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 #18: School Threats & Why Police Can't Always Charge What You Expect
What happens when police identify a school threat but face unexpected legal barriers to filing the charges the public expects? Chief Anthony Sizemore sits down with Host Lisa Greenberg and takes listeners behind the scenes of a recent case that sparked community confusion and outrage.
When two young adults were involved in the creation and posting of a disturbing video where one specifically threatened to shoot up a local elementary school with an AR-15, the resulting charges left many people questioning why the punishment didn't seem to match the crime. In this candid discussion, Chief Sizemore breaks down the complex legal framework that governed our response, explaining why only the person who posted the video—not the one who made the verbal threat—could be charged under Florida's mass shooting threat statute.
The conversation reveals the often-frustrating gap between what feels right and what's legally possible in law enforcement. "There are times when a law and common sense part ways," Chief Sizemore explains, detailing how this statute, born from the Parkland tragedy, wasn't written to address every scenario police now encounter (through no fault of lawmakers). Rather than simply accepting these limitations, learn how the Cape Coral Police Department is actively working with state representatives, neighboring agencies, and the Florida Police Chiefs Association to close this dangerous loophole.
This episode offers rare insight into how police departments navigate complex legal constraints while still finding ways to protect public safety—in this case through alternative charges and the application of Florida's risk protection order to remove firearms from the suspect. For anyone who's ever wondered why police "didn't do more" in a high-profile case, this conversation pulls back the curtain on the legal realities that shape law enforcement responses to threats in our communities.
Welcome back to another episode of the Cape Cop cast Chiefs chat edition. I'm one of your hosts, lisa Greenberg, my counterpart Mercedes, still on maternity leave, but I'm here with Chief Sizemore again today. How you doing, chief, I'm great. Good morning. Good morning, so far, so good. This week it's been busy, but yeah, rolling on.
Speaker 1:Can't complain. Last week was busy and I want to get into that a little bit because we had a school threat situation involving two individuals. They're adults, young adults. I know there was a lot of confusion surrounding the charges that were filed against these two individuals and just kind of the situation in general, and I think while you're sitting here it's a good opportunity to kind of clear that up for people who may still have questions or concerns about why the charges were what they were.
Speaker 2:Sure, I'll do it in my typical group of three, right? So what happened? Why did we do what we did? And then where are we going next steps? Perfect.
Speaker 2:So what happened was last weekend. You reached out to me and said there's been a lot of conversation in the community and it looks as if there's some confusion as to what happened. So the week prior so it was Easter weekend last weekend, it was the Sunday before we had received a tip from Crimestoppers. No-transcript. He was going to go to diplomat elementary school. He was going to bring an AR 15 style rifle I believe that's the rifle that he quoted and was going to shoot up, I believe, fourth and fifth grade class. I mean very specific, very shocking. As a police chief, it was very unnerving and as a father who has kids in the district of one that age, it really hit Like wow, how could you say something like that? The posting of it was early in the month and he had a date certain when he was going to do it, which was the thursday the 17th, if memory serves yep so this was before that.
Speaker 2:So, um, even on a sunday, our detectives are working. We're here, uh, they immediately sprung into what the heck is this right? So we get this tip from, from crime stoppers, our, our analysts and our detectives find out um kareem hussein, where he lives, name, rank, horsepower, and then we're able to find out that the video was posted by garth, and what platform and ip address, and, and so we're able to quickly identify both of them. Um, immediately go out, make contact, and then you start looking at what is it? It appears to be a crime. I mean no kidding. So what relevant crimes do you have? And the most relevant one we have is the written or electronically communicated threats, threats and the statute for that was born out of school shootings throughout the country but, in particular Parkland Florida, with Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, which prompted legislation, the Marjory Stoneman Douglas Act, which is why we have SROs in every, every school.
Speaker 2:that's why everybody does throughout the state, from the elementary level all the way up to high school. There's numbers so up under a thousand students, you have one. If you have over a thousand, it's two. If you hit over 2000, it's three. You know different triggers in legislation.
