PORT ST. LUCIE, Fla. (CBS12) — Port St. Police Department Lucie has a new leader, after former boss Richard Del Toro won the county sheriff’s race.

Leo Niemczyk is now the top cop in Port St. Lucie and was sworn in as police chief this morning.

Shortly thereafter, CBS12 News had a chance to sit down with him for an exclusive interview so the community could get to know him and his plans a little better.

“Boss, tell me how you feel today now that you’re officially at the helm,” CBS12 News reporter Dylan Huberman asked Niemczyk.

“I feel excited. It’s been a long time coming, there’s been a lot of anticipation and a lot of work getting ready for it, going into it, and those things just came together today,” he replied.

Niemczyk says this line of work wasn’t always his dream.

“Before I started law enforcement, I was actually an auto mechanic. I worked for a Chevrolet dealership…we hit the recession in the early 90’s and there was no work out the door and I started thinking, “you know, what’s a more recession proof profession?” And I started taking civil service exams. I took the NYPD exam, I took the FDNY exam,” Chief Niemczyk recalled.

He says he found a use for his knowledge and skills in law enforcement.

“I got picked up by the Queens South Auto Larceny Unit there, and my job at the time was to catch car thieves and raid stores because auto theft was the biggest crime we had in Queens, ( era) car theft. capital of the world,” the chief told CBS12 News.

He says he decided to leave his native New York because he belonged in the Sunshine State.

“I’ve always loved Florida. Every time I’d go down on vacation and get back on that plane and fly back to Kennedy Airport and see the gray sky and get off and know it’s going to be 0 degrees,” he joked. .

“I took down a week’s vacation … when I left to go back to New York, I had been hired by the Port St. Police Department. Lucie…I was promoted to sergeant after being here for 4 years and I went on the road and worked on the road and I really enjoyed that because I enjoyed the opportunity to teach and share my experience with young officers,” explained Niemczyk. “Then later on I had the opportunity to go back to criminal investigations as a commander and I ended up reorganizing that division and my heart is in investigations, I really enjoy doing that work and then, not long into come on, boss. Bolduc retired and Acting Chief Del Toro stepped in and brought me into his office to be one of his deputy chiefs.”

Chief Niemczyk told CBS12 News he doesn’t plan to do things much differently than his predecessor, Del Toro.

“Our views are not very different,” he said. “I’m putting more emphasis on officer well-being … it reduces stress on our officers, it reduces health issues with our officers and they treat each other a little bit better, so the culture in the organization is one of my top priorities.”

He says he plans to use the technology to better protect the city’s residents.

I’m very focused on leveraging technology … I can’t be at every intersection monitoring every red light,” the chief noted. “We have a lot of residents upset about traffic, that’s one of the things I want to address quickly. , so we’re developing our real-time intelligence center, there’s a lot of cameras out there, there’s a lot of cameras on intersections, on storefronts, on people’s front doorbells, on our officers’ chests, on drones flying around… giving us the information we need to respond quickly and be more efficient in doing so.”

He also says he looks forward to continuing to grow the department through the training academy so it can help protect all residents of the rapidly growing city.