Cape CopCast
Welcome to "The Cape CopCast," the official podcast of the Cape Coral Police Department.
Hosted by Officer Mercedes Simonds, and Lisa Greenberg from our Public Affairs team, this podcast dives into the heart of Cape Coral PD's public safety, community initiatives, and the inner workings of our police department. Each episode brings you insightful discussions, interviews with key community figures, and expert advice on safety.
Cape CopCast
The Evolution of Police Social Media Strategies with Deputy Chief Dana Coston
Deputy Chief Dana Coston joins us on the Cape CopCast to share his remarkable journey through the ranks of law enforcement. He started his career in the midst of the crack epidemic in Fulton County, Atlanta, and eventually relocated to Cape Coral in 2000, where he's served his community since. Learn how his diverse experiences from serving as a school resource officer to his pioneering work with the FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force, have shaped his approach to modernizing law enforcement communications and social media strategies. Deputy Chief Coston is responsible for the creation of the department's Public Affairs Office, which serves as the liaison between the community and the agency. He played a pioneering role in the department's focus on transparency and adaptability.
Explore the intricacies of maintaining public trust in law enforcement through transparent communication and strategic social media use. Delve into the Cape Coral Police Department’s innovative approach to storytelling, where Deputy Chief Coston emphasizes the importance of being upfront about both triumphs and setbacks. Discover how the department’s guerrilla news outlet-style Public Affairs Office engages the community with dynamic content, especially during critical situations. This episode shines a light on the evolving relationship between the department and the community through social media engagement and the diverse experiences of the Public Affairs team.
Welcome back to the Cape Cop cast, the official podcast of the Cape Coral Police Department. My name is Lisa Greenberg. I'm one of the hosts.
Speaker 2:And I'm Officer Mercedes Simons. Together, we make up the Public Affairs Office, and today we have our boss. This is Deputy Chief Dana Koston, and we'll let him tell you a little bit about himself, hi.
Speaker 3:Hi there, ladies. Thank you for having me on.
Speaker 1:We're so excited to have you on.
Speaker 3:As you said, I'm Deputy Chief Dana Koston. I oversee the administrative division of the Cape Coral Police Department, which encompasses the Professional Standards Bureau, the Community Services Bureau and the Communications and Logistical Support Bureau. I also have some other ancillary duties that fall under my umbrella, and that includes the public affairs office, so that is how I ended up being your boss.
Speaker 1:I don't know that there would be anyone better equipped to be our boss, and we'll get to more on that in just a bit Considering you started the public affairs office at the Cape Coral Police Department we'll talk more about that in a bit. But I kind of want to walk people through your rise, through the ranks here in Cape Coral.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I started my law enforcement career in 1997. I was a police officer with the Fulton County Police Department in Metro Atlanta. I did my first three years as a patrol officer there in high drug, high crime areas during the really the height of the crack epidemic in the United States. At that time I was young and newly married and we decided we wanted to get out of metro Atlanta. I'm born and raised here in Florida. I'm actually from Tampa, my wife's from Cape Coral, oh wow. So when we were looking at coming back to be a little closer to family and after reviewing options, this looked like the place to go and Cape Coral really stuck out in my mind as a place that I would want to come and work. I left Fulton County in December of 99. And I began here in January of 2000.
Speaker 1:That's awesome.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so when I began here, I did my first couple of years in patrol. I began here, I did my first couple of years in patrol. I was looking to try to get into some specialties and I ended up going to our youth services division as a school resource officer. I was an SRO at Colusa Middle School for almost four years and during that time I became the department's gang specialist. I was part of the multi-agency gang task force here and my work doing that got me noticed by one of our captains who was over investigations at the time and he told me that there was a position that I should take a look at and it was for the Joint Terrorism Task Force. I did about three years as a detective assigned to the FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force, but around 2008, I decided, you know, I probably need to focus back on advancement in my career here. I wanted to see what I could do back home at my home agency, so I focused on that and then in 2009, I promoted sergeant, became a patrol sergeant and in addition to being a patrol sergeant, I was also a member of our Fertile Order of Police Lodge 33 executive board and I was doing social media for the FOP and around that time it was a tough backdrop here in Cape Coral.
