- November 21, 2024
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When Mike Muller was promoted to chief of the Citizen Observer Patrol four years ago, about 15 COPs in leadership positions had just retired.
“I was the last guy with any kind of rank,” he said. “Just the week before I was promoted to captain.”
Muller and his wife, Pam, are leaving the Flagler County Sheriff Office’s volunteer organization after nine years. Muller retired as chief on March 1. Pam is retiring as a commander on April 6.
Under Mike Muller’s leadership, the COP added three patrols — an ATV unit on the beach to help people who are injured; a bicycle unit with COPs patrolling the trails in pairs and a marine patrol boat to provide aid to disabled boats.
He also expanded the COP’s traffic crash investigations from about 70 to 90 a year to about 80 a month. The COPs who pass a Sheriff’s Office course investigate crashes, give citations for non-criminal violations and go to court if the citation is challenged.
“One time I went to a crash scene on Belle Terre, and there was one car flipped over and another in a ditch,” Mike Muller said. “Two women were hugging each other. They said, ‘We’re just lucky to be alive, so we hugged each other.’”
“One time I went to a crash scene on Belle Terre, and there was one car flipped over and another in a ditch. Two women were hugging each other. They said, ‘We’re just lucky to be alive, so we hugged each other.’”
MIKE MULLER
Later that day, he went on another call, and two men were fighting, although there was barely a scratch on each car. If a fight breaks out, the COP calls the Sheriff’s Office to send a deputy. In nine years, Mike Muller said he called for backup once.
The COPs also work parades and provide escorts from funerals. They have a house watch program where they will drive by and walk around a house if an owner requests when they are away. The COPs patrol in 13 marked Ford Fusion Hybrids, provided by the Sheriff's Office.
Pam Muller works the front desk at the Palm Coast Sheriff’s Office substation.
“The whole office is run by COPs,” she said. “We dispatch, we do we fingerprints and weapon, liquor and realtor licenses.”
According to the Flagler County Sheriff’s website, “since 2005, the COPs have worked about 260,000 hours, saving the county about $4,806,000.”
During the last four years, Citizens On Patrol has averaged about 70 to 75 volunteers, Mike Muller said.
His leadership style was inclusive, said Commander Mike Gaskill, who also retired in March.
“It was always a group effort,” Gaskill said. “He always talked to everybody, asked for their opinions. It was a very wide-open give-and-take. Pam was pretty much the same as Mike, utilizing everyone’s opinion. We’re all volunteers. We’re not going to do it if we don’t like it.”
Mike, 68, and Pam, 67, have been married for 27 years. They have two children and two grandchildren.
Mike retired at 56 after the couple sold their travel agency. After working 12 to 14 hours a day together for many years, they were looking for something new to do. They moved from Chesapeake, Virginia, to Palm Coast.
“We went to the Rib Fest, and the Sheriff’s Office was asking for volunteers,” Mike said. “I had never been in the police business in my life, but I took an application. We decided, ‘Let’s give back to the community, even if this is not our community.’ I got to meet the mayor. I never saw the mayor in Chesapeake.”
This soon became their community.
“(Mike Muller) always talked to everybody, asked for their opinions. It was a very wide-open give-and-take.”
MIKE GASKILL, former COP commander
“We met a lot of friends through the COPs,” Pam said. “It was like a family.”
Now, the Mullers — who worked 30 to 35 hours a week with the COPs — want to spend more time with their own family. They have an RV, and they want to travel.
When Mike Muller stepped down, his fellow COPs gave him a miniature baseball bat with the inscription, “Thanks for going to bat for us.” They also signed a large card, each adding a heartfelt message.
He read one out loud: “You have made a lasting impression in my life.”
“I couldn’t read the card without crying,” he said. “I got emotional.”
Geraldine Marsh, a retired dentist who joined the COPs after meeting Pam Muller, said she fell in love with the program.
“I met a gracious group of people from different professional backgrounds with the sole purpose to serve the community,” she said. “Chief Muller and his wife have devoted with love a big part of their lives as retirees in supporting the Sheriff’s department.”
