PENSACOLA, Fla. — The formality of the event did not seem to intimidate UWF Police Chief Roman Jackson when he was sworn in at the Argonaut Athletic Club on Friday, January 16, 2026.

After completing his oath of office, a smiling Jackson turned to the audience and joked, “Did we practice this a lot? No,” drawing a laugh from the crowd of University of West Florida officers, community leaders and even Mayor D.C. Reeves.

Announced for the position a week earlier, Jackson is a veteran of the Santa Rosa County Sheriff’s Office with decades of experience across multiple fields.

UWF President Manny Diaz further emphasized Jackson’s extensive professional experience in a speech given at the event.

“He brings unparalleled expertise. Patrol operations, investigations, special operations and administrative leadership,” Diaz said. “He specialized in units like SWAT, school resource officer, led critical incident responses, served as an instructor for statewide leadership education specializing in critical incident management, officer mental health and collaborating on school safety protocols.”

Jackson’s deep ties to the community were clear by the respect and familiarity with which community leaders spoke about him.

“We’ve worked together for decades.” I’ve seen his work; I know his work ethic. I’m really excited about the fact that we can collaborate on a number of different things,” Simmons said. “I’m very happy for him, very happy for his family. I think his experience is going to be very beneficial and I’m really happy for UWF and Escambia County.”

“Chief Jackson’s an incredible person, a family man,” Reeves said. “And, as you can see in this room today, has a big impact around this community, not just on campus.”

Just weeks into work, Jackson has already been involved in a major arrest. In collaboration with the Escambia County Sheriff’s Office, the UWF police located more than 20 stolen e-bikes and scooters that had been taken from the campus over two months, according to NorthEscambia.com.

On the morning of Jan. 13, Jackson and other investigators located the bikes at a local residence and arrested multiple suspects.

“We were able to get a search warrant,” Simmons said. “We got a search warrant and we were able to seize back all of these bicycles and then ultimately the proper owner will get those bicycles.”

Simmons and Jackson hope to utilize the partnership between the two departments for the benefit of both jurisdictions.

“I think that we’re going to be able to collaborate on some of the things that maybe the UWF has that we don’t have,” Simmons said. “They have a very good state-of-the-art shooting virtual reality type of training facility and then we’re going to start using that and obviously our infrastructure, our range, everything is open to them as well.”

The VirTra 300 LE firearms training simulator is located at UWF’s Center for Behavioral Analysis and has been used to help train UWF police officers, ROTC cadets and Pensacola Police Department officers since 2021, according to the Pensacola News Journal.

Jackson said he is excited to share training infrastructure with the Sheriff’s Office and wants to take the collaboration even further.

“One of the biggest things that I want to take on is, I want to start really working towards good leadership training for the people that work here, but also getting into doing a lot of mutual training with other agencies so that we all work in cohesion,” Jackson said. “That’s the biggest project that I have, because in the event that we had a mass incident here, I want us all to know what each other do.”

Jackson’s selection comes after the retirement of Chief Marc Cossich, who served seven years at UWF.