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Robert Rodriguez has seen it all in his time with the Shelby County Sheriff’s Office, and even while dealing with difficult cases at work and tragedy at home, his faith fuels a radical empathy that touches everyone he knows. (For the Reporter/Dawn Harrison)

Written by Andrew Simonson | Photos by Dawn Harrison

Ask anyone who comes in contact with Sergeant Robert Rodriguez of the Shelby County Sheriff’s Office, and they’ll point to many things about him, but rarely will they start with his law enforcement accomplishments.

Although those accomplishments throughout his 15-year career in service to Shelby County are numerous and noteworthy, instead, they’ll point to the many positive ways he impacts those around him and the exemplary character that he shows in the process.

“Robert is the most godly, energetic, moral, kind, helpful, amazing young man, outside of my son and my family,” longtime friend Dale Sibley said. “I don’t know another person as really very special as he is.”

For Shelby County Sheriff’s Office Chief Deputy Clay Hammac, there is one trait that comes to mind: compassion. It was the first thing that he noticed when Rodriguez started with the Sheriff’s Office, and it’s still one of his defining traits to this day.

It’s compassion that drove him to pursue a career in law enforcement after coming to America as a young refugee. It’s compassion that keeps him going in the face of difficulties in his professional and personal life. And it’s compassion that makes him rise above his peers to be one of the most loved and respected officers in Shelby County.

“I think he is a picture of the American dream, or at least what it should be, fleeing communist Cuba, making a new life for himself and then giving back on top of all that,” Hammac said.

An immigrant’s inspiration

Before Rodriguez became one of Shelby County’s finest, he was a young immigrant with a dream.

Rodriguez was born in Cuba and immigrated with his mother in 1980 when the Jimmy Carter administration opened the door for Cubans to seek political asylum in the United States. The two of them moved from Havana to Miami to start a new life as refugees.

The U.S. brought numerous cultural changes for the Rodriguez family, but one of the biggest differences Robert saw was in the police officers. Compared to military rule in Havana, police officers were a much more positive influence on him with how they served their community.

“I saw especially growing up in Miami a lot of police officers just helping, and not only being part of the community, but really serving in that community kind of sparked my interest because I liked what I saw how they were helping people like myself and my mom and our family that were refugees,” Rodriguez said. “They were kind of part of the process.”

Those officers inspired him to seek a career in law enforcement from a young age. His dream eventually became a reality when he went to police academy and began serving with the Shelby County Sheriff’s Office upon graduation in March 2009.

When Rodriguez first joined the patrol division, his attitude drew the attention of his coworker Hammac, who at the time served in the criminal investigations department but is now the chief deputy.

“One of the first things that stood out to me was his humility,” Hammac said. “He was very meek and humble with how he addressed everyone in the room in such a way that you could tell that he had gratitude for being there. He was grateful for the job. He was grateful for the opportunity to serve in this community, and that stands out and still stands out to this day in my mind.”

Much of that is because Rodriguez saw being a police officer as a way to give back to his community in the same way the Miami police officers served him and his neighbors growing up.

As a result, he sees each interaction at his job through a different lens. Instead of an obligation, he sees it as a chance to connect with people and be a light in a dark moment.

“I always tell this to the younger guys are coming through, being in law-enforcement, you really have a front seat at life and you see the very best and the very worst of people and everything in between,” Rodriguez said. “You really have that opportunity when you interact with a citizen or somebody in the community to really make a good impact, not just writing a report or answering a question or responding to a scene of a domestic issue or an accident, but really taking the time to get to know the folks and the people that you interact with and that you serve and being involved in the community where you give back and talking to the kids that are maybe having a hard time or they don’t come from a good family so you can be that male figure that allows that young boy to see what a real man or real father should be. So, you can do a lot of that as a police officer by your interactions that you have with the community and the citizens from the very young to the very old.”

Now, Rodriguez is a Sergeant who investigates crimes against children and is part of the crisis response team that assists in sensitive situations involving suicidal individuals or hostages.

He also serves on the board with Owens House, a nonprofit in Columbiana which seeks to end child abuse and provide a safe space for victims to heal.

