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 #23: Building a Safer Cape Coral: Crime Stats & Accreditation Success
Crime is down 28% in Cape Coral, and in this episode of the Cape CopCast 'Chief's Chat,' we're breaking down exactly how it happened. Despite our growing population and increasing calls for service, we've achieved remarkable reductions across both violent and property crime categories while maintaining solvability rates well above national averages.
What's our secret? Chief Anthony Sizemore says it's right there in our mission statement: "Partnering with the community to ensure the highest level of safety for all." This isn't just aspirational language—it's a practical approach that yields measurable results. When community members lock their doors, report suspicious activity, and maintain open lines of communication with officers, we create a foundation for success. Combine that with strategic deployment, advanced technology, and dedicated personnel who genuinely care about this city, and you've got a winning formula.
We're particularly proud of our recent CALEA assessment—the gold standard in law enforcement accreditation that we've maintained since 1989. Assessors came to the department and conducted an exhaustive evaluation of our policies, procedures, and practices, from use of force guidelines to hiring practices that reflect our community's diversity. The result? The most successful evaluation in our department's history, with assessors recommending us as a national model in several areas. This recognition validates the significant innovations we've implemented over the past five years and confirms we're not just meeting standards—we're setting them.
Looking ahead, we're expanding our ranks to keep pace with Cape Coral's growth, creating promotional opportunities from top to bottom within our organization. This combination of proven success, external validation, and internal development has created tremendous momentum. Have questions about our approach to community safety? Reach out—partnership is what makes this work, and we're just getting started.
Welcome back to another episode of the Cape Cop cast Chiefs Chat edition. I'm one of your hosts, lisa Greenberg. We have Mercedes busy with a ride along today, so we'll catch up with her next time, but I still wanted to sit down with you today because we've had a lot going on within the department. You know, I was even wondering if we'd be able to sit down today because you've been so busy with everything that's been going on. Want to first dive into the crime stats and then we'll get into the other goings on that have been happening here.
Speaker 2:Sure Perfect. You guys released our crime stats. What a week ago, maybe a week and a half ago and tremendous news and a 28% reduction overall. Yeah, but diving deeper into that reduction in our violent crime, notably homicides, reduction in property crime. Our burglaries are down and also our solvability is higher than the national average. We consistently are, but that maintained. So we have a growing number of calls for service as our city grows more people, more stuff, more busy. Number of calls for service as our city grows more people, more stuff, more busy. That translates into more reports and just a lot going on. But to have a reduction in crime right up against that growth is really really great. There's a lot of reasons why that happened. We can talk about those. But and the solvability, the ones that we do have, the crimes that do occur that we get to investigate? We're cracking them.
Speaker 1:I think it's great to get this message out too, because we would always get so many comments on Facebook anytime we'd post an arrest or anything of people being like. You know, crime is so high.
Speaker 1:This place is getting out of control. We're becoming another Miami and I think it's good to reassure people that, yes, we are growing, becoming another miami, and I think it's good to reassure people that, yes, we are growing and I think the awareness is maybe what's up and the ability to know more and receive more information, so that makes it feel like crime might be up, but really the crime is down. You're just able to hear more about it. You're able to be more aware of it.
Speaker 2:What's up and through the roof is information, right, right. So when you before, it would be only the affected people, or maybe their friends and family. But now, with the internet, social media, everything's out there, right. There's news 24-7. So you're constantly exposed. And before we go further, it's always a shot at Miami. I mean Chief Morales, I know him. He's doing a great job over there. Their numbers are looking good.
Speaker 2:So be nice to miami yeah, come on but, um, no, I I hear that you know we're out of control, we're worse than than, um, some other cities, and that's just so far from the truth. What it is is real life put into action, what our vision, mission and values are. So any corporation or any company in a police department and we're no different we have a vision, mission and value statements, and our mission is partnering with the community to ensure the highest level of safety for all. That's it. So. We partner with you, you partner with us, and the shared goal is to make it the safest place for everybody. And that's an abstract statement. But what you're seeing with these crime numbers and how we got to them, is putting that abstract statement into action. Right. So, as good as we are, we can't solve crime without cooperating witnesses, vigilant victims talking to us, reporting crime. Right, you can get a community that has lower crime because people just don't bother reporting anymore because there's just apathy. That's not the case here. We have a very engaged community, a really good partnership with us, so that's how we're able to do it. So we have a community who does their best to lock their doors, call the police, see something, say something. They know us in all walks of life.
