VOLUSIA COUNTY, Fla. – It’s just after 5 a.m. and Volusia Sheriff Mike Chitwood is not behind a desk - he’s on the front lines.
At a mobile home in Edgewater, deputies are preparing to serve a search warrant on a suspected drug dealer - a convicted felon they’ve been tracking for weeks. The SWAT team and Edgewater police are also onsite, responding to complaints from neighbors about constant traffic in and out of the home.
After days of surveillance, they confirm the suspect is inside. It’s go time.
As we are riding to the location with the sheriff, he tells us how this will all go down.
“We’re going to get out, we’re going to follow. Ben is our captain of the SWAT team-we’re going to follow him,” he explains.
Chitwood parks about a block away. But he doesn’t just observe from afar. He walks up to the house with his team.
“I try to make every single warrant,” he says. “It’s good to see the head of your organization out here with the men and women. And it’s good for the neighbors when they come out and see their sheriff is responding to their complaints.”
Minutes later, SWAT breaches the front door and arrests two suspects. Inside, the house is a mess.
“The home is a shithole. It’s going to take a while,” Chitwood adds. “They have to go through everything. It could be hours.”
By 6:15 a.m., the sheriff’s part in the operation is done. But his day is just beginning as it usually does with a bike ride.
Clipping into his pedals, he’s off on his morning bike ride - a daily ritual that’s nearly killed him, twice.
In 2017, Chitwood was hit by a pickup truck in Ponce Inlet. He broke his hand, fractured two vertebrae, and needed stitches. Then in 2021, he was hit again - this time by a hit-and-run driver later identified as a 20-year-old shopping on Amazon.
Unfazed, the sheriff does an interview from the emergency room.
“I go flying off the bike. All I can tell you is it was a burgundy car,” he recalled. “The mirror was impaled in my back.”
These days, he rides mostly sticks on the trails - but the risk never fully goes away.
After a two-hour ride, Chitwood heads straight into a crime meeting at the sheriff’s office. It’s not open to the media, but our cameras were allowed in.
Minutes after it starts he gets some breaking news. One of his men says, “This just happened 5 seconds ago.”
It’s a swatting call targeting University High - a false threat made by a middle school student. Chitwood doesn’t mince words.
“Carla, make sure you perp walk the little bastard when he gets here.”
The meeting covered everything from immigration to new tech. And yes, deputies reveal they recovered more than a kilo of meth in that early-morning raid.
By 10 a.m., the sheriff is in front of cameras again. This time, updating reporters on a major identity theft case out of Daytona Beach that affected more than 500 victims.
“It was a South American transatlantic gang. We made eight arrests. Seven were in the country illegally. One was an asylum seeker,” he tells reporters.
A little later, we are back in his vehicle.
Even as I ask a question, his ears are tuned in to the chatter on his police radio. It is never off. He’s known for responding in the moment even when he’s not supposed to be working.
“I’m not a good fisherman, but I think I’m a decent cop,” he said. “If you’re riding around and your radio’s on, sooner or later you’re going to be in the right place at the right time.”
It’s happened before. In February 2023, while waiting to do a radio interview, he heard chatter about a stolen car on I-95 and jumped into a pursuit. The audio was captured live on-air by a Tampa radio station he was about to do an interview with.
Then in July that same year, in gym shorts and a T-shirt, he helped chase down another suspect. His officers body cameras captured it all. The video racked up more than 10 million views on TikTok.
Next stop: Daytona Beach’s municipal stadium, where first responders are prepping for hurricane season. The sheriff checks out the gear, chats with crews, and then heads to the Volusia Family Resource Center to pick up a gift for a birthday party he’s stopping by later on.
He also has to sign what has become a collectors item for many; bobbleheads of likeness.
“He needs to sign some bobble heads… that’s what I really need him for,” one staffer joked.
“Bobblehead command,” Chitwood laughed.
It’s lunchtime and he spotted at a Panera Bread getting a drink. Locals recognize him instantly.
“Oh my gosh, this is so cool… how random!”
“A superstar!” someone says.
He smiles, poses for selfies and shakes a few hands.
By now it’s close to 1 p.m. and he heads to one last stop: a 100th birthday party in Port Orange.
He does a lot of these.
I asked him how he gets invited.
“They send them to me. I said, put it on my calendar,” he answered.
“As your sheriff,” he tells the crowd of seniors, “I hope we don’t get any calls for loud music or too much drinking.”
They all break out in laughter.
He tells me this is just as important as anything else he does and he loves it.
Chitwood is now in his third 4-year term, nearing 40 years in law enforcement and he shows no signs of slowing down.
“I love this county and my department.” he says. “And I still have a lot to do.”