In the early 1990s, when Robert Sandt first trekked through the palmetto scrub of what is now part of the western communities, he was hunting hogs and a good time with his buddies. Today, Sandt is here hunting lawbreakers as the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office captain overseeing District 15 (Acreage/Loxahatchee), District 17 (Loxahatchee Groves) and District 18 (Westlake).
Based out of Royal Palm Beach, Sandt’s command includes a large swath of the western communities. He took formal command on Feb. 12, replacing Capt. Craig Turner, who was shifted to District 16 in the City of Greenacres.
“One of the guys took me out [to The Acreage] and I was like, ‘Oh, my God. This is crazy.’ It was so wide open. There was nothing,” recalled Sandt, a New York native, of his first visit to the area all those years ago. “And I didn’t like tromping around, chasing after a hog all day long. I quickly realized this was a different lifestyle that people wanted to live, with their dune buggies and ATVs and everything else that goes with that.”
“Snapshot, fast forward,” said Sandt to The Acreage of today, where some 45,000 people live on 17,000 lots spread over 110 square miles. In the middle of that is the fast-growing planned community of Westlake. “That whole [rural] lifestyle is being squeezed. The criminals begin to see a lot more opportunities out here.”
That’s where his job with the PBSO comes in.
“My job as commander of this district is to really understand that,” he said. “I need to make sure my staffing is such that I have men and women who want to work the rural type of policing. It’s very important to have law enforcement that is able to relate to the community that they are serving.”
Sandt said that is why he has focused on choosing liaisons to the semi-rural communities who can relate to their citizens, plus someone more attuned to the suburban vibe of Westlake.
It’s a technique Sandt said he employed extensively and with success while commander of District 4, which serves western Delray Beach. However, Sandt said his biggest accomplishment during his years there (2018 to 2025) was getting the many gated communities of the area to communicate with each other and with the PBSO.
“The goal was to push crime completely out of [the area] as much as possible, and not to simply harden one gated community to have it pop back up down the road,” he said. “We had to get everyone working together.”
Eventually, Sandt’s team developed an intranet system that allowed security units at various enclaves, plus the PBSO, to communicate in real time and to discuss issues via e-mail. He also made sure the non-gated developments and local houses of worship felt included through one-on-one contact with deputies assigned to get to know them and keep in touch with the leaders of those communities.
“I’ve known Capt. Sandt for 30 years,” said Col. Eric Coleman, who supervises the PBSO’s 1,500 uniformed officers and detectives. “He’s a well-respected, accomplished leader.”
Sandt grew up on Long Island with a Dutch-Irish father in the construction business, a very Italian mother, plus an “Uncle Vinnie” in the New York City Police Department. At age 18, he came to Florida for college, and a bud of interest in law enforcement flourished.
In 1991, Sandt joined the Palm Springs Police Department, moving to the PBSO in 1994, where he has served in many roles, including road patrol, special weapons and tactics (SWAT), City of South Bay commander, and as a patrol operations watch commander.
While taking on ever-increasing responsibility with the PBSO, Sandt also earn a bachelor’s degree in public administration (summa cum laude) from Barry University, completed the Command Officers Development Course at the Southern Police Institute at the University of Louisville in Kentucky and graduated from the Senior Management Institute for Police at Boston University.
Sandt has been married to his wife Jackie for 25 years. They reside in Palm Beach Gardens and have a daughter who recently graduated from college and a teenaged son.
Out of uniform, Sandt enjoys fishing and New York Yankees baseball.
“I strongly believe that with the exceptional staff I have here… we will achieve great things through our commitment to fostering a transparent relationship between the sheriff’s office and the community in which we serve,” Sandt writes on the District 15 web page. “Through that process, new partnerships will be forged and existing ones nurtured.”