Speaker 2:So we are very in tune and ingrained into the community. We are the community as well. A great many of us live here. And then you have the tools. Great many of us live here. And then you have the tools, the technology, the planning and deployment, and very scientific and strategic in how we do it. We're seeing fruits of that. We talked about it on the podcast the way we've changed the way we operated to be more modernized and contemporary, and you're seeing a spare fruit. And, most importantly, with all those tools and technology and deployment, it takes talented, compassionate people that work in this building that I am most proud of that have put it into action. So the mission statement of partnering together to make it the safest place you're seeing that in action. That's what I'm most proud of. So it's just crazy.
Speaker 1:Absolutely so. I think a lot of people, when they saw our post, were wondering where these crime stats came from.
Speaker 2:Sure. So back a hundred years ago, in 1920s, the FBI started requiring police departments to report their crime stats. It was called UCR Uniform Crime Reporting. The problem with UCR was, if there were multiple crimes that happened at a crime scene, you pick the biggest one and the other lesser crimes did not get counted, so it was more of a summary than actual point-by-point crime. And that went on for a long time. And in 2020, almost 100 years of collecting that data we went or the FBI went to something called NIBRS, which is an acronym for National Incident-Based Reporting System. What that essentially means is, instead of having three or four crimes that happen at an incident and you pick the biggest one or most pressing one, nibir's collects all of them. Okay, so it's not summary-based, it's incident-based, so it's a truer picture A break-in and then a sexual battery.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:The break-in wouldn't get counted because the sexual battery is more pressing Right. But with NIBRS it would count both.
Speaker 1:Okay, right, so it's much more accurate A truer picture.
Speaker 2:What the FBI and a lot of police departments were worried about is that everybody's numbers were going to jump Right, but something happened in 2020 that took everybody's mind off everything and it really slowed down the process. So, during the uh, covid and lockdowns, um it, it took a while to get nibers up and running and it's such a massive change and it's an expense, because you had to upgrade your computer systems to be able to do it to track your nibers or you'd have to hand count, which we haven't done that in many, many years right.
Speaker 2:So a lot of of cities and governments and police departments had to expend money to upgrade their systems. Fortunately we were on that plan anyway and the new system we had was NIBRS compliant, but us KPD reporting to the state, who then reports to the feds. It took a while to get everybody on board with that massive change. Well, we're on everybody's on board now, or almost everybody, but we certainly are. We were NIBRS compliant very early but the reporting stats weren't coming out. And now they are and we knew, but we didn't have proof that that our methods and what we were doing was going to hit. And when we got the numbers we realized it did hit.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's awesome, it's great to see, and I know it was something we really wanted to put out there just to kind of keep our community informed on what we're seeing so that they can feel safe here in Cape.
Speaker 2:Coral. It's a motivator, too, to keep doing it. Yep, right, keep doing what we're seeing, and so that they can feel safe here in Cape Coral.
Speaker 1:It's a motivator, too, to keep doing it. Yep Right, keep doing what we're doing.
Speaker 2:Keep working with us. We'll keep working with you because what we're doing is working. It's a good, positive reinforcement, absolutely.
Speaker 1:And I know we wanted to talk a little bit too. We've had some visitors in the building the last couple of weeks. It's been so busy. We had some folks here working with us to essentially renew or continue our accreditation, and it's something that is a big goal for us every few years.
Speaker 2:It's another one of our shared commitments with the community.
