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 #15: Protecting Our Kids with the Launch of School Zone Cameras
In this episode of the Cape CopCast 'Chief's Chat,' we explore the introduction of Red Speed cameras in school zones throughout Cape Coral. With safety as our main priority, this initiative aims to enhance protection for children during critical drop-off and pick-up times. We talk to Chief Sizemore about how these speed cameras function, capturing violations and issuing civil penalties to drivers who exceed speed limits, while freeing up our police department's resources to focus on other essential duties.
The conversation emphasizes the importance of education in successfully rolling out this program. With a month-long warning phase starting on March 1st, we share plans for engaging educational campaigns that include clear signage and public service announcements aimed at informing the community about the initiative's goals. The expectation is to reduce speeding incidents and instill a sense of responsibility among drivers as they navigate school zones.
As we explore the further implications of this program, we also reflect on the strong community involvement that has led to this project. It's a crucial issue that affects everyone, and we believe that collaborative efforts can lead to meaningful change.
We also talk about the retirement of Deputy Chief Phil Van Landschoot after 27 years of service to the department. Chief Sizemore reflects on their long-spanning friendship and his service for our city.
We wrap up by talking about the upcoming gala benefitting the non-profit Blue Line Bears. The charity takes the uniforms of fallen officers and turns them into teddy bears for their families. This started in Cape Coral by a young girl whose father is a Lieutenant for the Cape Coral Police Department.
To learn more about Blue Line Bears: https://bluelinebears.org/
Happy Friday. We got another episode of the Chief's Chat on the Cape Copcast. I'm one of your hosts, Lisa.
Speaker 2:Greenberg and I'm Officer Mercedes Simons. Together we make up the Public Affairs Office. Today, I think we're going to talk about something a little bit different that we've been looking forward to the Red Speed School Zone cameras. We've got a lot of positive feedback so far. I think people are really excited to have that extra layer of protection around our school zone.
Speaker 3:Absolutely. And just a quick civics lesson. Right, we are a representative form of government, so the people of the city elect the city council and they're to make decisions for their constituents. So this was a council driven initiative, which, in the lesson I just gave you, means the people want it. So city council saw this product and saw other municipalities and other areas of the country and the state in particular that are doing this and they wanted to do it as well. So they tasked us the police department, the public works department and city management to make it happen the police department, the public works department and city management to make it happen.
Speaker 1:And we've been working behind the scenes to get that done and we are really close for these to launch. It's really exciting. So, for people who don't know, it's called Red Speed. It's a product that essentially is able to catch people who are speeding through school zones. This is something that's going to be in effect during the school day and 30 minutes before, 30 minutes after. So it's something that is going to be running and basically catching anyone who's going more than 10 miles per hour over the speed limit. And I think what's super unique and what is probably one of the biggest benefits of this is, instead of having posted officers at each of the school zones that are having to monitor this, they can now be free to do other things.
Speaker 3:Right, it's a force multiplier and it's essentially what you just said. If you're driving, pick a street in Cape Coral, we'll take Trafalgar. So you're driving down Trafalgar Parkway, near the lights for the school zone the blinking yellow lights there's a camera infrastructure that measures speed and takes a picture of a violator. So if it's 20 miles an hour and you're going more than 10 miles an hour over the speed limit through that school zone, it's going to take a photo and issue a civil violation and the civil violation goes to the driver and then there's an appeals process. You can do that at the municipal level where you would come to like a city court, so to speak, and plead your case and if you are successful then the ticket would be voided. If you were not, you would be due the fine and administrative costs If you do nothing.
Speaker 3:If you get the violation and you blow it off or hope it goes away after 30 days, that civil municipal violation gets turned into a uniform traffic citation just like any other traffic stop. You get a ticket, it goes to county court and then there's penalties for failure to adhere or handle that. So it's serious business. You want to make sure you take care of that. It is serious, right. So it's serious business, given school there's. The minimum number of students in our schools is about a thousand kids. So if you take a percentage of that that are walking or riding their bikes, that's a lot of kids and it just takes one. And we've been, knock on wood, very fortunate that we haven't had any issues in a school zone and we want to keep it that way.
