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 #27: Working Together to Stay Florida’s Second Safest City
A safety ranking means little if it doesn’t match how people actually feel while living their lives. We unpack Cape Coral’s recognition as one of Florida’s safest cities by focusing on the daily experience of residents: running errands without fear, walking to the car without worry, and raising families in neighborhoods where people look out for one another. That lived sense of security comes from a clear vision, a mission built on partnership, and values that show up in every interaction.
We take you inside the model that guides our work: be the safest city in Florida, and get there by partnering with the community to deliver the highest level of safety for all. You’ll hear how real conversations shape policy more than surveys do, how doorbell camera clips can be the missing piece in a case timeline, and why solvability rates rise when people feel heard. We also talk about the power of ownership: many of our officers live here, navigate the same roads, visit the same parks, and bring that personal stake to every call for service. It’s “your police department,” not just “the police department.”
We don’t ignore small problems that can grow into big ones. That includes a candid look at risky biking and e‑bike behavior—wheelies in traffic, riding three or four across, and blocking lanes. We outline the plan: educate first, enforce next, and keep kids safe while protecting everyone on the road. Our Community Oriented Policing unit is coordinating with businesses on trespass authority, and we encourage residents to call when they see unsafe behavior so we can address it in the moment. The throughline is simple: early reporting, shared information, and steady service keep fear off the front of people’s minds.
Proud of the progress, focused on the work. If this resonates, subscribe, share with a neighbor, and leave a review to help others find the show. What safety topic should we tackle next?
Welcome back to the Cape Copcast. Today we have Chief's Chat Edition. What are we talking about today?
SPEAKER_02:Well, a couple of cool things. Well, one cool thing and one not so cool thing, but it'd be cool to talk about it. Um Wallet Hub actually came out and did their ranking of cities. They do one for economics, they do one for uh health and wellness. They do all kinds of different ones, but they did one for safety. And uh once again, we came out as the second safest city in Florida. Um Port St. Lucie was number one, and they're doing an awesome job, obviously. So congratulations to them.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, hats off to them.
SPEAKER_02:But um, I'm really proud of all of us, not just the police department, but in conjunction with the community, it it it really does take both of us to do that, and that's what we're gonna talk about. But uh big, big win.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, huge. I think it it takes a lot to keep a city of this size to uh as safe a standards as we have. And I think if we had a guess, people's biggest complaint would be traffic, which obviously we take seriously. But if that's your biggest complaint, we're looking pretty good compared to a lot of the bigger cities in the state and nation.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, there every community has some sort of traffic problem because when you put human beings in thousand-pound vehicles and drive around, you're gonna have some kind of issues. The other communities, that is still a problem, but lower because front of mind is physical safety, personal safety. Do I have to worry about getting carjacked at 7-Eleven when I'm walking out of Publix? Do I have a legitimate concern that I'm gonna get purse-snatched or pushed down or a home invasion? I mean, th those things do happen, but that is not a front of mind concern for people in Cape Coral. And that's really where you judge safety like that. So it was a big uh big win for us. It's kind of in a line of of good successes that we've had. And I did an interview this morning where they asked about that, and you know what what do you attribute that or how how do you think that happened, or why is that happening? And I said it was our vision, mission, and value come to life or personified. And for those of you who don't know, we have just like any other corporation, we have a vision statement, mission statement, and value statement. And for us, our vision, our overall goal that we want to do is we want to be the safest city in Florida. We want to be the premier law enforcement agency in Florida, we want to be the best, right? So, what do you use to measure the best? The best is the the not numbers on a page, but how do you feel when you're uh experiencing life in our city? Do you do you think about becoming a victim when you're running errands and living your life? And the answer is no, which is good. And that that's on our way to achieving that vision. But a vision has to be um plugged in or put into effect by a mission, right? So you got the misty uh ideals of a vision, but you have to have concrete things that you do to achieve that vision. And that is your mission statement. And ours is right first sentence right off the bat, partnering with our community to ensure the highest level of safety for all, for everybody. So you can't solve crimes alone, you can't maintain law and order, you can't have what we have with just the police department. You can't go wild and then we just roll around and pick it up or clean it up. You have to work together, right? So we have a very vibrant, awesome community that wants the same things that we want. That's that partnership. Um, if they see something, they say something, they share video, they yeah, we've had that a lot lately.