Much of his work investigating child abuse cases intersects with the organization, and he uses his experience on the frontlines to help others on the board understand what is happening there and needed to continue their work.

Through it all, he encounters many opportunities to live up to his mission of positively impacting his community.

An empathetic ear

One of the ways that Rodriguez impacts his community is by the way he approaches each case that he works. He strives to come alongside the people affected by the cases as their neighbor and not just as another police officer so they can heal from their pain.

“We’re not just investigating the case,” Rodriguez said. “We’re also being there to bring healing and somewhat assurance that you’re not alone in this horrible situation you’re in. We’re here for you, not as a cop, not as a police officer, as an investigator, but as Robert, another human being.”

One of the ways that he helps is by helping families make ends meet in the aftermath of a case. For example, if the breadwinner goes to jail and those left are suddenly without the ability to pay bills and put food on the table, he connects them with organizations who can help.

He does that because he sees the pain that the victims experience and wants to help them navigate the process and bring healing to them.

“The way I see it is it’s not a case,” Rodriguez said. “You’re not just a number, but you are a person, and I become heavily involved in that process of healing, because when we receive a case like that, the child, their innocence has been robbed, and the family is now in an emotional roller coaster, and they’re trying to figure things out. They’re hurt, they’re angry, and they’re on this ride, and I can be part of that.”

Rodriguez views his work as an opportunity to minister to others through his Catholic faith and spread the Gospel in their difficult moments.

He says that the first thing that he does when he receives a case is pray for the victim, for the family that is affected by the situation, for himself to receive guidance in investigating the case and for the perpetrator to receive a conversion of their heart.

That helps him treat each party involved in the case with respect, even if the perpetrators have committed heinous crimes against children like the cases he typically deals with. He has found that approach to be effective in extracting confessions and delivering justice for families.

“It always turns out where if you treat them with respect and you don’t condone what they did but you try to understand where they are coming from, why did they do what they did, and they see that you’re genuinely trying to speak with them as a human instead of like an animal or piece of trash, that’s important because that really kind of sets the foundation and the base for the case because now you’re bringing the facts and the details from the child, from the family, but you also need the defendant to cooperate,” Rodriguez said. “Having that ability to connect with them and treat them with respect and dignity, they open up and they start talking, and nine times out of 10, they’ll confess to what they’ve done to the child.”

Those skills also extend to his work with the crisis response team. During those moments where he interacts with suicidal individuals or in a hostage situation, he is able to give a caring ear to people who are going through very difficult situations in their personal lives.

In his experience, he has found that not trying to solve a situation but just being someone who is willing to listen makes a major difference.

“They’re not bad people. They just snap,” Rodriguez said. “That’s all that they could take, and then they become involved in a crisis situation when they’re emotionally on a high, they don’t see a way out, so as a negotiator, you bring that hope that, ‘There is tomorrow, there is light. It’s dark right now. You can’t even see your hands in front of you, but it’s going to get better, and let’s talk about why we’re here.’ You’d be surprised how many people just want to be heard. They want to be heard because nobody cares about them.”

That extends to those who he works with as he offers his support to people around him no matter who they are or what they’re going through.

At his previous job with Eternal Word Television Network in Irondale, Rodriguez became close with a woman 30 years his senior, Dale Sibley. Sibley was a newly converted Catholic at the time, and he helped her grow deeper in her faith while working at the network.

“I was a new convert to the Catholic Church when I met him and when he came to work for EWTN, so he was an incredibly, helpful, patient, godly man helping me to see how to be a better Catholic and Christian,” Sibley said.

While the two no longer work together, their families remain close friends. She views him highly as a strong man of character.

“I don’t know how to say any more clearly how much I respect him, and I truly do honor him as one of my very most godly, precious, loving, kind, strong, faithful friends,” Sibley said.

He continues to forge deep relationships with his fellow officers at the sheriff’s department. Hammac knows how stressful the job can be on a daily basis, and Rodriguez helps play a role in supporting the members of his work family through their struggles.