Speaker 2:Absolutely Definitely. So starting tomorrow. Tomorrow we have our 30-day warning period, so basically throughout March, until March 31st it's the warning period. So you'll get a warning issued in the mail to let you know that you were violating the speed, just as a. You know, get friendly with the system.
Speaker 3:It's part of the education period, so there's a real formalized process to roll this out.
Speaker 3:We don't just turn it on and start issuing citations to people. What the first part is is a public awareness campaign, and this podcast is part one of many. There are flyers that are going out to the schools, there's a public service announcement that we filmed, that we're going to broadcast and the actual system is going to be live. But all of the violations are going to be warnings for the first 30 days. That gives us a chance to get used to the system, get used to the workflow internally and, more importantly, get our drivers used to the fact that this is happening. And all of those educational components combined we get a month of it to really get used to it and then it goes live in 30 days and then if there's a violation, it's a real deal violation and we'll run it through the end of school and then everybody's got a chance to really sink it in for the start of next school year.
Speaker 1:Right, and I think another thing to point out is, in addition to the public service announcements and the podcasts and the news releases and the social media posts and all of that, there's also very clear signs posted that and I'm going to go ahead and do that it's very clear. There are posted signs, in addition to all of the other messaging that we're putting out.
Speaker 3:Right, you hit the nail on the head. It's not a gotcha. We are telling everybody and listen. The goal would be to not make $1 off this thing If nobody sped through a school zone. That's a win, that's what we want. So this isn't something where we're hiding in the bushes with a radar gun. It's out there. There's signage, it's publicly advertised, Like please don't do this. Unfortunately some will and hopefully the word will get out and then people will be a little bit more safe in these vulnerable areas.
Speaker 2:Definitely We'll probably see. You know you'll see a peak in the beginning, like anything, and then hopefully the goal is for everything to dwindle down because people don't want to face those penalties and they recognize that they will be held accountable for their actions. And you know you could potentially be saving a life by putting these speed cameras in these school zones.
Speaker 3:A hundred percent. You know, pick your motivation. Hopefully the motivation is safety of the children. But a secondary motivation is, you know, your pocketbook.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. I mean, no one wants to get hit with a hundred dollar, fine. And I think the other important part, as you kind of touched on, is, if you don't address it, it could end up costing you even more money.
Speaker 3:Right. I say this phrase all the time in policing, and it applies here that doing nothing is not an option, Right.
Speaker 2:So another maybe not exciting thing, something less exciting we have one of our favorite people here at the department and I've known him. You know we we went through the background process together.
Speaker 3:We got sworn in together and our careers have kind of navigated together to here the very end, where he's right up in the chief suite with me, is one of my deputy chiefs. Just a tremendous, tremendous man, a great husband, father, an awesome cop made it to the top percentile of his profession and I'm sad that he's leaving but I'm happy that he's going to go get the most out of life.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, and get to spend time with his family. He talks so much about his daughter and all of her soccer tournaments and all that, so it'll be nice, I think, for him to be able to be fully present in that part of his life as well.
Speaker 3:Yes, that's not some weekend soccer and have orange slices at the end.
Speaker 2:She's good.
Speaker 3:She's elite. She's in the Olympic development program, which means a lot of travel and a lot of big, important eyeballs on on those girls playing soccer. So I'm happy for him that he gets to really be fully immersed in it.
Speaker 1:So awesome and I know tomorrow we also have something pretty cool coming up. We have the Blue Line Bears Gala, and while it's not necessarily our event, it's something that's very close to us.
Speaker 3:Absolutely, lieutenant O'Grady, who works in our community services bureau. I think he's been on the podcast Santa Hat a couple of months ago.
