An Officer & a Former News Anchor: Get to Know Your Hosts

The Hosts of the Cape CopCast — Lisa Greenberg and Officer Mercedes Simonds of our Public Affairs Office — share their unique journeys that landed them both at the Cape Coral Police Department. From reporting local crime for almost a decade to following in her fathers footsteps in law enforcement, Lisa and Mercedes discuss their varied experiences that enrich their roles of engaging with the community.

This episode covers how a girl born and raised in Southwest Florida ended up as a journalist before transitioning to a career at the Police Department. Learn how a move from Maryland to Florida impacted one of us in balancing work and family life, and what it's like working alongside a spouse in the same department.

Transcript

Lisa Greenberg 0:05

All right, welcome back to the Cape Cop cast. I'm Lisa Greenberg. I'm a public affairs officer here for the Cape Coral Police Department.

Officer Mercedes Simonds 0:11

And I'm Officer Mercedes Simons. Together, we make up the public affairs team. We have a lot of fun doing it. We started this podcast a while back and we realized that we probably needed to give people a reason to like listen, get to know us, yeah, and feel us out. We're fully aware that we probably needed to give people a reason to like listen, get to know us, yeah, and feel us out.

Lisa Greenberg 0:27

We're fully aware that we've spent the last few episodes kind of introducing you to different people here at the department and now we want to take just a little bit of time not too much time to let you get to know us as people here at the Cape Coral Police Department.

Officer Mercedes Simonds 0:40

All right. So I feel like law enforcement is kind of one of those things that you have to really be engaged with and enjoy to want to be in the field, whether you're a cop or not. So like, how did your passion for law enforcement and how it involves with the community start?

Lisa Greenberg 0:56

So obviously I did not have this dream or desire to be in law enforcement from a small child. I kind of, throughout my waves of life and all the different twists and turns, ended up in law enforcement. I was a journalist for almost 10 years at the local Fox station here in Southwest Florida and so basically during my time there I rose through the ranks, starting as a reporter, moving into a weekend anchor, moving into an anchor position and for the last, a reporter moving into a weekend anchor, moving into an anchor position. And for the last five years I was a morning news anchor at Fox. And when I first started out at Fox 4, I was a reporter and I spent a lot of time covering crime. I minored in criminology or I think at UF it was called an outside focus. I went to the University of Florida in criminology, so the interest has always been there of criminology yeah, so you were learning things about each other, so the interest has been there.

Lisa Greenberg 1:51

It just wasn't something where I was like I want to grow up to be a police officer. So I worked as a reporter and during that time I covered a lot of crime, usually like the big crime story of the day. It was my story. And I worked very closely with the Cape Coral Police Department. Fox 4 is very close in proximity to Cape Police. It's located in Cape Coral. It's actually the only TV station that was in Cape Coral. So we worked pretty closely with Cape Coral Police Department and actually Deputy Chief Dana Koston was the public affairs officer at the time. So he and I obviously forged a good professional relationship and stayed in touch as I moved throughout my career and as he moved throughout his to now be deputy chief.

Officer Mercedes Simonds 2:32

Yeah, it was really funny when your job popped up. Obviously we had a lot of really good candidates. It's a popular spot for reporters to want to go into kind of public affairs. There's a lot of similar traits and things like that, which is how you ended up being perfect. But I was like why do I keep hearing this name Lisa Greenberg Like what's so cool about her? And then I met you and you're pretty cool and cool and also skilled Thank you.

Officer Mercedes Simonds 2:55

I think we've done a lot of different things and started doing a lot of three dimensional content videos, podcasts putting that journalistic experience to work.

Lisa Greenberg 3:04

And it was crazy because I had decided to get out of TV news and I posted on my Facebook page that I was leaving TV news and that it was my last week at Fox four and deputy chief Costin messaged me and was like, hey, what are your plans after TV?