“What we go through on a day-to-day basis, what we see, what we experience on this job is something that no one should ever have to see or experience, and if we have not created a healthy way to address those emotions or how we decompress from those experiences, then it can certainly compound and create trouble for us later in our career and bleed over into our personal lives and our family,” Hammac said. “Robert has made it his priority to be that point of contact, to be a peer support person for other cops, and without even advertising. Everyone knows that you just go to Robert if you need an ear to talk to, and there’s no judgment, there’s no condemnation, he is there to listen, and whenever he offers council, it’s wise council. It’s solid. His morality is absolute. I’ve said it once before, but he is one of the most compassionate and Christ-like servant leaders that I’ve ever had the pleasure of working side-by-side with.”

Strength through sorrow

Many of Rodriguez’s friends and peers consider him to be a strong and unwaveringly positive person. However, those traits were greatly tested in recent years.

Rodriguez’s wife Jennifer passed away in 2022 after a battle with cancer. The two were married for 25 years prior to her death, and he was left as a single father of two teenage daughters, 18-year-old Colette and 16-year-old Therese, both of whom are homeschooled.

While Jennifer’s loss still weighs heavily on him, Rodriguez leans on his faith to give him the strength to go on. He credits God for being with him during difficult seasons in addition to his daughters.

“What I think has kept me going is, number one, my family, my daughters, but my faith, God giving me the strength and the graces that I needed to take care of her when she was sick, especially towards the end, but even now two years later, he’s giving me those special graces to keep going,” Rodriguez said. “Yeah, I miss her terribly. I love her to death, and she was my world, and my focus is now my daughters of course, but just having that faith and that good marriage that we had and those memories is what keeps me going. If it wasn’t for God’s grace, I don’t know what I would do without Him. He gives me those special graces when it gets hard, when it gets confusing, He’s there.”

Throughout the grieving process, he has managed to balance his work and personal responsibilities, being present for important activities like piano recitals and family dinners while balancing that with his Catholic disciplines and work with the Sheriff’s Office.

Friends like Sibley marvel at how Rodriguez was able to be a strong and kind person to his family and those around him while experiencing such immense grief.

“He was a rock, a strong, hurting, painful, but rock of God for those girls, and he continued to be kind and understanding for them, to them, help them with their schooling as much as he could, and this is mixed in with long hours at the Shelby County Sheriff’s Department,” Sibley said. “He blended those together by asking God when to quit, when to stay, what to do, who to help.”

They credit his faith for helping get him through the process, and he turned to God for guidance with unwavering faith through hard times and received strength

“It’s like God just melted down on him all through everything he had to do,” Sibley said. “He was just so incredibly strong in the faith. He didn’t turn his back on God. He didn’t leave God out of his decisions that he thought he had. I would’ve thought I had some good answers, but he constantly, consistently put God first, and he did what he had to do to stay in touch with God, to be faithful to God, to trust God, and then do whatever God led him to do, no matter how difficult it was, how different it was from what he might’ve thought it would’ve been good for him to do. And it always turns out because he does what God asked him to do.”

For Rodriguez though, his spiritual life has always been his source of strength. Diving into his faith gives him the ability to see people for who they are and offer respect to those that much of the world believes don’t deserve anything.

It allows him to carry on in the face of difficult circumstances that test his faith.

“The way I see it is I’m serving Christ, really,” Rodriguez said. “It’s having a spiritual life is the balance, because I personally have seen a lot of bad things and I have been involved in things that people have done, horrible things to children, but they’re still human. They still have the dignity that was given to them by God, and no matter what they’ve done, I always treat them with respect and the dignity that they maybe not deserve because of what they’ve done, but they do deserve it because of who they are there, they’re a child of Christ, child of God.

“So, having that spiritual life, that prayer life really balances the things that I have personally seen and we all see and in law enforcement, and just having that spiritual life is what allows you to put things in perspective, ‘Why does God allow things to happen to good people?’ and it helps me to navigate through some of those questions that I might even have myself.”

Through it all, that faith helps drive that one defining trait: his compassion. A compassion that not only makes him an exemplary police officer in the eyes of his peers, but an even better person.

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