Joining Sarasota Police Chief Rex Troche on the podcast this month are Sergeant Frangioni and Officer Beskin of the Traffic Unit. Learn about the many things their unit is tasked with, like conducting traffic studies and investigating traffic homicides. Chief Troche, Sgt. Frangioni and Officer Beskin also talk about new roundabouts in the City, including the FDOT project at Gulfstream and U.S. 41.
Joining Sarasota Police Chief Rex Troche on the podcast this month are Sergeant Frangioni and Officer Beskin of the Traffic Unit. Learn about the many things their unit is tasked with, like conducting traffic studies and investigating traffic homicides. Chief Troche, Sgt. Frangioni and Officer Beskin also talk about new roundabouts in the City, including the FDOT project at Gulfstream and U.S. 41.
00;00;08;06 - 00;00;30;07
Unknown
Hi, I'm Chief Troche and this is Chat with the Chief, a podcast. This is our first episode. I'm joined by Sergeant Anthony Frangioni of the Traffic Unit and Julia eskin, also of the traffic unit. I want to say thank you guys for coming. I know you're super busy and you'd rather be out on the road instead of in here.
00;00;30;20 - 00;00;56;15
Unknown
But I think it's really important that we take this opportunity to talk about all the great things that y'all are doing rather than going out somewhere and renting a space and having people show up. Five, ten, 15 people show up. I think this is a great opportunity to have it on a podcast where people can listen to this at their leisure, whether they're working on lunch break, working out whenever they want.
00;00;56;15 - 00;01;12;25
Unknown
Maybe they're at a soccer game and they're sitting in the car and they can listen to it. But this is an opportunity for us to explain to our citizens, our taxpayers, what we're doing. And I think it's really important. So let's get down to your traffic unit. Do me a favor. Just kind of explain to everybody that's listening.
00;01;13;01 - 00;01;37;14
Unknown
What does your traffic unit actually do, other than the obvious and what it consists of? What a lot of people don't understand is it's not just tickets. That's not like a primary responsibility. Our primary responsibility is we are traffic homicide investigators. And what people don't realize is that we do get a lot in the city. They happen and they these guys are more like detectives than regular officers.
00;01;37;26 - 00;02;12;02
Unknown
It is an investigation that can go I mean, 90 days or more of every day, you know, boots on the ground, hunting down video, doing vehicle inspections, interviews, unfortunately, going to autopsies, talking to family members, trying to develop evidence, DNA and otherwise. They're detectives. They really are. So that is the primary responsibility of our unit. Secondary to that, of course, is enforcement, education and encouragement of the public to follow the traffic laws.
00;02;13;00 - 00;02;38;15
Unknown
Our primary duties when it comes to enforcement is we handle the school zones in the morning and in the afternoon. We also assist patrol when needed. The main thing that we do is traffic homicide investigations. Okay, let's talk about that a little bit. So the traffic officers are traffic homicide investigators and they go to special training. Yes. How many traffic homicide investigators or traffic people do you have in your unit?
00;02;38;16 - 00;03;04;11
Unknown
Five. So just five. So five people do all the traffic homicide investigations and they're enforcing the traffic laws. Is that correct? Yes. So most agencies, we're kind of different. Most agencies have a separate traffic homicide investigative unit and a separate enforcement unit. So we are not that big. We don't have the numbers to support that. That is the ideal situation, of course.
00;03;04;25 - 00;03;34;14
Unknown
So my people do both. So they're working twice as hard as any other traffic unit probably around here that does that has a traffic unit. So what ends up happening is they're put on a rotation schedule. Who gets a case? If it gets a case? For instance, this past month we've had four. So that means one person does not have a case in the unit and that ties up, you know, some resources on the street as well.
