Chief's Chat #30: Why We're Adding a Third Deputy Chief, Trespass Law, and Teen E-Bike Behavior

In this episode of the Cape CopCast 'Chief's Chat,' Chief Sizemore explains how we’re scaling the department to match the city’s rapid growth. Over five years, we’ve onboarded hundreds and promoted 70 people, pushing the limits of span of control. To maintain quality, accountability, and training, Patrol is moving from a Bureau within the Police Operations Division to its own Division led by a Deputy Chief. This structure isn’t red tape—it’s how we sustain faster response, stronger supervision, and safer outcomes as call volume rises. Cape Coral is booming, calls are up, and we’re building the capacity to keep you safe.

We also talk about a recent clip on the news that showed an older couple wandering onto someone's property while they weren't home, and a headline that suggested “police can’t do anything.” We break down the real process for Trespassing in plain English: what counts as notice, what “trespass after warning” means, when loitering and prowling fit, and how signage or pre‑authorization changes what officers can do on scene. 

We also touch on the e‑bike surge sweeping Cape Coral. The hardware matters—some “e‑bikes” are actually motorcycles under the law—but the bigger issue is behavior. From kids riding four abreast and blocking lanes to filming stunts in traffic, the risk is real. After rounds of education, we’ve shifted to enforcement: citations for blocking the road and helmet violations, and in serious cases, fleeing and eluding charges when riders bolt from a lawful stop. Parents, we share practical steps to check your child’s vehicle classification, set clear rules of the road, and prevent the kind of crash or confrontation that changes everything.

Transcript

Welcome And Weekly Reset

SPEAKER_01 0:04

Welcome back to another episode of the Cape Copcast Chief's chat. I'm one of your hosts, Lisa Greenberg Mercedes. We're dividing and conquering today. So she's not going to be part of the podcast today. She's off on another assignment, but we still want to make sure that we sat down with you today to talk about a few different things. So good morning, Chief. How's it going?

SPEAKER_00 0:21

Good. How are you?

SPEAKER_01 0:22

Good, good. It's been a good week. I feel like last week was like the crazy we're back to work week, and today it's kind of slowed down a little bit. So that's good.

SPEAKER_00 0:30

Yeah. I think we're just getting used to the pace again.

SPEAKER_01 0:32

Yeah, for sure. The holidays when everything's kind of slowing down. Now we're picking back up. But it's a good thing. I like to be busy. So I do too. Um a couple things I know we wanted to cover today, and we've talked about a couple of them before, but I know we wanted to set the record straight on something that we got a lot of feedback on.

Clearing The Trespass Misquote

SPEAKER_01 0:48

So let's start there.

SPEAKER_00 0:49

Yeah. Um, one of our uh local outlets covered a story about a trespassing complaint. And for those of you who didn't see it, it was um either ring camera or or home surveillance camera uh at a home that was unoccupied. I mean, somebody lives there, but it was unoccupied at the time. And an older couple pulls into the driveway, a man and a woman, they get out, they walk up, they don't walk up to the door, they walk around the side of the house, and they're on the back. There's a pool, uh, the house is on the water, there's a boat, they're just kind of looking around, um, not making any attempt to break in, but definitely weird. You know, what are you doing here? Um, and then they left. It almost looked like, you know, perhaps they believed it was a real estate listing or a potential Airbnb they're gonna rent. You really don't know what they're doing, but it's it's bizarre, and you shouldn't be doing that. Um so the the homeowner called the police, and fast forward, the story aired, and there was a quote attributed um to us that well, there's nothing we can do about that. And that's that's not true. Uh, I want to break down what different criminal elements are just in a conversational way so people can understand.

What Counts As Trespass

SPEAKER_00 2:02

If somebody pulls into a house uninvited, it's not their place, they're walking around and they're trying to break in. That's an easy one. That's a burglary or an attempted burglary. Um, if somebody goes and does exactly what they just did, they're not trying to commit another crime on the property. It is still trespassing, right? If you're not supposed to be there, you're trespassing. The way the law works with trespass is you have to be informed, and we'll talk about the different ways you can be informed, but you have to be informed by the owner that you are not welcome there. So a typical trespassing situation would be the homeowner's home, somebody shows up on their property and you, hey, can I help you? What are you guys doing? Oh, I got the wrong house, and they leave, or they don't. And it's like, well, this is very weird. You need to leave. And then the police get called. So we show up, uh, sir, ma'am, you know, how can I help you? What what what did you call for? Well, these people are on my property, they don't belong here. I've asked them to leave, they won't leave. We will then say to them, you know, what's your business here? We'll get their information, um, run them for any warrants or whatnot. And then the property owner wants you to leave. You need to leave. And we would have the property owner verbally express that. That is the uh notice. That's one form of notice. And they either leave, right, or they get arrested right there, point of sale for trespass after warning. That's the the the uh conversational speak is trespass, but the the crime is trespass after warning. So the warning has to be delivered. We would get a sworn statement or affidavit from the homeowner or the the custodian of the property who's given the warning. They've refused to leave after giving the warning, and then that's a physical arrest. Um, but the property owner was not on scene to be able to do that. So he saw that, um, called the police, we arrived, the people were gone, we have video of them, but they weren't there. Odd, yes, shouldn't be there. Are there other crimes that you could uh possibly attribute to this? Yes, there's something called loitering and prowling. If you're in a place at a time doing something that a reasonable and prudent person wouldn't be doing, you're up to no good, and you