Speaker 2:There's also a Florida's version of a red flag law which is called a risk protection order or RPO. We've had a lot of success with that since its inception. So one of the statutes that came about was this written threat or electronically communicated threat, and typically that statute was intended for. I believe when the lawmakers did that, they acted very quickly with good intentions. It's difficult in government to rapidly employ a law because you're going to have a lot of things that fall through the cracks or situations that you can't envision at the time. But the true intent and spirit of that law was for students who were making threats about shooting up their own schools. That's a lot of the data shows that that's what you have.
Speaker 2:You do have cases where former students come back, in really rare circumstances, somebody not affiliated with the school will do that. You'll have domestic violence situations with teachers and staff that spill over. We had that at a daycare many years ago, where you have a shooting at a school, it's not the one you envision in your head of a bullied student who has access to guns and rings. So that's what the law kind of tailors to is that this is not, that. This was somebody completely unaffiliated with the school. So we had to really dive into that statute and make sure that it's going to work, because these are also a lot of what you'd call a sole operator or single person comes up with the threat, writes the threat and leaves it at the school, electronically posts a threat either by word or by video, you know, and they are the one that do it all self-contained. This was not. This was somebody in the bar district of downtown Fort Myers. Later we found out was intoxicated.
Speaker 2:No excuse, no problem with that, but says this very specific, vile, scary, threatening intention, and then Mr Garth films it and then posts it. So as we're reading the statute, we're like this is tricky, because this guy doesn't meet the definition. Now, if you act outside of a state statute, you make an arrest for a charge and you don't meet all of the elements, or you go outside of the four corners of that law, that's a bad arrest. Are there any other statutes that would do that? Some people have thought well, what about assault?
Speaker 2:Assault is threatening somebody, but the element of assault has to be readily able to do it. Meaning you and I are pretty close, about arm's length close, and if I'm showing signs that I'm pretty upset with you and I say I'm going to hit you, that's a threat and I'm close enough to do it. Right now, immediate, I can do it. I'm going to do something really stupid or vile or heinous. Or if I'm on the phone and I'm in St Louis, missouri, when I get to Florida, I'm going to slap you right in the face. That's not an assault, because I'm not there, I'm not able to really do it. So there's a million different statutes, it could not be. So we're not going to go through all of those.
Speaker 2:That was one of them. Why not that? So why didn't he meet the elements of Florida state statute 83610, which is the threat threat of mass shootings, mass violence? He made the comments period, didn't write them, didn't post them. It wasn't his channel, he's just being a jerk. To be honest with you, garth took it, videoed it and then took the conscious step to go ahead and post it. That meets the elements of it. So these guys are we got to get these guys right for doing something like that. Our kids are the most precious people that we have in the city. It's a priority for the department. So we met that element for Garth. It's tricky with Hussein. So we engage the state attorney's office, we work with them. We don't just act independently, make arrests and shoot it over there and then hey, you know your job your turn Right.
Speaker 2:We don't do that. That's not what a partnership is. So, especially on cases that are a little tricky, a little nuanced in the statute, we engage them early. Where are we at? What do you guys think? Is this a case that you could prosecute and win? So we communicated our belief in the interpretation of the statute and the very talented prosecutors that we work with.
Speaker 2:A lot said, as bad as it is, take the emotion out of it. You're right, it doesn't meet it for Hussein. You're not able to do that. Now, when you're told by your prosecuting partners that it doesn't meet it, we cannot prosecute it. We arrest them. You can't act or arrest people on emotion. Well, it should be. So you're going to jail for that. We don't work that way. They would get arrested, they would go to first appearance. The judge would read the charges and go this doesn't fit. And, as a matter of fact, you had counsel from the state attorney's office that said it doesn't fit. You did it anyway. The guy's gone, he's kicked out, dismissed, and then there's going to be sanctions against us and then Hussein now has action against the police department or anybody that's arrested for a willfully wrong charge. You just don't. That's not what we're here for, but we're in a solutions business. So what can you do?
Speaker 2:There is a statute. It's a misdemeanor, but it's the one that we have available to us. It's called disruption of a school function. The typical application of that charge would be a fight at the school where they're mutual combatants. You don't have a battery, you get an affray at the school. You have a school bus pulled over because the kids are going crazy and impeding the driver. You've had situations like that. That's disruption of a school function. You can have it at off-school events. You can have it at football games or soccer games. It's a misdemeanor charge that's at your disposal. With a misdemeanor, you have to witness it happening. There are certain exceptions, like domestic violence et cetera. There's a handful of misdemeanor exceptions that charge is not.