Speaker 3:We were the canary in the coal mine. With the housing crash, cape Coral lost over a billion dollars of taxable value essentially overnight, and there was a pretty dark time where there was discussion of potential layoffs and we didn't have any growth, and it was hard. The chief of police at the time was Jay Murphy and he would always come out on holidays and help relieve the supervisors so that they could maybe run home and have a little time at home. And it was Christmas Eve, 2010. And I won't forget it. We were watching a house fire. Someone's Christmas tree, I think, caught fire and fire department was doing their thing. And we were talking and he liked what he was seeing, that we were doing with the FOP's website and social media. And he said you know, hey, what would you recommend? And I said, well, I would certainly modernize the police department website. The department didn't have social media. No departments had social media.
Speaker 3:It was a very, very new thing for police departments to get into. And I said and whatever you do, sir, if it's at all possible, get somebody out there talking about the good work that the men and women of the department are doing. We were taking a beating in terms of PR and we didn't have a department public information officer anymore. I didn't think anything of it. We were just having conversation as we were on the scene and a couple of weeks later I'm doing payroll, as at the beginning of a shift, and the chief calls and he says, hey, hey, you want to come up and do all that stuff that you were talking about.
Speaker 3:Now I, coming up in the in the nineties as a police officer, when the chief calls and asks, do you want to do something? The answer is always yes. So, absolutely, sir, I would love to do that. He goes great, I don't have a budget, I don't have a position, it's going to be extra duties and responsibilities and you're coming up to professional standards. Yes, sir, okay, wow. So he brought myself and then Lieutenant Sizemore up into PSB, to PSB, and we were responsible for personnel and training, accreditation, internal affairs and then, additionally, doing the public affairs function. So I spent a couple of years in there and then the public affairs function became its own thing.
Speaker 3:It split off and went to the chief's office, and I spent about seven years in the public affairs role in total, so from 2010 to 2017, very long, hence the gray in the beard and in 2017, we had to reconstitute our school resource officer unit and I was asked to help with that. I had promoted to lieutenant in place, but I was one of the few people who had been a school resource officer left in the department, so I spent about a year and a half in community services as a lieutenant. I went down to patrol for a year as watch commander and then promoted to captain and then moved back to professional standards, where I spent about three years overseeing personnel training, accreditation, internal affairs and then promoted to deputy chief last year.
Speaker 1:Busy.
Speaker 3:Yes.
Speaker 1:That's incredible. That is a journey for sure. You got a little bit of a taste of everything in your time.
Speaker 3:I can say I've been there, done that, got the t-shirt for a lot of things.
Speaker 1:Well, I'm grateful for you for launching Public Affairs, because I would not be here right now. It's probably pretty crazy to see the growth and the changes that have happened within public affairs from when you started it in 2010 ish, until now.
Speaker 3:It's vastly different. First of all, we're sitting in a dedicated podcast studio in the building Right. That's insane to me.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:I think it's great. When we started this, it was me and now Chief Sizemore. Basically, we divided the duties. I was responsible for everything behind the scenes website, social media. He was responsible for being the spokesperson, and the goal was we're going to let the citizens inside the walls of the PD and we want to give them a look at the people, the equipment, the cases, and we wanted to tell the story of what we're doing and be as open and transparent as we could possibly be, and that meant we're going to tell you the good, the bad and the ugly and we're going to be upfront about it, but we're going to be the ones to tell you and to own it, regardless of what it was. So we had.
Speaker 3:We were given the mission. We wanted a new website, social media presence and we wanted to have a big splash and a big launch, and we had 90 days to do it. We got the website launched, we got onto social media Facebook, youtube, twitter and Instagram and we developed our own processes internally and really got going and it took off. We were one of the pioneer law enforcement agencies in the country using social media at the time, so much so that I ended up traveling and doing instruction on social media and law enforcement for the Florida Law Enforcement PIO Association and then doing some joint work with other agencies across the country that were just dipping their toe in the water at that time.