00;03;34;14 - 00;04;08;24
Unknown
So the homicide investigations definitely take priority because like if you watch 48 hours, you watch any of these shows, you start losing evidence the longer it takes to develop it. So, Anthony, this year, how many tickets has a traffic unit written? Not including patrol, because patrol has a different function. Patrol answers, calls for service, and then in their downtime, they'll go to certain areas where we're getting information from citizens and they'll try to sit there, run laser radar.
00;04;09;13 - 00;04;30;23
Unknown
So how many tickets has the traffic unit this this unit written this year? The five people in this unit wrote 6845 citations in 2022. Okay. And Julia? Yes, sir. How many tickets did you write? Because my understanding is you lead the pack from last year, is that right? That is correct. How many tickets did you write last year?
00;04;30;25 - 00;04;53;01
Unknown
Over 2,000. That's not including warnings. Actually, over 2500. She's been a little modest. She definitely was out there. That's a large number of tickets for a unit to write and especially Julia. Why do you write so many citations? Is there do you have a passion for this? Do you think? Education with respect to traffic enforcement, it's important. I think education is important.
00;04;53;01 - 00;05;13;18
Unknown
And I also think that enforcement is important. I love this unit. I love the guys I work with. I have one of the best supervisors in this building. When I was back on patrol, he tried to get me into this unit and actually opened up the career development positions. He's the one who's fighting for me to continue to stay in this unit because I am still a career development position and not a permanent position.
00;05;13;25 - 00;05;43;05
Unknown
But if you put everything together, you can educate people, you can prevent certain crashes that happen because every crash is preventable. Okay. And having said that, you've written so many citations, that's 2500 citations, but you've had much more contact with people during those citations because you're writing warnings, not only citations along the way. What do you do when someone's just being just rude and not cooperative?
00;05;43;06 - 00;06;14;27
Unknown
Like, how do you handle that as a person? I mean, I know we're people and we have feelings, but how do you handle that? Well, for one, I've been in law enforcement for over 17 years. I had ten years with NYPD and now almost eight years here. I treat everybody the same. If I speak to everybody the same way, if I give everybody the same violation or the same warning, nobody's going to feel offended that they're being singled out in a situation.
00;06;15;16 - 00;06;34;14
Unknown
And when people speak poorly to me, well, I'm not there on the best day of their life. They are getting a ticket. So I take it with a grain of salt and move on. All right. So you're empathetic to what's going on because you understand because I can tell you, as a chief of police, I get nervous when a police car gets behind me.
00;06;34;14 - 00;06;51;02
Unknown
And usually it's a police car. That's city of Sarasota. I think it's just natural for people to have some angst when a police car is behind them. So I just want to say thank you for what you're doing, Julia. And a part a part of it. You know, some people might say, oh my God, she writes all those tickets, That's heavy handed.
00;06;51;15 - 00;07;09;12
Unknown
But, you know, Julia has been out there. Julia has handled some of these homicide cases. You know, at 2:30 in the morning, when you're standing over a body and you have to call their parent to say, hey, you know, we have your son here who's deceased because he was doing 130 miles an hour. You know, he's probably been stopped at some point.
00;07;09;23 - 00;07;32;15
Unknown
And maybe if he got that ticket, he wouldn't really go that fast. So, you know, I can honestly say I've looked at all their videos when they come through and the body cameras, some don't like it, some like it. I look at how these guys react with other people and talk to people, you know, And I can actually bring up Dave Kennedy literally wrote a full speed ticket to somebody.
00;07;32;25 - 00;07;55;22
Unknown
That person wrote a letter thanking Officer Kennedy for full speed amount citation, which was not cheap. And I will look back at the video. And he literally had the conversation and said, what I just said is, you know, I don't want to have to call your parents, you know, because that that's a reality. And, you know, in 2021, we called for 14 families.
00;07;55;22 - 00;08;16;20
Unknown
We had 30 call outs. In 2022, we called 11 families. That's a lot. That's a lot for this size agency, and it's a lot for five people to do. And, you know, those phone calls just don't end because I get calls every two weeks myself. Jude Castro, our victim advocate, like we don't just cut ties and say, hey, we're doing this investigation.