SPEAKER_01:Um, because I think one of the things because we are a safe community, we've had a couple uh slews of vehicle burglaries recently because people think it's not gonna happen to them. They have a very safe neighborhood, they leave their car unlocked, and then they become a victim of an opportunity crime. Well, outside of that, we have so many neighbors that are on top of everything. They're always they're out, they're aware, they're walking, they're seeing what's going on. And a lot of people now have ring cameras, and we have a great community that is so quick to provide their video footage, even if, you know, oh, there was like a car that passed at this time, but you guys were asking for help, they'll send it in. And that is so helpful to all of our officers, our detectives, and it gives us, even if, you know, nothing happened, it can give us a timeline of what happened where, and then we're able to solve crimes from there. Our solvability rate on top of that has been incredibly great.
SPEAKER_02:It's way over the national average, both in in violent crime, but in in property crime as well. And you mentioned that that sharing of information and coming forward, that doesn't happen by accident. People want to help, right? People love true crime podcasts, they love Netflix, they want to use the technology at their fingertips and get involved. And I give our I will pat ourselves on the back for that. We're open to that, right? And that's what that partnership is. Um, both in, hey, help us out, but also in what we do every day. And the the interactions that we have with the community, the openness that we have, that's what cultivates that partnership where they want to provide. There's communities that are are really devoid of that partnership. And people still want to help, but if they feel that they they aren't listened to or there is no partnership, they'll sit on that information. And and that doesn't happen here and and it's intentional. And that's why we enjoy some of the successes that we do. And um, it's really a great thing. I'm super proud of it.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I I love it. It's so so different here. We have a community that the when we go out, we can have conversations with them. I don't feel like there's, you know, it's not intimidation or anything like that. They know that we're approachable and we're here for them. And I think that that that's one of the things of um a lot of people call for whatever it might be. And I think they know whatever it is, that's a problem that we're gonna tackle. Even if it seems like something simple, that's our job. I think we have a higher level of community service compared to a lot of police departments that and and no shade to them, they have a lot of things going on, but we are able to take the time and help people based on even what would be considered like a lower level problem.
SPEAKER_02:Right. And I think that's a great point because people know that they can they can work with us, and we're not the police department, we are your police department, and and that's a big distinction, and people people understand that, you know, and you mentioned conversations. Where does a vision come from? Right? Where do you where do I, because I'm accountable for it, but it's all of us, where do I come up with the vision and the direction that our giant cruise ship is is sailing on? Well, that's not just me dreaming it up or or coming up with my ideas. There's best practices in the profession, uh, obviously following the law and the trends. Um, but a big component of where our police department vision comes from is the community. And how do you find that? You can't guess, and it's not just Facebook comments, it's not just surveys that you put out, it's having conversations, it's coffee with a cop, it's stopping and talking to somebody when you're in Wawa getting lunch. It's when somebody sees you and they're looking and you know they want to talk to you, we engage them. What's going on? How are you? And then you'll hear themes about what's important to them, and that's what goes in and shapes our vision. And then you come up with policies, procedures, training to actually put that vision into play. And I think what you're seeing with a 28% drop in crime um the first half of the year, and then with with surveys or with um data coming out, you know, being the second safest city, it's showing that those actions and what we're doing is working. And it's it's really great.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I think another one of those things is just our our our our officers that we have, our talent pool comes a lot from our local community. So having a local community that's supportive to people like Devin Sears, that's lived here his whole life, and then he decides he wants to be a cop here. That's where you get some of your best officers that know what the area is like, they know the culture. I think culture in any city department is very important, and then you can have those conversations. You care more because you're thoroughly invested in exactly where you live. And so many people, I would say most of the officers that work here live here.
SPEAKER_02:And then I think I was just gonna say that we have probably the highest percentage of resident police officers. So when it's your community, that's a level of ownership that you just cannot manufacture. We're not an imported force like you see in some other larger major cities where you can A, you can't afford to live there and you can't, or B, you wouldn't want to. So you live somewhere else and you get imported in, do the job. There's just not the same level of ownership. There's the same commitment. I'm not saying anything about that, but you just cannot replicate when it's your community, when you're paying the same water bills they are, when you're going to publics just like they are, and you're fighting traffic, you know, dropping kids off for school. Everything that they're experiencing, we're experiencing. It's a shared experience, and it and it goes, it benefits what we're doing.
