Houston County Sheriff Donald Valenza celebrates 45 years of work: “You tell me what you need, and I’ll get it”

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Posted by: RStokes
Date: Nov 26 2024 9:34 AM

DOTHAN—Each morning, Houston County Sheriff Donald Valenza can be seen cruising into work in his black Chevy Tahoe.

He’s headed to the Sheriff’s Office, situated next to the administration building in downtown Dothan. On Monday morning, he would join a group of other county employees being honored for their time working. He stood in the back as employees’ names were called, highlighting 5, 10, 15 and 25 years of employment from those at the jail to the road and bridge department. 

But last certainly wasn’t least: Sheriff Donald Valenza has worked with the Houston County Sheriff’s Office for 45 years, as of October. He’s walking confidently into his 46th.

 

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Walking onto his floor the week of Thanksgiving, everything is already decorated in red and green; a big Christmas tree stands right outside the elevator, and a little scented plug-in wafts the smells of evergreen pine enough to almost make you forget you’re still in southern Alabama.

“Valenza is the opposite of a Scrooge,” the secretary says with a smile, glancing at an elf seated on her desk. “He insisted all this be put up.”

Valenza’s office is also unlike any other sheriff’s. 

It’s decked out with LSU memorabilia—he’s enough of a superfan to even dress his commemorative coin in purple and gold. There's a rifle displayed in a shadowbox above his desk, medals, badges, photos, coffee cups. There always seems to be something new to look at. 

And one thing is immediately clear: he has a knack for remembering the details. 

Frequently, he’s able to give an exact date and time for events. 

“Well, sometimes dates burn into you,” he says. 

Dates like January 10th, 2000, at 2:45 in the afternoon, when he responded to one of three murders “back to back to back.”

He readily provides details, remembering the victims’ names and their next of kin.

He then tells of what he calls one of his hardest cases: when a young couple, whom he said “had no business with kids,” was charged with abuse.

They weren’t supposed to be in Alabama, but Florida DHR had insisted they simply stay. 

The mother told a convoluted tale of dropping blankets and repeatedly “accidentally” bumping her child in the head, trying to explain away why a three-month-old had two broken arms, a broken leg, and two skull fractures. 

“I’ll never forget that,” he says. He doesn’t hold back his distaste for the case.

His moral compass is displayed. 

He’s tough on human injustice, and the details either haunt him or gladden him, depending on the case. 

“It gives you some satisfaction when you do clear (a case) and charge them,” he says.

Valenza makes it clear he’s seen horrible things.

“I consider myself very lucky, and I really mean it, for all the years I’ve got—all the suicides, deaths, and shootings—that I don’t have some form of PTSD. When I get on a crime scene, I just say a little prayer: get me through this… just get me through it and let me do my job. 

“It’s worked for going on 46 years.”

He doesn’t deny the emotional toll that seeing the worst takes on law enforcement, but he says there are more resources available to help those working the scenes not take the horror home. Now there’s a doctor to visit and peer support.

In years past, the attitude was different. 

“The sheriffs back then were like, ‘This is what you get paid for, just suck it up,’” he says. “It’s not that you’re weak. It’s just you can’t take this stuff home. For some of them it was hard for them to do that, and they just couldn’t take it.”

He stops and taps his arm. 

“You can’t imagine what some of our veterans go through overseas,” he says. “I mean, dead’s dead, but they’re seeing it a lot worse.”

 

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Valenza was a senior in high school when the U.S. was pulling out of Vietnam.

Born and raised in New Orleans, he graduated about seven miles south of the French Quarter.

He came to Dothan to play baseball in 1973.

“When I got to Dothan, I was like, ‘oh my god.’” He puts on a long face and shakes his head. “After about a month in school, I called home and told my parents, ‘Look, I’m ready to come home. There’s nothing to do up here.’”

His mother inquired about what the young people did around Dothan at the time. He told her most people hung out at McDonald’s. 

(His mother originally exclaimed with worry that McDonald’s might be a nightclub; he had to calmly explain it was a burger joint.)

But he wound up staying. 

Some baseball scouts considered him before eventually brushing him off; and two years after that, he landed with the Houston County Sheriff’s Office, and the rest is history.

He spent two months working in the jail before passing the police academy. He moved onto patrol and then to criminal investigations in 1985. He was promoted to a lieutenant in overall investigation and then became chief deputy in 2007. He was then appointed sheriff in 2014 and has been elected to his role ever since. 

He’s now also the president of the Alabama Sheriffs Association (and enjoys the golf tournaments—a nice perk, along with helping the Alabama Sheriffs Youth Ranches when he can).

“I was always battling myself to solve stuff,” he says. “I put 13 on death row for capital murders.”

But he faces change constantly.

“A lot of the laws have changed. Back in the day, there’s a lot of things law enforcement did that would not be acceptable today,” he says. “You have to adjust to the change.”