00;08;16;20 - 00;08;41;08
Unknown
We try to still talk to them. I'm like, Jude Castro's a saint because she helps these people. You're literally helping people that their person went out and never came home. And it's a traffic crash. You know, this isn't like they're bad people that were involved in some sort of crime and got shot. These are people driving to and from work, driving out with friends, walking on the street.
00;08;41;23 - 00;09;04;20
Unknown
So, I mean, I give a lot of what I mean. Jude is just so vital here that she takes over some of that stuff. I deal with it. I try not to let my investigators do it because they're doing their investigation. So we shoulder that and these conversations don't end. I know Jude has had many conversations with family members and and sometimes they're difficult.
00;09;04;27 - 00;09;25;18
Unknown
You know, they're super difficult because the answers that we give are not accepted. And that's just part of grieving. Yeah, I know. I know. It's super hard. I was a traffic homicide investigator and I would roll up on scenes and I would have to tell myself it was fake. I would have to tell myself it was Hollywood because of the things that you all see on a on a daily, nightly basis.
00;09;25;18 - 00;09;48;11
Unknown
And you have to continue to live with that. And so, again, what you do is invaluable to the agency. And I'm glad you brought up Jude Castro, because Jude Castro was our victim advocate. She's invaluable to this agency. What she does in her patience and her helpfulness and her knowledge base. I know she's been given awards by Tallahassee for all she's done.
00;09;48;11 - 00;10;14;23
Unknown
So thank you. Thanks for bringing her up. So sometimes people will either call in to my office or the patrol captain and they will say, Hey, where's the traffic unit? That we don't ever see the traffic unit? And I kind of liken it to a construction site right where you drive by, you don't see anybody working. Sometimes they're just standing by their machines and then you come back the next day and a quarter of the buildings built.
00;10;15;07 - 00;10;31;22
Unknown
So why is it why is it that people don't see you as much as you think they would? Well we drive the unmarked Tahoes first of all, so we're not to be seen until it's time to get pulled over. You might drive by us and not see us. You might drive by us and see us pulling somebody over.
00;10;31;22 - 00;10;51;11
Unknown
But you're only going to see us when we're pulling somebody over. And that's by design, you know? So I take that as a compliment that you don't see us, but I know we're there and everybody needs to know that we are there. Traffic studies. Let's talk about traffic studies. So there's a traffic unit essentially. I know we're doing school zones in the morning school zones in the afternoon.
00;10;51;11 - 00;11;14;11
Unknown
That's so important. Right? Protect our kids. With respect to traffic studies, do you just pick an area and just start running radar or laser or is the traffic study tell us where there are areas that need our attention or not being that we only have five people. We have to be we have to be smart with the limited manpower and with enforcement.
00;11;14;21 - 00;11;44;18
Unknown
So we try to go data based. So if we get a complaint, a traffic complaint, we have pieces of equipment that you'll never know. They're out there and we'll do a traffic study for a week and we'll tell us the volume, speeding speeds, time of day. We'll go through that. And if it's something that we see is gross, I will assign somebody to go out there and actually do some enforcement, some presence, or we'll put up another type of speed monitoring device.
00;11;45;07 - 00;12;11;29
Unknown
Generally, most people, you could say a majority don't want to speed. They either get into a rhythm or they're on autopilot going to work and we'll put out a speed feedback sign that will say, hey, you're going this fast and will light up when you're going over the speed limit. Generally when we do those studies, we start getting compliance and in the area without having to go out and write tickets.
00;12;11;29 - 00;12;38;11
Unknown
So these traffic studies come in handy. We did 39 of them in 2021 and we did 21 in 2022, which to me shows that it's not going up. So that means we're getting compliance and less complaints. Some of these are repeat areas. So when I see there's a lot of repeat areas, we dive really into the study and start taking apart to try to find out what times it's happening.