Speaker 2:So we had visitors in the building, like you said. Kalea was here and Kalea is not a person. Kalea is another acronym we do a lot of acronyms here but it's the Commission on Accreditation for Law Enitation for law enforcement agencies, or CALEA is what it's called, and CALEA is the gold standard, best accrediting body. It's really the only accrediting body for us, and when you talk about and especially in 2020, not COVID, talk about and especially in 2020, not COVID, but the protests and the reimagining of police or the big community conversation they called it, one of the things that came out of that is we want a national set of standards for police. There needs to be a standardization and I got great news there is and there has been, and CALEA is that gold standard. That is, that national best practice model that you have to voluntarily submit to get Not 99, not 2009, 1989. So there is nobody in this building, myself included, who have ever worked a day at the Cape Coral Police Department where we were not internationally accredited by.
Speaker 1:CALEA.
Speaker 2:It's a huge thing for us and for the community. So, when you talk about a national set of standards, what are your use of force guidelines? What are your demographic counts for traffic stops? Are you disproportionately stopping a certain group in the community? Are you hiring reflective of your service population? That's fancy CALEA talk for. Do the people that you hire equally or proportionately represent the people that you police Example? Do the people that you hire equally or proportionately represent the people that you police Example? Do you have? We're almost a quarter Latino in the community. We should be at, or efforting to get to, a quarter Latino in the workforce. So we accurately, proportionately reflect who we police. We do that and we measure it and we strive to do that. We ensure that our people have proper training, that they have AEDs in their car, that they have CPR training, that they have bias-based policing training, that they're provided with an evaluation every year, that our evidence and property section meets standards, so that when we go to court our cases are successful because we have best practice in place to preserve evidence, to test evidence, things like that. So I can't go through 400 of them, but they go from successful onboarding of new employees all the way to public interaction and trust.
Speaker 2:Use of force counts. Are we proportionate in our uses of force? How many uses of force do you have when compared with how many interactions you have with the community? Are you trending in best practice? Does your training and use of force comply with the DOJ? So if you want to get federal funding for projects, one of the stipulations is that your policies meet the DOJ guidelines. It's one way that they can get police departments to comply with modernization and things like that. Well, if you're CALEA accredited, it's a waiver because you are already at, or greater than, that standard. So you don't need to be evaluated by the DOJ because they endorse CALEA and we are CALEA accredited so we are able to quickly and more smoothly accept grants and things like that. So that translates to good things for the community. So we've done that, like I said, since 89.
Speaker 2:We're the longest continually accredited police department or law enforcement agency in the region and we every year it's a web-based portal for years one, two and three. They evaluate everything. So we have all of our policies and procedures, so they'll have a standard. You have to do this. That's what we recommend or mandate From there. You have to have a policy or procedure that says you do that, and then you have to go a step further and show a proof that you're complying with the policy. So it's a three-step process times 400. And they evaluate that annually. On the fourth year, a team of professional assessors come to your department and they go through everything.
Speaker 1:Interviews hours long.
Speaker 2:You said you cleaned your room. They're coming in and they're looking under the bed. They're going to make sure that you are doing what you said and they can be very tough. Yeah, and we had, I will say, the most successful on-site evaluation in our history since 1989, just this past couple of weeks. They interview cold interviews with they'll grab a evidence technician and say tell me what you do when you have this and your staff has to know. They'll grab an officer and do a ride along and make sure that they are doing what we say we do and exhibiting best practice. They went to our training center and saw how we train. They talked to you guys to talk about our community engagement and they're here for about a week and it's all day, every day, and they look at everything that we do and then at the end they do an interview or a debrief with me. They do it with the CEO of the organization and select members of staff and talk about what they found. And it was very, very humbling and a great experience.
Speaker 2:I will say that for five years November will be five years for me and we've made a lot of change, and change is not easy. Right, we were doing well before. So it wasn't like I had to fix something broken. I took something that was great and tried to make it greater. So you always have to innovate and there is no safety net and there is no book for innovators. There's a lot of risk. Is it going to hit? I don't know, the whip hasn't cracked. Is it going to hit? I don't know, the whip hasn't cracked.