Notice, Warnings, And Arrests

SPEAKER_00 4:20

can't give a reason why. Right. Right. So that's one option of the we can't do anything. That's not true. Um, the other way that warning can be given is think of like a convenience store. And you've pulled into a convenience store and you'll see a sign on the front. No trespassing. Um the Cape Corps Police Department has authorization to remove any and all persons that are trespassing. That warning that we talked about before was given in advance. So they've given a blank, the the owner or manager has given a blanket letter that says we authorize the police department. So we don't have to get the owner of the convenience store or the manager to come out and say, hey, you you have to go. They've done that in advance because it's that type of an establishment or environment where it's a lot more prevalent. In a residential neighborhood, doesn't really happen that way. Would I then advise everybody to do a letter and put it on file for us? No. Um, you can put no trespassing signs up. Um, and then if somebody's been there, they've been warned, and we catch them on the property, they can be subject to arrest. But it it what you saw on TV, people did pull in, they did walk around. Uh the homeowner was not there to give the warning or the advisory, you can't be here, which unlocks the door for us to be able to enforce trespass. So just a little little confusion there. Uh, I don't think there was any ill intent. It was just the the quote or the inference it attributed that we there's nothing police can do about it. That that's not true. We don't use that phrase, there's always something that can be done. It may not be, you know, cuff them and stuff them like a cop show, but we can always remedy a situation. For sure. And um just wanted to kind of clear the air on that.

SPEAKER_01 6:12

For sure. I think it's important too. I think a lot of times when, you know, we are dealing with a situation where a police officer is relaying information to a news outlet, there is sometimes ways where it gets lost in translation that there's no ill intention. So we just wanted to clear that out for people who simply watched that and boiled it down to there's nothing the police can do. That's not true. We just explained why.

SPEAKER_00 6:34

Yeah, we don't want people thinking, well, police aren't gonna do anything. Somebody's on my property, I'm gonna take care of it. No.

SPEAKER_01 6:39

Or I can just

Signs, Loitering, And Limits

SPEAKER_01 6:40

go on someone's property and the police aren't gonna do anything about it. That's absolutely not true.

SPEAKER_00 6:44

False on both accounts. If there's you're not supposed to be on somebody else's property, there are consequences for it. Uh, there's just different pathways to uh get to those consequences or remedy the situation, which is what we're looking for.

SPEAKER_01 6:58

For sure. And one other thing that's been getting some media attention, we did do a story recently with Fox Four about this. I believe another outlet also covered it, but we've been talking a lot about e-bikes and the safety surrounding e-bikes, what is an e-bike versus a motorcycle? We did a whole podcast episode on it. Uh, this is something that, you know, we're still seeing in our community a lot of kids on these e-bikes kind of terrorizing people and and doing things that they shouldn't be. So we just want to put out basically another reminder to parents to talk to their kids about this and make sure also that the vehicles that they're using that they give their kids, they might not even know it, aren't actually e-bikes. They're motorcycles or some other type of vehicle that requires a specific license, requires you to be 16 years of age, things like that.

SPEAKER_00 7:40

Right. And it's kind of a twofold conversation. The first is just uh general information about the vehicle that you're providing your child. It's not just a a scooter enhanced. If it gets over a certain CC, then it becomes a motorcycle. You need a license

E‑Bikes: Behavior Vs. Vehicle Type

SPEAKER_00 7:58

with a like a kick scooter, non-powered. A helmet is not required, but it sure is a good idea. Bicycles, you have to have a helmet up to a certain age. Um, that's one. But really the the issue that we're having, and it it could be on an old-fashioned pedal-powered bicycle, all the way up to and including a high-powered e-bike, is really the behavior. Yeah. Right. So that's really what I want to hone in on today. And we have uh really stepped up enforcement on this because it's going from a nuisance and remaining a nuisance to a legitimate safety factor. I did see that one story on the news where a kid was popping a wheelie in the middle of the road. Uh, I think it was a Prius was coming, almost hit him. I mean, that's just dumb. That's really bad, really bad um operation of the of whatever it was, if it was a BMX bike all the way up to that, that high-powered e-bike. And then what we're having is three or four kids riding side by side, not getting out of the road on purpose, filming, riding circles around the cars, just just being jerks. And that's the kind of behavior that we're gonna enforce. Not the uh the courtesy police, but actually there's laws against riding. It's called riding abreast, blocking the road, uh, interference with the flow of traffic. If you're on a bike and you're under 16, don't have a helmet, that's a law. Uh going the just just traffic violations, right? You've gone into the realm of now you're now you're on the road. And there's cars on the road, and there's a flow and an operation and laws to the to the way the roadways work. And when you impede that, there's going to be consequences for it. And what we've been doing over the last couple of weeks, after we gave that informational warning to parents and kids, is now we've started to step up enforcement. And we've every single day I see on our activity report that we are doing um active enforcement in spots where they're uh popping up or where they're historically been shopping centers, certain roadways where they're they're prevalent. We've written tickets, yeah. We've seized the bike, we've had parents have to come pick the kids up, all the way up to we've uh it's a traffic stop that we're