00;12;38;20 - 00;13;03;17
Unknown
And then we try to put people there when we can. If we are not involved with it with an investigation or, you know, tied up with lengthy investigations that we've seen lately. So if not, I pass it on to patrol and they try their best to accommodate those times to do some enforcement. Of course, they have their patrol calls, a service that they have to answer first.
00;13;03;20 - 00;13;36;06
Unknown
So we find that those traffic studies are handy and they allow us to put our people in the right places that are problematic rather than putting our officers in areas where there's just not a lot of speeding going on. Is that correct? That is correct. And then now that brings me to high volume areas where some of the areas in the city Julia, I'll throw this one to you, where some of the areas in the city where we have a lot of crashes, like the big intersections of fruit was a big one by Beneva, by Lockwood.
00;13;36;13 - 00;14;01;03
Unknown
301 41 All the main thoroughfares that go where people are either going from the city or whether they're just cutting through the city because they're coming from Bradenton and going further south or come in, let's say, from North Port going to Manatee County area. It's the main thoroughfare that constantly sees the higher speeding, the higher crashes, the higher volume of vehicles overall.
00;14;01;04 - 00;14;20;20
Unknown
That's where we, for the most part try to be at. And with my traffic stops, most of the speeders that I stop are they tell me they weren't paying attention to the speed limit signs or they were distracted by things in their vehicles, kids phones, music, thinking about work. Those are usually the two things that I hear from my drivers.
00;14;21;03 - 00;14;44;05
Unknown
Okay. So would you agree that those are the areas where we need to pay the most attention? Absolutely. Have the most egregious crashes? Absolutely. And because the roads are so big, we have people that choose not to use the crosswalks. They start just deciding to leapfrog through the streets and end up getting hit by vehicles. Okay. And we're talking about areas like Bee Ridge and 41, right?
00;14;44;06 - 00;15;11;16
Unknown
What's another one? Beneva and Fruitville 301 and 12 Street or 41 down by the hospital? Bahia Vista and 41 Yeah, yeah. That's another. And that's where we have the fatalities. Yeah, that's understood. So let's talk about roundabouts then up and coming in the city of Sarasota. Now they're being developed at bigger intersections, 10th and, and 41, 14th and 41. And then we have the Gulfstream roundabout.
00;15;11;16 - 00;15;32;29
Unknown
So what do you what are your thoughts on roundabouts, Anthony? They are designed to ease traffic congestion and they they will and they do like anything. People beg for change. And then when they get it, they fight it. So I think there's a learning curve to everything. I think Fdot has tried their best to put out their all projects.
00;15;32;29 - 00;15;49;04
Unknown
These are all on state roads. They've done their best to put out and kind of try to stay ahead of it, of proper use, which I mean proper uses. If you're in the roundabout, you have the right of way. If you're entering the roundabout, the car that's in the roundabout has the right of way. It's generally how roundabouts work.
00;15;49;08 - 00;16;17;15
Unknown
So they have their purpose. I think a lot of it is is a learning curve that still has to happen. But general rule of thumb is if you're in the roundabout, you have the right of way. If you're entering, you have to yield to anybody that's in the roundabout. Most of it, I think is some confusion still. I think if everybody just when you go into a roundabout designed to go in at a slower speed, if everybody would just slow down, you wouldn't have any of these crashes.
00;16;17;21 - 00;16;37;18
Unknown
I agree. And I would add one more thing to what you said is we have tourists here and and we love tourists. We want to be here and we want them to enjoy our city. But and I've done this myself when I've been in Orlando is I'm I'm listening and watching on my Google and it's telling me to turn but I can't turn like there's barriers there.
00;16;37;18 - 00;16;59;29
Unknown
And then I get in this weird OODA loop in a panic. And I can only imagine what tourists are doing here when they don't understand why Google's telling them to go one way and they can't. So the other elements to that are the amount of foot traffic that we have. We have a lot of foot traffic. And again, some of those are tourists that don't know where the crosswalks are.