He says generations taught of life by violent video games could have created a sense of invincibility. 

“There are parts that have shootings, and they try to live it on the street. What they don’t realize is when you shoot the guy in games, the game’s over and you start again. Here, you shoot them, and you’ve just changed the whole course of your life.

“Some of them don’t care and don’t think about it—they just start spreading bullets.”

He says the Houston County Sheriff’s Office is one of the only departments which works city and county. 

“People call us, and I’m not going to tell them, ‘You’ve gotta call Dothan.’”

He mentions 859 “shots fired” calls in 2023 between the county and the city. 

The conversation pivots to his message to citizens, and there’s a long pause before he answers. 

“Be safe. Protect your family. Call us if you need to.” He looks directly into the camera. “I can tell you this: if anybody says different I’ll call them a liar in front of that camera.”

But he says just because the cops are on the way doesn't mean you are necessarily safe from danger yet.

He regales the story of a man who had been to prison for drugs, who eventually started going around saying he wanted to kill his wife. While the wife had come to the sheriff's office to get a warrant, she expressed her intention to go home; the chief deputy pleaded with her not to return home. She claimed she had a friend who was coming to stay, along with her friend’s son with Down Syndrome. 

“I’ll never forget it, 9:02 on a Sunday night,” Valenza said. “‘911, help, help, he’s breaking in.’ Deputies went through the door in four minutes—but the quick response time couldn’t save them.

“He killed her. He killed the boy. He thought he killed the lady on the phone, but she did live and then he shot himself. In four minutes.”

He said having a plan to defend yourself in case of emergency is paramount. 

“You’re on your own until we get there,” he said. “You’ve got to defend yourself until we get there.”

One of his initiatives has been making sure his deputies are armed for any situation which may arise. 

In the city, people may more commonly have handguns, but out in the country he said deputies are more often faced with shotguns and rifles; so, especially after his experience on a SWAT team, he made sure every deputy had an AR-15 rifle available. 

“When they get out there, they have something that stands between them and the bad guy.”

But one of his largest contributions: new vehicles. 

Even while facing budget cuts, he said he was able to purchase 75 new vehicles using funds from pistol permits and other bills. 

He said he remembered keeping Sheriff patrol vehicles on 24/7.

A deputy would go on patrol and finally get off work; he would bring his patrol vehicle to the station and leave it running for the next deputy, who would ride it around on patrol again before taking it back to give to another deputy. 

Essentially, the vehicles were being used and kept running throughout the day—and the vehicles weren’t lasting. 

“I had 19 vehicles with over 300,000 miles on them when I came in office,” he said. “I wouldn’t drive it.”

Aside from purchasing new patrol vehicles, he’s taken to buying Bearcats: made-to-order armored vehicles. 

The second one for the Houston County Sheriff’s Office is currently being built. 

But he points out another distinction as I scribble down some notes with a blue pen.

“I’m going to tell you something right now,” he says. “What you’re doing right now with that ink pen? It’s almost obsolete in this department, in law enforcement.

“Everything’s (on the) computer. You really don’t even need an ink pen anymore. I’m serious. The last time I wrote a ticket? 1983. Now everything—you take their driver’s license and go whoosh—” He swipes an imaginary card reader in front of him. “It does everything itself.”

He naturally segues: 

“That’s the biggest adjustment in my career. All the technology coming in and having to keep up with it and justify in a budget why I gotta have it.”

 

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Valenza insists his success is only thanks to his team. 

“(People) will say, ‘You’re doing a great job!’ No, my guys are doing a great job. I just give them the things they need.”

But that’s a common trend throughout the conversation: “you tell me what you need, and I’ll get it.”

“I’ve got a great bunch working with me,” he says proudly.

"I get out and back up my deputies on third shift sometimes. I’ll get out, stay out to 2, 3, 4 in the morning. I just get out there and let them know, I’m different, I came up through the ranks. None of the other sheriffs ever came up through the ranks. I know what it’s like to come out and be out there."

His strong sense of justice and respect for the law define him. He relates good and evil to standing by a fence:

“You're standing by a six foot fence. How can you fall? You can’t. The only way you’ll fall is if you sit on the fence. This is good, that’s evil. You sit on that fence, there’s a good chance you’re going to fall to the evil side.”

Still, he has clever humor and incredible wit; he makes a joke he’d be authorized by DHR to open a daycare with “some of the things that go on.”

People ask him why he won’t retire, but he asks the question: why should he?

“I’m gonna keep on doing it,” he said earlier in the day on the phone. “I enjoy it. I could’ve retired 25 years ago.”

While he’s cognizant of the extremities of the job, he says he wouldn’t do anything else. 

“It’s a 24 hour job… I just try to make a difference.”

Emma Daniel

RSN Reporter

[email protected]

 

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