Speaker 2:So we made the threat back on the 5th. It was posted, we became aware of it on the 13th and then on the 17th is when he was supposedly going to do this act. So on the 17th a lot of parents held their kids out of school. Totally get it. I mean, it's not something you mess around with. So Garth had already been arrested for the charge of communicating a threat of mass violence, because he's the one who willfully decided to do that and strike fear into everybody. Hussein had not and he had not been charged at this point, but on the 17th, a large percentage of students were kept out of class by their parents.
Speaker 2:We were there to witness that happening and by witnessing that act, that was a disruption of the school's normal function. That's the way we stretched to apply it. We communicated with the state. They said you know what that actually fits, and then we were able to arrest Hussein for that. Is it the threat of mass violence? Arrest? No, it's not. I wish we could have. I honestly do. There's there's what I believe to be a hole in the law.
Speaker 2:Uh, I don't think it was intentional by the lawmakers at the time when they did it. I think they were acting um on a very omnibus bill to try to help with the situation. Another element of that was the red flag law. So those statements that he made very concerning enough for us to go and apply the risk protection order red flag for layman's terms. So we go to court, you petition a judge with all of the evidence that you have and all the information that you have, and the judge granted the temporary RPO or risk protection order.
Speaker 2:We then went to Hussein's home and all of his firearms are in our possession pending another hearing. So the law on that is every year you have to reapply that the person is either rehabilitated or that's really for the courts to decide. So the tools at our disposal were 83610, florida statute for communicating a mass threat on Garth. He was arrested for that. A red flag or a risk protection order on Mr Hussein was applied for, granted and enacted. We did that and then, when we witnessed the disruption of a school function, clearly based upon his comments, that was our way to complete the circuit, if you will, and arrest Mr Hussein. So that's why, right, and it took me how long to explain all right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we're already 13 minutes in right and we do that for a living and we work with professionals for a living on the very nuanced application of the law. There's another thing in the law called case law, where you can read the statute, but once it's an arrest has been made or worked its way through the court system, there are certain court decisions that come down about that law that are called case law, and then they apply to everybody. So you have the statute, then you have other layers on top, so there's a lot to it. So you can pick up a statute book and read it. And why isn't it this? Well, there's something called case law. There's something called the standard that attorneys have to have to ethically and legally prosecute a case, and you just simply can't prosecute a case or make an arrest on a case where it doesn't meet the statute. So that's why I get the anger. I'm angry at those two. It's the stupidest thing that you could do in today's climate. Then we had the incident at Florida State just recently, on the heels of really what's sadly become a weekly thing for shootings in this country. I think it's horrible. And to do it saying that you like dark humor or shock value, it's just Just to. I got to watch my language on the podcast and we'll get a warning label Irresponsible, absolutely. And I get being furious at them because I am too. I get the fear as a parent. I get the. It's something that I have. A million things that I worry about every day in my professional life, and one of those is keeping the school safe.
Speaker 2:We have a lot of campuses across our city. We're a big city, you know, seventh largest, one of the biggest school districts in the state of Florida, which is the third biggest state in the country. We have 27 campuses that we patrol. It's a lot. You know, our SRO unit of all the SROs and the supervisors are bigger than the average police department in this country. So we are really committed to the average police department in this country. Wow, so we are really committed to the schools.
Speaker 2:So I get that and I get the confusion. Why wouldn't that do it? Because when a law is congruent with common sense, it's nice and easy. There are times when a law and common sense part ways, and I think this is one of those. So what do you do at this point? Blame us. I can't blame us because we did it correct. Obviously, you blame the perpetrators, but that's the business Perpetrators going to perpetrate. Right, you blame the state attorney's office? Absolutely not. They did their job and we work with them every day. They're they're the best. Um, the lawmakers, they, they did the best that they could with expedient action. Right, we always get mad at our lawmakers for not taking action. They did. They just couldn't envision everything that could happen.
