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
Chief's Chat #6: TikToker Arrest & Project 35
Tune into this episode of the Cape CopCast "Chief's Chat" as hosts Lisa Greenberg and Officer Mercedes Simonds tackle the arrest of a TikToker caught for retail theft, showcasing the complex relationship between social media influence and illegal activities. We talk with Chief Anthony Sizemore about the issue from both a law enforcement and societal perspective, discussing how actions like these can normalize crime, while emphasizing the urgent need for accountability among social media creators.
Shifting gears, we bring to light the strategic foresight of our city's police department as it prepares for anticipated population growth. Through our plan, called Project 35, we reveal how the department is using scientific forecasting to ensure that our community remains safe and well-prepared for the future. From envisioning advanced infrastructure to enhancing staffing and technology, we highlight the importance of transparency and public education in fostering public trust. Join us to understand how these forward-thinking strategies are being implemented to maintain an exceptional level of service, preparing us for the challenges of tomorrow.
Welcome back to another episode of the Cape Cop cast Chiefs chat edition. I'm one of your hosts, lisa Greenberg and I'm officer Mercedes Simons.
Speaker 2:Together we make up. Have you once again. Last week we talked about Thanksgiving traditions and your Pilgrim Sub. I still haven't tried it.
Speaker 1:I didn't have enough leftovers actually to do that, so I need to make that happen, but I'm glad to be back for another week. It's been a busy couple of weeks. One of the big things that I know has been blowing up on our social media and has been picked up by national news outlets is one particular arrest that we made involving a TikToker who has what? 300,000 followers.
Speaker 2:She has a lot more than that now, oh my gosh. So, essentially, one of one of our officers got a call from the target. There was a regular retail theft, what they thought, um, and then we didn't know who it was. We put out something for identification on social media. We put out something for identification on social media. We had an anonymous person reach out, said this is her name, date of birth and this is her social media handle. So we looked it up. Coincidentally or not, coincidentally, she posted herself getting ready same outfit we put out with the attempt to identify, goes into Target, picks everything out, steals it and then posted on social media as if she bought everything. So we were able to identify her based off of that and then even had some proof in the video that she was stealing. So this has been blowing up.
Speaker 3:I'm one of the rare few that does not have personal social media never have. So I wasn't aware that it had become viral or blew up until I came back and she's a repeat offender. That's another reason why it's blown up. I think it's a couple of takeaways from this. Number one you'll find in Florida, and in particular here, we take all sorts of crimes seriously, especially retail theft, because that gets passed along to us and you, the consumer, target isn't in the business or any other retail establishment is not in the business of taking a prolonged loss, right. So those costs have to be made up the shipping costs, the manufacturing costs, costs for employees. That's all built in. And when somebody's stealing and it cuts into the bottom line, that has to come from somewhere get passed along and that gets passed along to us. So it's important that we take those serious In that respect. It's also important that we let people if you let that go and let all little things add up to big problems, right, and if you develop an attitude of that's not that big of a deal, that's not that big of a deal, and then at what point do you realize that it is a big deal? When you've got lawlessness, or you have what you see in other states where people just brazenly go in, grab huge swaths of merchandise and walk out. We're not going to get there. We're not going to be there.
Speaker 3:Matter of fact, one of the many times that the governor has been in Kip Coral, he uses our facility. We have a good partnership with him and his office. We have a good partnership with him and his office, and they did a specific talk about organized retail theft, combating it. I would put this in the neighborhood of an organized retail theft. If you're doing it as a quote-unquote celebrity and using this type of behavior as part of your charm or part of your persona, then you are benefiting or monetizing it. That is getting into the realm of an organized retail theft, and we talked about it a little bit earlier in the week. We're going to be making contact with the Attorney General's office to look at seeing if this meets what they're going after on a state level, because the last thing you want is people to monetize the victimization of other people, and it's not going to be tolerated here. Retail partners don't want that, we as a society don't want that, and the police department is no different.
Speaker 1:Well, and it's interesting to me too, because you pointed out there's two things that I want to mention. You pointed out that her social media followers have gone up since this incident, so she now has the ability to monetize even more because she's gained even more followers. And then the other thing I want to point out is on social media, people act as if they have these grand lives. They show off their beautiful homes and all the things they can buy and and all the things they get from influencing and all of that. And so to have this person who is, you know, coming on social media saying she bought all these items, look at me, I can do this, I have money. Da, da, da, da da and then you find out it's all being stolen, or at least some of it. You know. It sets a poor example and it's just frustrating that Now she has even more followers.
Speaker 3:It does and you know I joked about it. But there's an actual industry for being a social media brand influencer and it's not like anything. To be successful, there's work involved, and to do this and not go the organic way that a lot of influencers have done to make a pretty good living for themselves, it's kind of a slap in the face to that niche industry too. Absolutely, whether you're high tech or old fashioned industry taking shortcuts and stealing. It's not the way to go and it's a harmful impact on different levels, like we talked about. It's passed along but it also starts to erode what we want in our community.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think people kind of laughed it off at first and some people gave her they're like, oh, just leave her alone, give her some grace. But then it happened again and we put out that we arrested her again and then people really kind of saw it for what it was and it's not just a one-time mistake. The kind of theft that she was doing from Target is absolutely intentional. There's no way that you can say that it's not because she had in the last video that we posted she had a handful of clothes and she scans this like little circle tab that is obviously not a barcode instead of scanning each individual tag on the item of clothing. That's intentional at that point.