SPEAKER_01:Absolutely. I was kind of laughing because I was thinking um there was a guy that I worked with on patrol, and he would always, you know, see something and then be like, not in my city, and go pull out, get them for speeding or whatever. But it's just one of those things that you have your family here, you have your kids here, you know, my my kid's a baby, but when he goes up and grows up and starts driving, I want him to be safe on the roads. I want him to be safe in parks. And that's one of the things that we take measures now to make sure that it's not just safe now, but it continues to be that way, even though we have a growing city.
SPEAKER_02:Right. If you're going through it, we're going through it. So that's just a an unmatched level of ownership that our people have. Um, switching gears, uh, a reason, another reason why we're safe and it's a great community is because we don't let little things become big problems, right? And it's easy to say, well, that's just that's small, that's not that important, we're big now. Um, but that's almost conceding to letting a certain level of crime or quality of life or disorder or just a pain in the neck rise up. And we don't want that. And one of those issues is I'm sure you've seen it, is the prevalence of, I don't know where this came from, what influencer started this, but uh wheelie gangs on on bikes, right? Where you got four or five kids riding, it's called riding abreast. Um, the law is you're supposed to be single file line, use a bike lane if applicable, or you use the road, but they're going three wide, four wide, purposely not getting out of the road, just being between you and I, I mean stupid, right? Yeah. Um it just like with crime, it's very low crime here, but if you're looking for trouble, you will find it, right? Um, we're the third biggest state in the country, the seventh largest city within that state. So if there's crime out there, there is crime in here. If you're looking for a problem, a problem will find you. The same is with this. If you're looking to get in a crash, if you're trying to get hurt, guess what's gonna happen? You're gonna get in a crash, you're gonna get hurt, and that's what this is. Um, so it's really a plea to parents out there. Know what your kids are doing. Um, e-bikes, they're all over the place, e-scooters. I see them leaving school, and the majority of them are are operating safely and doing the right thing. But there is a small percentage who are just being dumb and unsafe and they're gonna get themselves hurt, number one. Uh, and any parent, no matter what the kids are out doing, if you hear that your child gets hurt, it it's a game changer. And um it's the headlines are out there. We've had kids get hurt, we've had kids get killed on these, and they weren't trying to get in a wreck, they weren't trying to invite trouble. These kids are, and it's and they're being kids, they're figuring it out, you know. It's okay, it's okay to be dumb when you're a kid. That's part of the deal growing up. But we need parents to to really let their kids know that the A, don't behave that way, you're going to get yourself hurt. And the second part of that is treating other people the way they're treating them. Not getting out of the way or surrounding a car or really making people uncomfortable. It you're gonna get a ticket. And depending on how aggressive you get, you might even find yourself getting, you know, put in juvenile detention or something like that. It's just it's an unnecessary, stupid measure. So it's a two-fold discussion. Parents talk to your kids about this, um, and also that this is our educational component because after education comes enforcement, and enforcement is coming.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, we've seen a lot of things on social media in the different community groups that people are see this, they're concerned, they want to know what's going on. We see the problem, we're addressing it. This is the education component, but also um it if you see it, call us. That's another one of those problems. It's not something small, you're not bothering us. That's something that we you have to call us for us to know that there's a problem in the moment that that way we can go and address it.
SPEAKER_02:Especially on the roadway. Um, it's also happening in some parking lots. Yeah. So our community-oriented policing staff or COP unit is working with the business owners to get trespass authority and give us the ability to get kids out of there uh that are misbehaving. Um it's a balance too, because you don't want to um see a kid and assume they're doing something wrong and just swarm them. You have to make sure that that they're still able to enjoy a childhood and go out and ride your bike. We want that. Uh, but we want you to A, be safe for yourself so you're not getting hurt or killed, um, and also not harassing or terrorizing or or ruining the day-to-day experience of our residents by doing that. So this is the discussion, this is the education, and then next comes the enforcement.
SPEAKER_01:Yep, absolutely. I think you said it perfectly. Is there anything else we need to cover today?
SPEAKER_02:I think that's it. It's been a good week. Yeah. Happy Friday. Happy Friday. Enjoy your weekend.
SPEAKER_01:Yep. Stay safe. Thank you for listening to the Cape Copcast, where we dive into the heart of the Cape Coral Police Department safety initiatives, community relations, and the insightful stories of different officers that make up our department.
SPEAKER_00:Please like and share our podcast. If you have feedback, you can email Cape PDPAO at capecoral.gov and remember to follow us on social media. Our handle is at Cape PD on all major platforms. Stay safe, stay cape.