00;16;59;29 - 00;17;21;16
Unknown
And we have the Hawk-Eye system and then we have people on electric bikes or bicycles. I mean, so you're dealing with foot traffic, you're dealing with people on some type of bicycle or electric vehicle. And then you have people that don't know their way around. And when you have that mix to your point, I agree 100%. I think things would just be a lot easier.
00;17;21;16 - 00;17;41;24
Unknown
Everyone's in a hurry. We just need to slow down and we'll figure this out. And you agree with that, Julia I agree with it. I do also think people need to pay more attention to the signs and their surroundings than paying attention to what their electronics are telling them. Because if a sign says road is closed, it doesn't mean just because your GPS tells you to drive straight, that you go right around it.
00;17;42;05 - 00;18;06;00
Unknown
And that was a common issue that we were having during the Gulf, a roundabout being built that people were just going around signs because that's the way their is telling them to go. So the roundabouts in general, a 25 miles an hour speed limit approach into it is 35 because you can't reduce from 45 to a 25. And a lot of people are just going into those roundabouts.
00;18;06;00 - 00;18;42;08
Unknown
It's way too fast, not paying attention to their surroundings, to the signs, not realizing it's a circle. You've got to go to the right, not to the left, because then you're going against traffic. And the other the other problem, too, is I mean, we self-induced sensory overload with electronics, right? So at the end of the day, if people would just watch the signs, even if they make a mistake, what ends up happening is people try to prevent the mistake of going the wrong direction, which causes a crashes, just go the wrong direction and just recalibrate yourself down the road.
00;18;42;20 - 00;19;05;14
Unknown
Do a U-turn when you can turn down another side street, get your bearings straight, go back out. But what people will do is they'll be halfway in a right turn and they go, I need to stay left, and they'll jerk their wheel over to the left and sideswipe the car next to them. So it's like, if you're going to make the mistake and you know you're going the wrong way, just go the wrong way until you know you can go the right way.
00;19;05;21 - 00;19;35;28
Unknown
To that point. All the crashes that I that I read about at Gulfstream are predominantly sideswipes for that very reason. So that's great advice. Anthony, are there any other stats that you think are important for people to know agency wide? Just so people know, separate from what we wrote and traffic citations, the agency itself as a whole, not as a whole patrol as a whole, separate from traffic of 14,858 citations.
00;19;36;16 - 00;20;00;16
Unknown
So I look at that number and yeah, we wrote about half we wrote half of what they wrote. Their total. But you have to also look into account that they're actually writing tickets despite calls of services being a manpower being a little bit low right now. So traffic enforcement is occurring throughout the entire patrol division. It is happening.
00;20;00;16 - 00;20;27;19
Unknown
So what does that total then? If we total patrol and traffic together, that's like 20, almost 22,000 about. So it's 22,000. And I would say the effective strength of the agency is 153 officers. So you have a 153 officers and others, 153 officers. You have regular detectives, you have narcotics detectives. So, I mean, you're looking at just over 100 people writing that many tickets.
00;20;27;19 - 00;21;06;28
Unknown
That's an incredible, incredible number. So on that note, does the Sarasota Police Department have quotas regarding any type of traffic tickets? There are no quotas on anything. It is all officer discretion. Okay. And essentially, we can't do that, correct? That is correct. And I think that is a misnomer out there that a lot of people think that the chief of police or captain of patrol or the sergeant of traffic is saying you have to write X amount of tickets today because really we're about education.
00;21;07;07 - 00;21;25;29
Unknown
That's really what we're about. This is all about education. To the points that were made in this conversation earlier were we're saving lives. Just the traffic stop itself is saving a life because that experience, the majority of people are only going to have one or two contacts with a police officer in their entire life, sometimes just one maybe.