Lisa Greenberg 3:20

And I was like, oh, you know, I actually quit without having a job lined up. I was looking forward to kind of having a break and taking some time to figure it out. And he's like, why don't you give me a call? And we chatted and he had talked about how a public affairs officer position for a civilian was getting ready to open and encouraged me to apply. And so I was like you know what? Why not? And here we are. It's funny because there is actually, for the longest time, a picture of me as a reporter on the Cape Coral Police Department website where Deputy Chief Koston, who was the public affairs officer at the time, would post, like the news releases, this picture of me. And of course I hated it because I was like looking into the viewfinder of my camera and I was making this really ugly face.

Lisa Greenberg 4:01

So that's my very long winded answer of how I ended up in law enforcement.

Officer Mercedes Simonds 4:06

I like it.

Lisa Greenberg 4:07

Yeah, so how did you end up in law enforcement?

Officer Mercedes Simonds 4:10

Oh gosh, Okay, so my dad was a cop. If anyone listened to the episode where we interviewed Captain Branch and all Very good episode, Go back listen to it.

Officer Mercedes Simonds 4:19

So my dad was a cop. I kind of grew up listening to him tell all his stories. I went back and forth between being a cop and being a teacher and actually I ended up being both, which is pretty interesting. I love kids, I like teaching, but also I always said that I wanted to be a cop and my dad had always been like no, I think any any dad that has a daughter and kind of knows the challenges of law enforcement. I guess he initially didn't want that for me and then I forged my way through.

Officer Mercedes Simonds 4:47

I went to college. I changed my major a million times, like one does, as we all do. I switched from criminal justice to sociology, to psychology a couple different things. So I got my bachelor's in psychology and then I got my master's in police psychology. I did an internship actually with the Polk County Sheriff's Office when I was in college. It was like a huge 400 hour internship, loved it. A huge 400-hour internship, that's awesome, loved it. Got to work with everybody, got all different angles of the field and then I ended up doing teaching for a while while I was working on my master's degree and then I fell into law enforcement.

Officer Mercedes Simonds 5:25

I wanted to do police psychology and do counseling with police officers with PTSD issues, oh wow. But then I found out that police officers don't really like to just sit there and talk about everything with somebody who doesn't understand. It's kind of a niche field. So I was like, okay, I'll go be a cop, get two years of experience and then go do police psychology. So I started with the Montgomery County Police Department in Maryland and never looked back.

Officer Mercedes Simonds 5:53

I didn't know how I was honestly going to be. I was a very empathetic person and sometimes it's hard when you see and deal with a lot of difficult situations to have that much empathy. But it ended up working out really well and somehow I ended up being I don't want to say good at it, but I up, you are good at it. Well, like you found, find your passions and and I loved helping people. I know that's like the typical answer, but I think for everyone it evolves from like helping people into different things. Like now I would probably change it to like I like helping people but ultimately, like I enjoy being a problem solver with other capable problem solvers. I think it's interesting to see, like how my mind works to solve an issue versus somebody else's and everybody else has investigative techniques and you can learn from each other and it's just a career that never gets boring.

Lisa Greenberg 6:47

Absolutely Well, and I think about you and I too when you mentioned, like, the different problem solving. We're such good compliments to each other because I think we just our backgrounds and our different experiences. You know, you're a police officer, so you get the law enforcement standpoint, you have a unique way of thinking, and then I have the communications background and the engagement background and things like that, and so you bring it together and we could be presented with a situation and have completely different ways of handling it. That are both good ways to handle something. And then we talk through okay, which would be the best for this particular scenario? And I just think it works out well that we are so different and we come together to make this public affairs office.

Life in Cape Coral

Officer Mercedes Simonds 7:25

Yeah, that's. I think that's kind of. One of my favorite things is is we'll have an idea. Somebody asks for something. I'll be like, okay, I'm thinking this. And you'll be like, oh, what if we do that to that? And I'll be like what if we do that to that, to that, and then it turns into something that we both enjoy working on For sure. But yeah, so I started in Montgomery County, maryland. I worked there for three years, did a lot of different things there, met a lot of great people, great department, but the culture of law enforcement was changing. My parents moved down to Florida and then I didn't like that. They left. I love my parents, I'm very close to them. I was visiting them like one week every month and it was really cutting into my time off and I was like you know what, I don't even know like how I'll feel about any police department down there, but at least I'm by my family, at least I'll have my support system there.

Lisa Greenberg 8:09

For sure.