Speaker 2:Well, this was a real test and they came in and not only did we pass, they praised our innovation, our research-based decision-making. If we're going to get high-water vehicles something we talked about on this podcast we don't just go out and get them. We research what's the best practice? How do we acquire them, implement them, deploy them, train for them, store them? Very research-based, and they were applauding of that, and so it was really nice across the board.
Speaker 2:A redistricting that we've done and the science that went into it the way we hire, the way we deploy, the way we train was a lot of change in the last five years and if it didn't click, it's on me right, the buck stops here. So it was one of the greatest professional experiences that I've had to know that crazy ideas that I have that were put into practice by tremendous men and women who believe in it and it becomes our shared belief. And I do this. I include the community, because we collaborate with the community and try to deliver a service that is reflective of what our community wants. To have them say not only were we one of the best in the state of Florida, but we should be a national model, for a lot of what we do was just a big win for all of Cape Coral.
Speaker 2:And where we're at in the process now is, I told you, they come in and they do the evaluation. They gave us their feedback. They write a report and recommendation. That recommendation was glowing and they recommended that we remain accredited be re-accredited is what they call it. That gets sent to CALEA main office where the panel, the commission that's the C in CALEA reviews it. And then I and our accreditation team have to go the week before Thanksgiving to Jacksonville for the conference and I have to go. It looks like Congress. They're up there on a panel and I have to go and sit and they'll go through the report. They'll ask me some things about the agency and I'm very confident that we're going to be re-accredited, which is a tremendous victory for the police department. Like I said, the city of Cape Coral as a whole.
Speaker 1:Heck yeah, that is so awesome. And I do want to point out you mentioned the accreditation team. We have two detectives whose sole purpose is to work in accreditation and work on this day in, day out. This is something we take very seriously.
Speaker 2:It's their full-time job and it's a tremendously busy job because anytime we change anything we're going to change from the black microphone stands to blue. It's in a policy and they research it to make sure it's legal, ethical, best practice, smart and change the policy. That's a goofy example, but we do that, for everything we do is intentional and you have to maintain it and stay up on it, and one thing like that can put you in peril, you know, and jeopardize you getting reaccredited. So it's their full-time job. And some would say, well, why wouldn't you? Why do you have two? Why wouldn't you have one? Or why isn't it part-time? Because it's that important for us and the community to be accredited.
Speaker 2:You want that national set of standards. You want your department to be on the cutting edge. You want them to be a progressive, contemporary. That's the way it should be. And when our staff goes to classes, training classes and conferences across the country, sometimes you kind of forget when you're in the building. I wish we would do this. I wish we would do that. When you go to other places and it's taught that modern police department should be doing this, oh man, we do that. Oh, we do that. And it's really nice to hear when people come back hey, we do. We do what you're supposed to do. We are on the leading edge of what law enforcement is supposed to be.
Speaker 2:It's great to hear that but that's not by accident and you don't just all shucks your way through it. It's hard work and we invest in having talented people keep us on track.
Speaker 2:Very intentional Two big wins for our department over the last couple of weeks, then Very big, and this week probably in a future podcast we'll talk about it with retirement coupled with growth. Retirement plus growth equals opportunity. Right, that's a good formula and that opportunity is a lot of promotions. So we have a promotional process going on for lieutenant and for sergeant. So we have existing sergeants that are going to move into the lieutenant rank. It's a very competitive process that creates voids in the sergeant rank. So we have officers that are testing for sergeant. They're going to move into that. We have some growth coming in October because we have to keep up. So there's new lieutenant and sergeant positions coming. So a lot of great opportunity there. But it doesn't stop there because the officers and detectives and specialized assignment people that are moving up create opportunity laterally within the organization and new people come on to fill that line level role. So it's a top to bottom big forward moving thing. We're a cruise ship moving forward, moving fast, but very big and a lot going on.
Speaker 1:For sure A tease for our next episode. Just a little tease to keep people on their toes.
Speaker 2:More guests for you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, right, there we go. We love it. We need the guests. Keep them coming. Thank you so much for coming on today and thank you for listening at home, and we will catch you next time. Have a good one.