00;21;26;23 - 00;21;41;21
Unknown
And that experience is going to be everlasting on them. And if we can impart that education about traffic safety and being careful and just slow down and you're going to get there and yes, you may catch this red light, but you're only going to be 30 seconds later to wherever you're trying to go, but you're going to get there safely.
00;21;41;26 - 00;22;06;00
Unknown
So I think that's important. So thank you for clarifying that. The goal is for the numbers to go down because of compliance. So that's always the goal. Our entire career of anything you look at is to put ourselves out of work. It will never happen, but that is the goal. Like we literally are trying to put ourselves out of work, whether it's getting rid of crime, getting rid of people, speeding.
00;22;06;06 - 00;22;40;07
Unknown
I mean that it's a weird profession when you think about that. We're literally trying to put ourselves out of work. And I think one of the reasons we do track the data is because it's quantitative data, it's real, it's it's not qualitative, it's quantitative. And we can then determine what areas need more attention. Because if the if the patrol's writing tickets in a certain area, traffic is writing tickets in the same area, then what can we do to slow down traffic or educate people in that area to avoid a potential crash?
00;22;40;08 - 00;23;04;28
Unknown
And that brings up another point. So we have a great relationship with the city, with the city engineer's office. So some of these problem areas are just infrastructure needs because we are growing. We've I mean, I've been here since 1998. I've been living in Sarasota since 1996, and it is a totally different place. It went from a town feel to it's a real city.
00;23;05;15 - 00;23;31;22
Unknown
So things are changing. So the great thing is, is when we see these patterns and it's the constant violation where we're thinking maybe it's a road design issue and we jump in with the city engineer, we'll do joint studies and we'll come up with maybe an engineering implementation of some sort of traffic calming or even the road just be totally redesigned.
00;23;31;27 - 00;23;58;18
Unknown
So that's great to hear. Collaborating with City Engineering and Julia, have you noticed that there's a lot more cars on the road than the past few years? Absolutely. There's a lot more high rises. A lot of people are no longer purchasing home in the city. They want the downtown feel, so they're moving into apartments and coming from New York City apartments is going to be a lot younger crowd or somebody who is retiring who doesn't want to maintain a home.
00;23;58;18 - 00;24;22;29
Unknown
But now you're taking the square footage that would have set up, let's say, four or five houses, maybe four or five families of four. Now we're doing the same square footage and put in about 150 families into that. And you got to figure every family has at least two cars. If it's a spouse or boyfriend girlfriend. Now you start adding teenage kids, you got people coming to visit.
00;24;23;23 - 00;24;42;24
Unknown
And it's definitely just if you stand on the bridge and you see all the high rises that went up in the last seven years that I've been here. And that's a great point. And I know we did a census recently. We're just under 60,000 people in the city, Sarasota, but what people have to remember is everyone comes here to either work, they live here or they're coming to play here.
00;24;43;03 - 00;25;12;16
Unknown
We have the most beautiful beaches. We have an amazing marina. Our downtown is like no other. It's eclectic. You have all kinds of restaurants, bars. And so I feel like we're the hub from Bradenton to the north, Venice, North Port and the surrounding area. With respect to the county, everyone's coming here for one of those reasons, and I see the city light up starting at six in the morning, 530 in the morning, and then all the way through eight, nine, ten through the dinner hour.
00;25;12;24 - 00;25;37;01
Unknown
And then we see it, we see it come down. But Anthony, when you and I are on the road as patrol officers at 2:00, 3:00, this place literally went to sleep as true. And then as the years progressed, now the city doesn't sleep. It's three, four or five. Boom, We're right back into 6 a.m. again, right? Yeah. Well, you can even tell even that shift change in the morning, because I usually get in around 5:15.