Speaker 3:Yep, his daughter, megan years ago, was.
Speaker 3:She was anxious, scared, unnerved when she saw several Dallas police officers were killed in the line of duty, just going back several years when she was a little girl. And she took that angst and put it into positive action and came up with a really unique idea and reached out to the department and got a uniform shirt the actual polyester uniform shirt and took that material and made a teddy bear out of the uniform shirt from the officers not the one that they were wearing but one that the family was able to provide and then arranged to give that teddy bear, very unique, to the families of the surviving officers. And from there it's taken off. It's a national charity, it's a big deal and Blue Line Bears is the name of the charity and they're based here in Cape Coral but they go all over the country. Sadly, there's a need for it, but they do a gala at the Westin. It's a big fundraiser, it's the biggest fundraiser of the year and I'm blessed enough to be invited and you served as MC in the past.
Speaker 1:I'm doing that again this year, so I'll see you tomorrow. Excellent, it's always a good time. When I was a news reporter actually, it was kind of funny because Lieutenant O'Grady and I had known each other, I had done a DUI ride along with him and he had texted me, you know, probably a few months later, and was like I don't know if this is newsworthy, but my daughter is starting this nonprofit. It's called Blue Line Bears. He explained the whole thing and he's like do you think this is, you know, a news story? And I'm like of course it is. Are you kidding me? This is amazing.
Speaker 1:First of all, she was 14 years old when she came up with all this. You know a child doing something like this. And, second of all, you know that was especially around the time where I felt like we were seeing more of these you know line of duty deaths, unfortunately, and so it was very timely that she had come up with something like this and that there was this outlet available for families and for her. I remember her telling me every time my dad walks out the door, there's that fear. So it was awesome to see the beginning of it, which was just her sewing these bears, the little sewing machine in her house to now what it's become. And this gal is incredible. They raise so much money. They have families there who have been through losing a loved one in the line of duty. It's just a very emotional but also uplifting evening. It's just such a great event, so I'm really looking forward to it.
Speaker 3:It's so much more than teddy bears at this point.
Speaker 3:It's families that have a very unique kinship coming together with support for them and just to let everybody know that their loved one and they the family, the survivors are not forgotten. And I had a wonderful conversation and time with a couple from Colorado last year. Officer Gum was the officer who was tragically killed in the line of duty in Colorado and they were at the gala and my wife and I were sitting next to them and we struck up a conversation and we just had a a really, really beautiful evening talking about their, their son and and all of the survivors there and it's a, it's a a good mood event. It's it's not a soup. There's a somber time in the event, but the event itself is uplifting and networking and networking and just so much good that came from one little crudely sewn teddy bear that turned into something that's really beautiful.
Speaker 1:It's amazing. It really is incredible. So looking forward to that, and we can post some information too about Blue Line Bears in the notes of the podcast, so if people want to check it out, for sure Cool, anything else Chief.
Speaker 3:That's it. That's a full plate.
Speaker 2:On Monday we have the Stuff your Stanley event at the Sweet Spot. It's from six to eight, so if you bring not just your Stanley cup, you can bring any cup you want. We might even have extra cups, but you can get up to four scoops of ice cream in your cup for $10 and the proceeds go to benefit the Do the Right Thing program. So we're really excited about that. You'll have officers there scooping your ice cream. It'll be awesome.
Speaker 1:I love ice cream.
Speaker 2:I know who wouldn't want four scoops of ice cream in their Stanley Cup.
Speaker 3:I have a bit of a lactose issue now. I'm hoping that that event's a spectator sport.
Speaker 2:They probably have dairy-free Okay.
Speaker 3:They probably do?
Speaker 2:I don't look into those options so I wouldn't know. But they probably have dairy-free.
Speaker 1:I'm sure they have something for you to enjoy, chief Sorbet, exactly Well. Thank you so much for listening and joining us this week, and we will catch you next time.
Speaker 2:Stay safe.