Speaker 3:Sure, and you have the price escalation for everyone else. You also have a convenience factor. They put in self-checkout to make it quicker, more convenient for us, the shopper, and I've seen other establishments throughout the country that are removing that because there's rampant theft, establishments throughout the country that are removing that because there's rampant theft. So if they do that, then that's an even bigger inconvenience to everybody. And I did see, which was a very sad part of it too is she was not alone when she was there. She actually had a little child with her that may or may not have been old enough at the time to know what was going on, but those are the types of observations and lessons and environment that you don't want a child growing up in.
Speaker 1:Yeah for sure. So I know a lot of people, like you said, think it's insignificant but it really just can snowball into so much more. One of the other things I know that we wanted to get into today, while we had the folks listening to our podcast, was talking a bit about Project 35. We mentioned it when we did our Chiefs Chat podcast about the substations and about how it's kind of our long-term vision for the police department. But we wanted to go a smidge deeper today to talk a bit about it because you know it's the end of the year, we're starting to plan ahead for the year to come and all of those little things are falling into place.
Speaker 2:I kind of listened to what you were saying the other day and I think it's really cool when we go and we don't say, hey, what are we doing this next year? What do we think that we want? Do we want to add a couple more officers here? That'd be great for the traffic unit. Instead, you're going ahead 10 years to say this is exactly what I want my department to look like. How do we take a step back and go back from there to get exactly what we want and really kind of have a dream department in 10 years, in 2035. Sure.
Speaker 3:The best way to put this conversationally or for people to have a takeaway is you want to know, or you should know, that your police department isn't winging it and that we do a budget statutorily as a city every year. So we have to prepare for the next 12 months. But if you're doing long-term planning and you have the benefit, which we do, of really scientific forecasting on where we're going to be population-wise, we estimate in the next 10 years about maybe another 100,000 people. If you look at the forecasted build-out and what our numbers will be and then back that down into year by year, some years may be higher, some may be lower, but you got to factor in that we are going to be significantly bigger as a, as a region, a city and subsequently as city services in the police department. We need to keep pace and not just catch up or be in the ballpark. You want to maintain what you have, which is a high quality level of service that our population rightfully expects. So you want to scale to where, if we're on top of it today, where do we need to be 10 years from now to continue to be on top of it? So that's number one that we take a real methodical approach to growth. We are going long-term 10 years. We call it Project 35 because it's the end of calendar year 2024, but we are in fiscal year 2025. So 10 fiscal years from now is 2035.
Speaker 3:So we have actually we're in the process of it now designing a visual, right in black and white white paper form, but also with charts and org charts, maps. What do we actually look like? What can you envision as far as infrastructure, facilities, vehicles, the bureaus that we are divided into, what programs, services, technology, the whole gamut. What do we look like and actually visualize the city with us layered in, and what people, places and things do we need to achieve the goals and programs that we want and the costs associated with it? That's the final product. That's 2035.
Speaker 3:Well, you can't wait until 2034 and say here's where we need to be and you can't get there today. So what you do is we take that model, that futuristic model, and then what I call reverse engineer. So, if you back it out, nine fiscal years when we go to budget, this year is what we're doing and how we're growing and how we're responding to growth and the needs of the community. Are we on track for the next year and the next year and forward that all the way to 2035, so that when we all wake up that day and we're a very, very large city, do we have the four precincts in place, do we have the requisite amount of staffing, do we have the span of control or the right structure of personnel with supervision, and do we have all the equipment? Do we have all the emerging technology right?
Speaker 3:So I can only imagine what technology will be in 2035, because it doubles and grows so quickly, doubles and grows so quickly. You have to make sure that you are prepared and you are acquiring the right things so that, as they advance and get new updates, that you're ready for it. And what does that mean for you, the listener or the viewer, is, when you're watching police shows and you see the tech and you see the ability that these police departments have, you can rest assured that we, if we're not there, we are getting there and we are keeping pace so that if you need our services for an emergency or God forbid you're the victim of a crime or your family is, you can know that we have the people, the training, the facilities, the equipment, the technology and the ability to put it into play to solve your crime, recover your property, get justice for your family or prevent it from happening.
Speaker 1:Right. It's interesting too because it kind of requires you for lack of a better phrase, I guess to almost like look into a crystal ball and predict in 10 years what you want this place to look like and what we will need. And that doesn't seem like an easy job.