00;25;37;05 - 00;25;55;29
Unknown
You know, you have dispatch already saying day shift, you sign in on I'm holding five, six calls, Northside night shifts, trying to get off to get it all. Okay, I'm going to handle this call. There's always somebody that's staying over. There's always something that's being held for the oncoming unit. We didn't really have that when I first started.
00;25;55;29 - 00;26;16;12
Unknown
Here is 25 years ago. It was 2:00. It shut down and if you got a call after 2:00 was usually something serious and you were going to be here all day. Correct. But and it was usually yeah, we usually just something a serious call. But if that radio went off at 2:00, it was rare. It would it would shut down at 2:00.
00;26;16;12 - 00;26;35;20
Unknown
Yeah. But like I said, five. Yeah. We went, we went from a larger town to a real city and now it just doesn't stop. It just keeps going, keeps going. The wheels keep turning. Well, the secret's out. People know we're here. Few more. A few more years, and we're going to look like Tampa. The problem is we don't have the space to be that big, Right?
00;26;35;21 - 00;26;54;12
Unknown
And we're trying to keep that town feel in a city is what we're trying to do. And and I say to like our city employees, take care of this city like no other. And they do a great job. They really do. Keeping this place moving, going, functioning and looking amazing. So on that point, magic wand, here's a magic wand question.
00;26;54;12 - 00;27;18;00
Unknown
If you had a magic wand, Julia, what would you do to fix Wingardium Leviosa? Boom. I would probably have more people to our unit. So we're not so far stretched because it is hard on like regular detectives that one, maybe two, come out for our call outs because of all the equipment, because of the mapping and everything that we have to do, the entire unit ends up coming out.
00;27;18;06 - 00;27;38;18
Unknown
It's hard on a personal life because I had to leave dinner. I have to leave place that my kids are in. The phone is going off all the time. So it becomes kind of hard. And sometimes we'll need only three people and sometimes we need all five. But at the end of the day, sometimes we have to go to Tampa, sometimes we have to go somewhere else.
00;27;38;26 - 00;27;58;00
Unknown
So more people will allow us to actually have nights off to ourselves. Okay. And I have two more coming. I do where almost we're almost fully staffed and I'll have two more coming to y'all. And what would you say the average traffic homicide call out? I know it's tough because everyone's a little different. Would you say it's about 3 to 5 hours?
00;27;58;00 - 00;28;15;17
Unknown
Three, 3 hours is about average. Okay. And there's times where we would have ones back to back where we would just wrap in one off and another one would come off. So there will be times when we're not home for about 9 hours in the middle of the night and just roll right into our shifts. Yeah, I know it's hard.
00;28;15;18 - 00;28;45;02
Unknown
Do you have two coming, I promise. Anthony, Wingardium Leviosa. Kind of going off of what Julia said, but in a broader thing, I think there are plenty of people out here in the world that are more than qualified to do this job but are scared to do it because of the current environment and I think if we can let people know that this is a great career and I think we're trying to do that, I think in general, throughout the United States, the numbers would go up.
00;28;45;10 - 00;29;10;18
Unknown
This has been abandoned. I remember when I got hired here, I was told 25 people put in for my one open position. It doesn't happen anymore. You know, I felt honored when I found that out. But I think there are people out there that are deciding to do other things where they are probably meant to do this. And I just maybe they should just even explore it because it is a great career.
00;29;11;00 - 00;29;30;11
Unknown
It is a good living. It does have a lot of rewards. It is a calling. It really is a calling. I mean, for anybody to come out at 3:00 in the morning to stand and look at the stuff we did. I mean, it has to be a calling. I think that that is the magic wand and I think that is a realistic magic wand.
00;29;30;11 - 00;29;50;27
Unknown
Eventually, it's going to take some time. I think we will get there, but I wish it would happen sooner. I think on the national stage, I think the pendulum at some point is going to come back this way. I would say, though, in our city, I would definitely say that we have amazing support from the mayor, from the commissioners, from our city manager, our deputy city manager.