Officer Mercedes Simonds 8:10

And I love it here. I've moved down. I've never looked back. I met new friends and my husband now and he's the best thing that ever happened. He's an angel of a human being and I'm just really lucky to kind of have found this spot and you.

Lisa Greenberg 8:27

I mean it's a great place to live, it's a great place to work and I feel like it's nice because you do have that work life balance now here that you maybe didn't have so much when you were in Montgomery County just because your family was so far away, and it's funny to think that you like work at the same department as your husband. So it's nice because you guys can vent and kind of also talk about the highs and lows together and understand everything.

Officer Mercedes Simonds 8:50

Yeah, it's kind of nice. So he's on patrol. Maybe he'll be in a podcast episode later, not because of any particular reason other than he's just got a really cool backstory and he's just a great human being and adds a lot to the job. We were talking about kind of empathy before and he's someone who started with a lot of empathy and I think maybe it's because he joined later in his life, like he's 37. Sorry, chris, telling your age, so he's 37. He started when he was, I think, like 34 and he was already kind of just a grown adult who knew what he wanted and he's just kept all of that heart and applies it toward his job and people every day and I love that.

Lisa Greenberg 9:28

Yeah, absolutely. He's incredibly good at his job and that's why we say, if we do bring him on the podcast, it's not because he's your husband, it's because he's great at what he does. It's interesting because you come from elsewhere. You weren't born and raised here in Cape Coral, and so I think in some ways that adds like an extra appreciation for the area, because I was born and raised here in Southwest Florida. I was born in Charlotte County, worked in Cape Coral for the last almost 10 years of my life. It'll be 10 years in July that I've worked in Cape Coral because, again, fox 4 is in Cape Coral, where I used to work. But you know, charlotte County is just a 40 minute drive north of here and it's all similar same weather, same great climate, same great types of people and are you one of the people that are like, oh, all the people moving here, you're just creating traffic in my life, Kind of?

Lisa Greenberg 10:14

but I also can appreciate the growth and the good things that come along with it. Charlotte County and even Cape Coral, fort Myers was so different when I was a kid. I mean no-transcript the good things it brings. But it is kind of frustrating when we do have to deal with all that traffic.

Officer Mercedes Simonds 10:59

That's a lot. Well, everybody thinks that. And then they meet someone who's a transplant that they love. That adds value and it's just interesting to see, like, how things change over time. And sure, traffic sucks. But America is made up of people who came from all types of different countries at one point or another. Obviously, most Americans like value and we're proud of the fact that we're Americans. But I think the coolest part is that we're all made up of different cultures from different places and somehow still came to find a unified idea behind everything. For sure and I can't blame people for wanting to live here and somehow still came to find a unified idea behind everything.

Lisa Greenberg 11:30

For sure, I can't blame people for wanting to live here, so it's like you can be mad, but why wouldn't they want to be here?

Officer Mercedes Simonds 11:35

It's the best. I miss fall, like I miss the changing of the colors and everything, but I love the warm weather. And my grandpa actually he lives down here too and he says it's pool 30. He goes in the pool every single day and it's funny. Talking about law enforcement, he was a volunteer deputy for like I don't know 30 years, probably more. Sorry if I'm on grandpa, but um, yeah, I just come from like a whole background. I think my grandma actually traced paperwork. I'm like fifth generation law enforcement.

Lisa Greenberg 12:06

Wow, it's funny because my family, like I, don't have anyone in law enforcement. I have some military background in my family, but no one that is, you know, was a police officer or anything like that. But my family has always been big supporters of law enforcement and police work. So my parents were definitely excited when I took this job with the Cape Coral Police Department. And it's fun because you know, when I was was on tv, they could watch me on tv every morning and so having this podcast is kind of cool because it's a way for them to still see my work and and that's fun also, so it's a good time.

Lisa Greenberg 12:38

It's a good time. I'm curious what you would say are like things you enjoy doing outside of work. I know work takes up a huge bit of your life as a police officer, but what are kind of things about you that you enjoy outside of law enforcement?