Speaker 2:And I think that kind of gets into like the goal of the public affairs office is not only to like share what we're doing and tell our story, but to be transparent, because I think that's kind of what people demand at this point.
Speaker 3:Good, bad or indifferent. We are subject to the perceptions of law enforcement across the country and we have an amazing department. We have a tremendous service population here in Cape Coral. We're not immune from crime and we are a police department of almost four about 400 human beings. There are going to be mistakes made. There are going to be things that are done incorrectly, outside of policy and, sadly, sometimes illegally. I've had every type of news conference you can imagine from. Our officers have made amazing saves. They've gotten into and survived lethal force encounters to where we've had to arrest our own. So it's important for us, as an agency that relies on public trust, to own those things, all of them. Celebrate your success, but understand that that's a snapshot in time, because tomorrow you may have something that's going to be like. Remember that good thing we told you about. Yeah, we messed up over here. It's important for us as an organization to be upfront when we have a mistake. It's not that we were immune from them, but what did we do once we discovered it?
Speaker 1:Right, because anyone in any profession at any time can make a mistake that reflects poorly upon the department or wherever they work, and it's about how it's handled and what you do, moving forward, what the department does, what that individual does, moving forward.
Speaker 2:Right, and that's changed. I think it's just a completely different perception when before it would come from the media and the media would get to spin it however we want, and we started saying, no, here's what we did, we did it wrong. Here's all the evidence. Here's everything you might need or any questions you might have, because I think that makes everybody feel better when you're up front and you come forward.
Speaker 3:The belief that there is the blue wall of silence or that, you know, cops don't look out for themselves. My experience has actually been quite the opposite. I think that the law enforcement profession and the individuals within it are some of their own harshest critics and the first ones to throw their own to the wolves when they do something wrong, and deservedly so. We have done our best to own the mistakes that the agency has made and say, okay, yes, this was a mistake that occurred and if it was criminal in nature, we dealt with crime. If it's just procedural, then here's the policy and procedure change we've made and here's what we're doing different going forward. But we've been very public about those things and I've actually had conversations with PIOs from other departments where they go.
Speaker 3:I can't believe you put that out. I can't believe you put that out. I'm like why wouldn't you put it out? Florida public record law number one. Once the case is closed, basically everything is available, so there's no reason not to, and you are your own best storyteller and you have all of the information. You should be breaking the stories about your department good, bad and indifferent and part of our guiding philosophy was we basically ran the public affairs office like a guerrilla news outlet, and Lisa and I worked together. In fact, I worked with you on your first day as a reporter. You probably don't remember it, but you had a death investigation your first day as a reporter in the city and I remember working with you on that. You also were on our website forever.
Speaker 1:Oh boy, the worst photo ever.
Speaker 3:But us being able to tell everything and put it all out there takes away the ability for selective editing. And I get it. Most of the time it's not done out of malice. It is. Most reporters, unless they're an investigative reporter, get two minutes on their piece that they have to turn and they have got to create something that's eye-catching. And you're competing with social media and other news outlets and whatever's entertaining for the those minutes of attention. And so I get it. Then we said, well, let's do the same thing, but let's, we may do the two minute piece, but then we're going to give you links to everything so you can read the whole police report or read the whole internal affairs investigation, cause we have those things and we have the ability to do that Exactly.
Speaker 1:And you know, it's interesting to. Obviously, while you were in public affairs, social media was pretty big, but I don't think it's was quite as big as it is now. And when you talk about the beginning, like I remember being a reporter in 2014 and seeing the Facebook and you'd go to the Facebook and there might be like a paragraph post about something or there might be like a map or whatever, and now it's like you have to create this dynamic content and there has to be reels for Instagram and you have to use trending audio and it's become so much more than just a post on Facebook.