Speaker 2:So now we're starting to hone in on where we go and we have a great relationship with our local representative who's in the Florida House of Representatives. He represents Cape Coral. He's a Mariner High School grad. His name is Mike Gialombardo. I'm on a Mike-Tony basis with him and I called him on Saturday when you told me that there was some confusion. I said there's work to be done. So I called Mike and Mike and I had a conversation. Or, representative Gio Lombardo, we had a conversation and he goes. I've seen it. I saw the video. I'm familiar with the case. Absolutely. He's in session now up in Tallahassee doing all of our work right now and we are going to start the process of finding a way to close that loophole.
Speaker 2:I had a conversation this week with Jason Fields, the chief of Fort Myers. I talked to the sheriff. He even out of state. He and I talked because it's near and dear to deeper conversation about rallying all of our local law enforcement leaders to work with our representatives in Tallahassee to show that this is serious. The city manager has worked with the city's lobbying firm in Tallahassee to say, hey, the police chief has got this, throw the weight of the city government behind it when this thing starts rolling. I belong to the Florida Police Chiefs Association, which is a network of Florida police chiefs, and we talk about legislation and lobbying and getting things like this, where we identify in the course of our daily duties an opportunity to make something better. And I've engaged the Florida Police Chiefs Association to also throw our weight behind it in Tallahassee. So everybody's been heard, everybody's been understood. We were saying it right along with you, and that's the action that we're taking, moving forward.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. You know, I know you don't. You're not on Facebook, so of course I go through some of the comments and just seeing so many comments of wow, the Cape Coral police department really screwed this one up and this, and that you know, and I'm jumping in and trying to explain. It is the Cape Coral police department's job to enforce the law, to know the law inside and out and enforce it accordingly. It is not our job to create the law. It's the same thing with oh, we've seen so many car accidents at X and Y streets.
Speaker 1:Why isn't there a traffic light? Come on, Cape Coral Police Department. It's the same thing. It's not our job to put a traffic light there. Once a traffic light is there, we can enforce that. If you're running a red light, we're going to pull you over and give you a ticket, but it's not our job for that. So I think this is helpful in clearing that up, and not only are we doing what we can when it comes to the parameters of the law, we're taking it a step further by engaging our leaders. Hey, this is a loophole. We're dealing with it here. Now that this has happened, it could become more common.
Speaker 2:Let's close this loophole, Right that's the part I'm most proud of. I know uh, you said it perfectly that we enforce what's on the books. It would be easy, and I'm sure there are some places throughout the country that would you know. That's it we right.
Speaker 2:We only do what we're allowed to do, you know, call your legislator or deal with it. I'm very proud of this agency and of our surrounding agencies that we don't do that. We don't wipe our hands of it and say, hey, that's the brakes. No, we found it or we experienced it. Now what are we going to do?
Speaker 2:It's like if you're at your home or your workplace and somebody left trash on the floor. How many times are you going to step over that before you pick it up and put it in the garbage? Fix it, don't just. Well, I didn't throw it there, right? No, it doesn't work like that. We're all working together to pick up something that has fallen and put it back where it needs to be, and that's what we're doing legislatively is working to make it safer for everybody. So hopefully, people don't do things like that. But we have a job because people do things like that. So when they do, we want to have the right tools to be able to hold people accountable to the rest of society who are doing it right. Exactly, perpetrator is going to perpetrate.
Speaker 2:That's a good one right.
Speaker 1:It is. I like that.
Speaker 2:Maybe a shirt. Perfect, we'll start selling merch Anything else, chief, I really think that that helps kind of clear it up for anyone who isn't on social media and maybe didn't see your message there. I think it's good that we broke it down. Sure, yeah, I feel good about that one Coming up. In about two weeks it's Police Memorial Week or National Police Week, so I think next week maybe we'll do a little chat about that. Perfect Little tease.
Speaker 1:We're letting the people know what's coming. They'll be on the edge of their seats.
Speaker 2:I bet.
Speaker 1:Well, thank you so much, Chief. I appreciate it, and thank you again for listening and watching and joining us, and we will see you next week. Have a good one.
