwatsingh’s own words, the Community Policing Unit is not about writing tickets or racking up arrests — it’s about building trust, restoring relationships, and helping people.
“Community policing is about the relationships — that’s what we do,” he said. “We don’t wait to get called. We go out and we interact.”
By his estimate, over half of the unit’s work involves building trust through proactive engagement. Another part of their focus involves addressing crises and solving root problems like mental health emergencies and addiction.
Only about 5 percent of their role involves arrests or citations.
“We’re there to help, not to harass,” Bagwatsingh emphasized. “We don’t write people off — we try to reach them.”
One of the most poignant examples of his outreach was his work with James Turpin, a Vietnam veteran struggling with alcoholism and homelessness. Known downtown for his scraggly beard and a wooden sign, Turpin was often the subject of police calls from business owners.
“He was the guy people thought of when they imagined a homeless person,” Bhagwatsingh said. “He’d be passed out in front of stores, holding a can, getting trespassed — seven calls a day, easy.”
But instead of pushing Turpin away, Bhagwatsingh leaned in.
He took the time to hear Turpin’s war stories, spoke to him about treatment, and ultimately partnered with 90Works — a nonprofit organization dedicated to ending homelessness within 90 days — to help him secure housing and support.
Bhagwatsingh coordinated with caseworker Melody Newsome to provide Turpin hygiene kits, a cell phone, and, eventually, a bed in a Mississippi detox facility that accepted his insurance.
“I clocked in on my day off just to see him off,” Bagwatsingh said. “I helped load him into the van. He cried. I took a photo with him. I was so proud.”
But the victory was short-lived.
Within days, Turpin’s son, Jason, who Bhagwatsingh described as abusive and dependent on his father’s disability income, allegedly altered his father’s insurance policy, forcing his removal from the treatment program.
“I was in military drill when Melody called me and said, ‘Bags, call me ASAP,'” Bhagwatsingh recalled. “Turns out the insurance had been changed. I was crushed.”
Despite setbacks like these, Bhagwatsingh’s resolve has only grown stronger.
He’s helped mediate trash disputes downtown, partnered with local businesses to hire homeless residents, and even tackled a fentanyl ring operating out of a Circle K gas station.
After the bust, he collaborated with corporate leadership to enhance lighting, surveillance, and community relations, which helped reduce the number of crime calls at the location.
Still, Bhagwatsingh admits not all in law enforcement share his community-first philosophy.
“In law enforcement, there’s this divide,” he said. “Some think your only job is to stomp out crime. But community policing says, no — we’re here to repair a fractured relationship. We’re here to show people we care.”
That approach extends to events like “Construction Junction” and “Winter Wonderland,” which are organized by the Community Policing Unit, bringing officers and the community together through games, food, and public outreach.
According to Bhagwatsingh, they’re part of a broader effort to change the public perception of policing.
“When people see us walking downtown, they ask, ‘Is something wrong?’ and we tell them, ‘No, we’re just checking on you.’ That’s community policing,” he said.
“Sometimes you don’t wear a cape. Sometimes you wear a badge,” Bhagwatsingh noted.
It wasn’t just a line. It was a window into how he views the job — not as a power trip, but as a calling to protect, to connect, and to care.
He doesn’t kick in doors looking for glory. He shows up with a bottle of water and a golf cart. He listens when others turn away. He offers kindness amidst chaos.
He doesn’t need a cape. He never did.
Because in Gerard Bhagwatsingh’s world, heroism doesn’t soar above the city. It walks the streets with purpose — sweating in the heat, hearing complex stories, helping someone get through one more day.
That, he says, is what community policing is all about.
“We don’t give up on people,” Bhagwatsingh said. “We show them we’re still here.”
Pro Communi Bono