Speaker 3:It has. And now we're you know we're broadcasting or we're podcasting, and then we're posting things across platforms. You know there'll be reformatted and cut to, you know, cut to the right time but the whole video will go out on on YouTube. That's not something that we had even grown into when I was doing it, and I was a one man band for a good portion of that seven years. I ended up with getting a second person in the latter half of my time in there, but it's grown and it's a function that is crucial so that citizens know what's happening in their police department, but it's also a tremendous resource for information for the community, like most recently with the hurricane resource for people and they're not going to traditional news media anymore, they're going to social media and even websites.
Speaker 3:you know we have our official department website. That's the buttoned up official representation of the organization online. Social media is kind of behind the scenes. It's where we get a little more informal and we can let people kind of ask questions and see a little bit of you know how the sausage gets made.
Speaker 1:For sure, and I think there used to be this big dependence on traditional media. You know, even when you started in this office in 2010, the biggest way probably to get the word out about a death investigation or whatever it may be was, hey, letting the news know there's a death investigation happening at this address. You go there, you get in front of the camera, you let them interview you, but now we're at this point where, for us anyway, that's almost secondary to what we're doing. Most of our focus is on content creation, social media planning and things like that, and so when we're having a news conference about a particular incident or crime, our first thought is we got to Facebook, live it and get it on Instagram.
Speaker 1:Oh, by the way, let's get the news here as well, which is not to say for anyone who's involved in news still, who may be listening. We still love you, we still need you. Still. Who may be listening? We still love you, we still need you. But just, the relationship itself has changed because we have the ability to whether it's jump on a podcast like this and record a quick five minutes with the chief about a particular situation and just upload it ourselves, or whether it's like, hey, we have this really cool training going on. Let's post it to Facebook, and if the news wants to come and check it out, that's great too. But we efficient, quick, dynamic way to tell our own stories now.
Speaker 2:Right, and one of the things that we recently put out was one of those situations where our training successfully allowed us to save someone's life and we were really proud of that. But no use of force ever looks pretty right. Violence looks violent. We were able to tell that story from the police side of things share that, put that out in kind of like a real format, the police side of things. Share that, put that out in kind of like a real format, and then able to explain it, pause it, explain it, say here, stop, look, look and see this guy had a weapon here. This is like potentially how this officer reacted and I think that's really helpful compared to maybe what we've had in the past.
Speaker 3:And it's such a different world that we're policing in and that you are helping us get the message out to the citizens. And because, when I left yes, we were we're. We're now in the smartphone era. Everyone's got a persistent connection to the internet in their pocket that has the ability to live stream in 4k, and all of our officers have body cameras on that are showing what's happening from almost their point of view. You would think with all of that, there's fewer questions. In fact, it's quite the opposite, because, as we know, you know, cameras give you one perspective on things. Sometimes you need multiple to get a full picture and, like you said, use is a force. It's an unfortunate reality in our job. They don't look pretty. No one's John Wick out there on the street. It's very different, and there are times where people are not going to like what they see, regardless of the fact that it might be a justifiable use of force. Use of force and being able to explain this is what was perceived.
Speaker 3:this is why it occurred is so valuable, especially when you look at uses of force that are controversial and some of the aftermath that can happen as a result of that. And agencies realize that now. And we face the same problem when there's a controversial use of force or use of force that involves internal affairs investigation, there is a period of time where nothing's going to be released on that, and that's not because the agency's trying to hide things, it's because we have an obligation by law to provide the involved officers due process and the investigation has to be concluded before things can be released. And you know a lot of agencies are now seeing okay, well, we can still preserve their officer bill of rights and still release some of the body cameras so that we can at least squash some of the questions that might be out there in the community. And agencies are growing and they're improving and that's a good thing.
Speaker 2:And that's one of those things like, obviously, any form of social media comes with comments and some of them might not be nice and people aren't meant to agree first off, I think we can all see that One person thinks this way and one person thinks this way and, no matter how much they argue back and forth, they're probably just not going to agree.