00;29;50;27 - 00;30;23;23
Unknown
And really, I know you'll agree with this from the citizens here. We have citizens are amazing, amazing relationships. And I think because we have such great people to push out our brand like like Genevieve and like Cynthia that have worked so hard on social media, I think that's the reason why on paper right now, we are two people away from being at our 190 mark, and then next month we'll have 190 and then a lot of those people will go through training and then hopefully towards the end of the year we'll be fully staffed.
00;30;23;23 - 00;30;42;08
Unknown
I think a lot of that here is that we are approachable police officers. I mean, I remember growing up, you know, where I grew up in New York, you didn't unless you were lost or you needed them. You didn't talk to a cop, right? You didn't talk to a police officer. Stand on a corner. And I think here I think our citizens are definitely comfortable enough to have even just casual conversations.
00;30;42;16 - 00;31;04;13
Unknown
And you have great casual conversations with everybody, all walks of life. It's refreshing. It really is that you're not the you know, you're not the people on the corner. Like people come up and say, Hey, how you doing? Thank you for your service, How's your day going? And we have approachable police officers here because there's certain parts of the city that I tend to do speed enforcement more.
00;31;04;13 - 00;31;20;19
Unknown
I actually have like a little fan base. People that have gotten tickets from me will drive by, honk wave. I have people screaming, you know, great job. I got one for me last week and they'll stop by and they'll say hi and they'll make sure I need like if I need water or if how my day is going, how the family's doing.
00;31;21;00 - 00;31;50;14
Unknown
So yeah, the community and again, coming from New York City, it's very different. That's that was probably the biggest pleasant surprise when I started working here how welcoming the community is to us. And they do. They really do know us all by names and kind of support us more that the silent majority that supports law enforcement. I've had people that you've taken a Julia, they actually call me to think what you do and how you treated them.
00;31;50;26 - 00;32;15;21
Unknown
So that's and everybody with respect, that's the way I want to be treated. That's amazing that you do that. Here's a question from people listening. If you could choose any motorcycle for work, which ones are the best? Anthony Harley-Davidson Road Kings, which we have on all ride but Harley all the way. All right Harley Harley it is next one since you field test sunglasses all day on the job.
00;32;15;21 - 00;32;37;18
Unknown
I didn't know that. I've got to tell you, I wasn't aware. But I think what they mean is, since you wear sunglasses and probably switch them out, what are the most comfortable pairs you have found? Maui Jims. Cheap ones that if I break them, I'm not afraid to replace them. That's awesome. I'm with you, Anthony. Julia, I seriously want to thank you for being part of this.
00;32;37;18 - 00;32;55;28
Unknown
This podcast is in the nascent stages, and I know for police officers it is so hard for us to talk about what we do. We don't brag about what we do. We do it because to your point, Anthony, it's a calling. This is not a job. This is a way of life. This is what I always tell people as a way of life.
00;32;55;28 - 00;33;18;08
Unknown
People ask me, Hey, when are you off? When are you not on call? When do you turn off your phone? And I say, Never. I am on call all the time as you are. You both are on call all the time. So thank you for what you do and we'll never know how many lives you save. But I will say it's probably in the thousands of the amount of people that you contact and you potentially saved their life.
00;33;18;19 - 00;33;39;13
Unknown
And by them telling people that they were pulled over, they probably drive more cautious and you're saving their life. And then they tell someone and they tell someone. So I think what you do is very important. So thank you for being here. Thanks for your time. I love you guys. Thank you. Thank you. All right, Everybody listening. Please tell your friends to check us out.
00;33;40;00 - 00;33;59;00
Unknown
We're really excited about the podcast. We just wanted people to reach out to us with questions about this show so that maybe we can cover them in the next podcast and we can answer some questions that we didn't address here in Sarasota. Have a great day. Please live, love, work and play in our city because we love it just as much as you do.
00;33;59;17 - 00;34;14;07
Unknown
You all have a great day!