Here's the new Richland County face you'll see on 'Live PD'

There's a new deputy patrolling Richland County on "Live PD."

Cpl. Joshua Robinson will join Deputy Kevin Lawrence, Lt. Danny Brown, Deputy Addy Perez and the rest of the Richland County Sheriff's Department crew on the A&E documentary series.

A former Clemson fan who now pulls for the Gamecocks, Robinson grew up in the Upstate and started his law enforcement career at the Mauldin Police Department and Greenville County Sheriff's Office before coming to Richland County in 2012 after meeting his wife, who is from Richland County.

Robinson said the agency appealed to him since he saw Sheriff Leon Lott speak at his graduation from the S.C. Criminal Justice Academy.

"What we'd always heard is that he sticks by his people, if they do the right thing, no matter what, and he genuinely cares about you as a person and more than just a warm body," Robinson said of Lott. "And at a department this size, that's very, very rare to find."

Robinson said he bounced around from major to major while in college before deciding to give law enforcement a try.

"I'll try it, and if I don't like it, I'm only 21, so I'll go do something else," he recalled saying at the time. "For 11 years, I've been trying it. So far, I like it."

Initially, he was unsure how well the show would do but now lauds its effectiveness at showing viewers what police encounter, and says it's also a good recruiting tool.

The format, he says, allows officers to explain the call that they are going to, then give a synopsis afterward of what happened and why the officers took the action that they did.

"I think that shows the more human side of us and that we're not just mindless robots, walking around and doing our job," he said.

One moment of the show in Richland County that stands out for Robinson is last July's chase and crash involving then-Senior Deputy Chris Mastrianni. Cameras were rolling as a car that was fleeing deputies crashed, and the father got out and fought with Mastrianni, swinging his toddler daughter around.

Robinson said he was working another assignment at the time and heard the commotion on the radio. He tuned in to the show on his phone.

"Even though I knew everything was OK, I knew that it ended well, I was sweating (watching it)," he said.

Mastrianni said in March that he was being promoted to investigator, ending his time on the show, which is now in its second season.

The show airs Fridays and Saturdays at 9 p.m. on A&E.

This story was originally published May 4, 2018 at 2:32 PM with the headline "Here's the new Richland County face you'll see on 'Live PD'."