Speaker 2:But that's one of those things that, through transparency, we keep our comments on, because you're allowed to have your opinion and your opinion. We might not agree with you or somebody else might not agree with you, but you can still put that out there and you know we can look at those and we can interact with people and kind of explain, maybe add this fact and think about this, and then you know it kind of makes sense to them. And I think one of the simple things that we talk about is like traffic. They're like oh well, like you know, you guys aren't out there doing anything and we'll go and we'll post stats from an app that we had that day and they're like oh well, actually you guys are out there and I read some of them.
Speaker 3:It's so funny. You know, regardless we'll talk about traffic. You know that's one. You know why aren't you out there doing it? We have 3,000 lane miles of road in the city of 120 square miles with approximately, at any given time, 35-ish officers on the road that are just in the patrol bureau. Then you tack on canine traffic units. All that, our men and women are making more traffic stops than they have in the history of the department. The fact that you don't see it happening directly in front of your house or where you work doesn't mean it's not happening. And the chief talked about the layer cake of traffic enforcement and we're certainly doing that and as we grow we're going to be adding more of those types of things.
Speaker 3:But the comments are always fun. Because I would like to tell you that they were a lot different when I was in public affairs. The complaints are the same Traffic's terrible, the city's growing too much, there's too many people here. Well, newsflash, we're only halfway built out. So those of you who are listening, we're going to double to about 400,000 by the time the city's built out and we're going to be in a perpetual state of growth for the department and traffic construction probably all over the city. So that's, you know just what you can get ready for.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, it just opens you up to a completely different level of engagement because we are always accessible to them through social media, you know. But that is, it goes both ways, right? So, while we're lucky that we have this way to be accessible to the people at all times, it goes both ways. They always have access to us and can reach out to us and express themselves however they choose to do so.
Speaker 3:And generally people like it when the police department responds to their comment and when you tag them and you respond to their comment and you know, some of the comments are positive, those that are negative, and that's fine. Like you said, we don't have to agree as a matter of policy, you know, unless it's a violation of our terms of service on the Facebook page, we leave comments up and that's okay. What we have found is that the group of people who are part of that Cape Coral Police Department community on Facebook, they tend to police themselves a little bit. Community on Facebook, they tend to police themselves a little bit. And when you get the out of town detractors and the trolls and all that, our citizens stick up for us, which is, you know, that says a lot. We have goodwill with our citizens here. The cops are generally very supported by the citizens here, for sure, and that extends to comments on social media.
Speaker 2:For sure.
Speaker 1:We have so many supportive people, though, and the funny thing is is for those who aren't like we also fight for their freedom of speech, so exactly, I always say that the, the negative comments are the loudest, sometimes the silliest as well, but overwhelmingly we get, you know, a lot of support, which is good.
Speaker 3:And I also find a lot of the negative comments not all of them, but a lot of them come from people that don't live here, have never been here, never going to come here.
Speaker 1:Yep, yep, it's true, and I'm like why are you here? Go to your own department's page. Oh, I'm sure they have. I'm sure they have too. They're probably on every department's page. Is there anything else either of you can think of that you want to cover?
Speaker 3:No, I appreciate you finally letting me come in and talk with you. It's great seeing the work that you all are doing. I'm very happy to see that the public affairs mission is continuing and expanding. It's exciting.
Speaker 1:It is.
Speaker 2:And.
Speaker 3:I think we got the right team in place to get it done.
Speaker 1:Thank you and thanks for coming. And you know we had to get some practice reps in before we had our boss on the podcast. We had to get a few in the tank first, before we let you in, you know.
Speaker 3:Well, you know, you're a seasoned broadcast professional and Mercedes is a seasoned police officer, and I think that that's kind of a really good double team there, where we have those two different experiences brought together that really make what we're doing here in public affairs very special.
Speaker 1:Thank you. I'm grateful for sure. Got a good group, a good boss, a good teammate.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's a pretty good job when you like, coming to work every day, you know 100%.
Speaker 3:You have to say that I'm here.
Speaker 1:I swear he's not paying us. Well, he is technically paying us, but you know Well, thank you so much for coming. We appreciate you.
Speaker 3:Thank you, ladies.
Speaker 1:And we will see you next time here on the Cape Copcast. Have a good one.
