Grady Judd had just finished talking about fentanyl, methamphetamine, and 39 arrests when a reporter reached back two weeks for another question. The Polk County sheriff answered it, then reached considerably farther back for the line that ended the exchange: “I don’t chew my cabbage twice.”
The Sept. 3 news conference centered on Operation End of Worlds, a multi-agency drug investigation that the sheriff’s office said resulted in 39 arrests. Eighteen people were charged with drug trafficking.
A WFTV Channel 9 reporter used the question period to revisit the Aug. 20 detention of a mother and daughter after a car crash sent them to a Kissimmee-area hospital. Deputies took both women into custody on immigration detainers, according to the sheriff’s office.
Judd’s position during Thursday’s exchange was straightforward: deputies do not disregard a warrant or detainer because it involves immigration. Then came the cabbage.
One More Question
Embedded media follows; please allow a moment to load.
The earlier case involved 39-year-old Grace Calero and her 19-year-old daughter, Giulianna Carriel. WFTV reported that the women had no prior criminal histories or gang affiliations and had been taken to a hospital following a two-car crash.
The Polk County Sheriff’s Office told the station that deputies discovered immigration holds while handling the crash and took the women into custody after their medical treatment.
The family disputed the sheriff’s office’s description of their immigration circumstances. The women later returned to Ecuador after several days in immigration custody.
WFTV had also been seeking Judd’s response to the case. Its Aug. 25 report said he declined the station’s interview request that day, giving Thursday’s question some history before it reached the microphone.
Judd did not treat the intervening days as grounds for a new answer.
“I’m not gonna chew my cabbage twice,” he said.
Viewers knew which part they wanted to keep. Responses to the sheriff’s Facebook post quickly repeated the cabbage line, with one commenter writing, “You heard what I said. Gotta use that line.”
Old Cabbage
Judd did not invent the expression.
Ernest T. Bass used “I don’t chew my cabbage twice” on The Andy Griffith Show, and the phrase has long been used as a colorful way of saying someone does not intend to repeat himself.
Judd has been carrying it around for a while, too.
A 2018 Florida Department of Law Enforcement transcript records Judd discussing legislative language during a commission meeting.
“I don’t like to chew my cabbage twice, you know,” he said then.
Eight years later, he still doesn’t.