- April 26, 2024
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Sgt. John Bayne, of the Ormond Beach Police Department, has only worked for one agency. And it's the only agency his son wanted to work for.
BY MATT MENCARINI | STAFF WRITER
Officer Andrew Bayne didn’t just want to be a police officer. He wanted to be an Ormond Beach police officer.
“It’s just something I’ve always wanted to do,” he said, of being a cop in his hometown.
The fact that his father works in the same department, and has since 1985, didn't hurt, either.
His dad, Sgt. John Bayne, is currently the midnight shift supervisor. He said it’s “surreal” having his son in the same department, after watching him graduate from the police academy and apply for jobs.
“I’ve never seen a father and son at this agency,” John Bayne said. “And none come to mind at any of the other ones.”
Andrew Bayne applied for a position at the Orange City Police Department, but nothing came of it, which was fine by him. He had his heart set on Ormond Beach, so he waited.
“I was working at Arby’s at the time,” Andrew Bayne said. “And I was on the overnight shift and I came home. I was checking the job-application page every night before I went to sleep to see if a position opened up."
And then one night, a position was there. So Bayne jumped at it.
Andrew Bayne joined the department in February, and his father gave him an important piece of advice before he started the job he always wanted: Listen more than talk.
“Any time you get into a new field, especially when you’re young, I think you’re respected more if you don’t think you know it all,” John Bayne said. “Once you get out into the field, and dealing with the public, I think the public respects you more when they realize that you’re an active listener and that you're truly engaged.”
Since then, the work conversations between father and son has been mostly focused on the job, not about the significance of them sharing the same department, which is the only department John Bayne has ever worked for, and the only one Andrew Bayne wanted to work for.
“We don’t talk about, so much, the mushy stuff anymore,” John Bayne said. “It’s mostly, ‘What do you think of this statute?' Or, 'This case law that just came out, did you hear about that?’"
And that's good for the relationship, he added, because right now, he says his son is "like a sponge."
"He has all kinds of legal questions and procedural questions," Bayne said. "I guess he has a little advantage because he can light up my phone at two in the morning and get away with it.”