Speaker 3:It is not, but what you can use as a guide to tell the future is. History is a great teacher for the future. History really won't teach you what tomorrow's technology will be, but the needs of today and the needs and obstacles of the past that you want to overcome and get better and leaner, meaner, quicker, will tell you what you need and what to look for. There's so many pieces of equipment or directions you can go, but you have to be educated enough to know where to look to find what you're looking for. So that is professional affiliations belonging to the International Association of Chiefs of Police, to know what other winning organizations are doing and where they're going and talking and networking being accredited. So the different accrediting bodies will tell you where you need to go. The individual needs of your bodies will tell you where you need to go. The individual needs of your community will tell you where you need to focus and being in tune with them, not shutting them out, but listening and also having. That's a two way conversation where you listen to where people are and where they where they need to be today, and you need to do a good job of being transparent and educating the public on. Yes, I'm I'm with you here, but we are going to need to be today and you need to do a good job of being transparent and educating the public on yes, I'm with you here, but we are going to need to be here so explaining why, for example, why we need high water vehicles.
Speaker 3:Well, we all know the problems that we have. How do we combat them? We need to get here and getting people to share your vision and share your pathway, and getting people to share your vision and share your pathway, and that's what we're doing with Project 35. It's not a secret. It's not going to be a document or a plan that's kept in the dark. It's going to be very open and transparent with the public, with our elected officials, who are representative of the public, to let them know. Here's where we need to be and this is where we need to be each year to ensure that we're on that pace Right.
Speaker 2:It's absolutely vital to have this kind of planning because we don't just have gradual growth, we have exponential growth. It doesn't just build slowly, it's an absolute bell curve that we're increasing in massive numbers and you have to plan for that. That's one of the things that we sit down with the city to make sure that we're on the same page, to make sure that that's part of the partnership is getting together and really making sure that we're planning for a very effective future here.
Speaker 3:Absolutely. We're not alone in this. The city is doing this as a whole, but it's our responsibility as a department to be there and that's why we were able to get some of these forecasted growth models by professionals who do this for a living, can really dive into the data and tell you where you're going to be with a pretty good degree of certainty that we can use to help formulate our plan. So you're not shooting in the dark or completely guessing. You're using data-driven analysis to tell you where you need to be from a customer standpoint, how many people need to be served, and then the societal trends nationally and also locally will tell you where you need to be. And then the other component, like we talked about, is being in line with contemporary, modern law enforcement agencies that are going in the same direction. So it's a lot, but it's very necessary.
Speaker 3:I was having a discussion with some of our patrol people today to kind of keep everybody abreast of what we're doing, and I made the comment that you know and I've said this on the podcast before I have two jobs. One is administering the police department. Two is being in charge of a growing police department. That's almost doubling, you know, from the time I started to, by the time I'm going to be done, is that in the country because we are one of the fastest metro areas and have been for a long time and will continue to be we are very experienced at how to grow. And when you compare us to other agencies in the country, there may be some that are as good, but I don't know many that are better at forecasting and planning. So one of the things that I'll brag about our police department not just, it's not me, it's a team of individuals is that we're really good at forecasting and growing and planning because we have to.
Speaker 3:Inaction is not an option, so we have to act and if you're going to do it, get all of the data, all the smart people and put a plan into place that you can follow and do an achievable bite size pieces. So, for example, we need several different offsite fully functioning substations and it just you throw a number if we grow 30 people a year, that, but several hundred staff members. You can't just get several hundred staff members overnight and acquire land, get designs and complete construction on multiple properties overnight. You've got to plan for that. And how do you do it? You do it in ways that are achievable, fiscally responsible and in line with your final goal of where you need to be.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. It's interesting stuff and I look forward to when we have the plan complete and we can share more about all the hard work that so many people are involved with within this department. It'll be interesting to see.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I think it's very obvious that we've done a great job so far, because I think everyone can agree that we've done a pretty good job at keeping kind of a small community feel in a larger city. I think if people would lock their doors we would be the safest city in the United.
Speaker 3:States most likely.
Speaker 2:So that's the public service announcement Lock your doors. Yeah, it's funny you say that you become a victim of your own success. It's funny you say that.
Speaker 3:You become a victim of your own success.
Speaker 3:When we talk about being one of the safest cities in the state and in the country, you often use violent crime.
Speaker 3:So if you feel safe to go to Publix and not worry about your purse getting snatched, or you don't worry about getting carjacked while you're getting gas or some of the different violent crimes that you can encounter, if it's not even in your mind because you are one of those safest cities, you let your guard down on some of your vulnerabilities for property crime, leaving your overhead garage door up, unlocking or leaving your car unlocked. Things like that do happen when you don't need the vigilance that other communities have. So it's a good reminder, like you said. But I understand it. But in order to keep that and keep that small town feel, we have to plan, we have to stay on top of it. We will be a big community but to keep that you'll have a lot of different neighborhoods and sub-communities with a small town feel. It'll be difficult to maintain an overall three or four hundred thousand resident small town feel, because that's not a small town. But each community, each precinct, each neighborhood can do that For sure by maintaining that.
Speaker 3:For sure Anything else, chief, before we wrap this thing up, no, it's been a heck of a week it has, and I can already feel yep, I predicted next week will be pretty crazy too. Why?
Speaker 2:do you do that.
Speaker 1:I think you might be right if you're following history. Well, thank you so much for coming on today and, of course, we'll see you next week. Yep, have a great weekend. Have a good one.