Officer Mercedes Simonds 12:50

I mean, I love cooking, baking. I don't actually bake that much anymore. That's probably some like passion that I would like to get back to. I was actually unpacking a bunch of boxes because I didn't get married too long ago, so I was moving like my boxes and stuff into his house and I was unpacking and I'm like, wow, I have all of this baking stuff like huge cheesecake pans and all the different you know egg yolk separators, just basic things like that that most single men don't have in their home, and I'm like, wow, I should really start doing it again.

Lisa Greenberg 13:21

I would love to be the beneficiary of that.

Officer Mercedes Simonds 13:23

I'll make some cookies. That's my that's my forte is a bunch of different cookies. My favorite cookies to make are cookies and cream, cookies that have Oreos in them, and then pistachio cookies.

Lisa Greenberg 13:34

Okay, we're making cookies, okay.

Officer Mercedes Simonds 13:36

The secret is dry pudding mix. Actually, it gives it like this whole different flavor.

Lisa Greenberg 13:41

I like to bake too. I've spent a lot of time especially my like high school years doing some baking. I gotta say now I'm not like the biggest fan of cooking. I'll do it out of necessity, but I don't get as much enjoyment. I'm definitely the person who enjoys going out to eat more than having to cook and things like that Going out to eat oh my gosh, eating out was a hobby.

Officer Mercedes Simonds 14:02

I, it would be mine, and that's what I love about Florida, too, is like all the there's so many restaurants here. There's so many, not just like chain restaurants, but there's a lot of good mom and pop restaurants here.

Lisa Greenberg 14:12

Let me think what do I like to do outside of eat?

Lisa Greenberg 14:15

Um I love to be outside and I love to be active, so doing anything active outside is really fun. I love to go for walks and go to the beach, and I'm a certified personal trainer through the national Academy of sports medicine, so I also work as a trainer a fitness trainer, a fitness trainer, group fitness trainer at Burn Boot Camp in Fort Myers and I've been doing that for over a year now almost a year and a half and I love that. I love fitness and I, more importantly, love encouraging other people to love fitness. So that takes up a big part of my life as well.

Officer Mercedes Simonds 14:45

I love that. That's so fun. I need to go to one of your classes sometime.

Lisa Greenberg 14:49

Oh, I would love to kick your butt.

Officer Mercedes Simonds 14:51

I feel like I'm like decently in shape, but I feel like anytime you do some kind of cross training, it's always somehow more exhausting if you're not quite used to that version of training. Sure.

Lisa Greenberg 15:01

Anytime you do something that's outside of your usual when it comes to fitness it's exhausting, it's tiring and you're going're gonna be sore, but hey, it'll be fun I was never the natural athlete.

Officer Mercedes Simonds 15:10

That's something that I always had to work out. I could always run, but like outside of that I didn't. I didn't grow up like knowing how to weight lift or my husband's great he does like mma and trains jujitsu all the time and he's the top-notch athlete I have to like find other things that I enjoy doing that keeps me in shape I'm right there, there with you.

Lisa Greenberg 15:28

I was a dancer for like 21 years. I want to say yeah, so from like age three until I was 22. So what is that 19 years? I was a dancer for 19 years. Math is not my strong suit.

Officer Mercedes Simonds 15:43

But yeah, like dancing forte.

Stay Connected With Us

Lisa Greenberg 15:45

Oh, I did all of it like ballet, jazz, hip hop, acrobatics, tap, I mean fitness kind of came out of left field when I started working out at Burn Boot Camp. I just loved it. So that's where that came from. I was a dancer so, yeah, I love that Well, I think that about does it. I think we've given people a little bit of time to get to know us. They could reach out to us through email, which is capepdpao at capecoralgov. You can message us on social media, on Facebook, on Instagram. We will always be responsive there as well. But we just kind of wanted to give you a little bit more about us, because we spend so much time getting you to hear the stories of other people and thought you might be wondering who are those girls and what's their background.

Officer Mercedes Simonds 16:27

Yep, but for the next episodes we'll get back to everyone else. We have some good episodes coming up with different people you probably haven't seen or heard from different perspectives and of course, everybody has a different cool story that we're really excited to share with you.

Lisa Greenberg 16:40

Oh, absolutely, so we will see you next time.