From Warnings To Enforcement

SPEAKER_00 10:10

affecting. If you're on the road and violating traffic laws and the police have to stop you, that is a traffic stop. These kids are looking back, seeing the cops, and taking off. And we're catching them, and they're actually getting a fleeing and eluding charge, which is like a police chase charge, uh, and and going to DJ J or Department of Juvenile Justice. Um, not what we want to be doing. There's a lot more important things for us to be doing. However, that kind of behavior is drawing attention to us because, like I said on a previous podcast, we've had kids that aren't trying to get hurt, get killed. Yep. Just trying to go to school, go to a friend's house, not in the the bad behavior stupid club, just driving and get exactly and get killed. Yeah, it's horrible. And now we have people that are willfully doing behavior that A, you're gonna get gonna get smoked by a car, or sadly, you're gonna come across, you know, the wrong dude or dudette, and they're gonna you're gonna have a physical confrontation, and you some people are gonna find out that they may be TikTok tough, but they're not gonna be street tough, right? Right. And that's just a stupid lesson to learn.

SPEAKER_01 11:21

I know it's crazy to me that this is even a conversation that we have to be having, but it is important. And it, like you said, it's gotten to the point where we've gone out there, we've done the education, we've talked to people about this, and now it's time to enforce it. And seeing that we are doing that proactive enforcement, we want to let the community know like we're not gonna tolerate this type of behavior. Right. And we have been seeing juveniles get charged with fleeing and eluding and those types of things that's happening. So uh, parents, if you're listening to this, talk to your kids about it. Make sure that this isn't behavior that they're engaging in because you might not even know about it. You might just think, oh, my kid's out riding his bike with his friends. Yay, they're doing outdoor activity, they're getting exercise, they're not in front of the phones or the video games.

SPEAKER_00 12:02

They put the console down and they're out riding, but just

Fleeing, Helmets, And Real Risks

SPEAKER_00 12:05

make sure, have conversations with your kids about that you should be doing that anyway, about a multitude of subjects. But the first one is hey, you represent me when you're out there on the street. You have my last name. I don't need you behaving like that. A, you're gonna get hurt. Uh, I love you and care about you, and I don't want you getting injured or killed because that does happen. And number two, I don't need you getting beat up because you're acting like that or or getting arrested or or just being that type of a human being in general. It's time to time to knock off that behavior and we're we're here to help.

SPEAKER_01 12:35

Definitely. And I know one other thing we wanted to discuss, uh, one thing that we wanted to get into, we talked a little bit last week about our strategic planning session, uh, which is something we do every year to kind of put our best foot forward, talk about what the next few years are going to look like, the things our department needs. Each bureau does a presentation about what they need specifically. And so I think it'd be good for this week to talk a little bit about some of the things that we're actually asking for and putting into action. Sure.

SPEAKER_00 12:59

So when we talked about it last week, it can sound a little abstract, right? Oh, good, they're planning or they're coming up with future stuff. What does that look like? What are some of the things that we're going to be onboarding? And I'd like to do a series with this podcast of every week, kind of touch on a specific thing that we are doing by growing when we grow an onboard. What are some of the positions, the pieces of equipment or the initiatives that we're actually going to do that will benefit the community? And the first one is um I've been the chief for five years and I pulled a report and got the numbers. And in that five year span, we have hired between professional staff, which are our civilian employees, and sworn officers, 250 people. Wow. In the five years that I've been here. And promotions, we have promoted 70, 70. That's a lot. That's a it's a record that I I couldn't believe it. When I looked at that report, I knew we've been growing, I know, and but you don't pick your head up to actually kind of survey that sometimes, and that's a huge amount of people. So there's a phrase in policing or leadership,

Parents: Talk To Your Kids

SPEAKER_00 14:05

uh, specifically, also in other industries, but it's called span of control. And span of control is one supervisor, how many people can they responsibly supervise before you start to lose accountability, quality control, and you're really not aware of what's going on for the people under your command. That's called span of control. And for lower level, line level, it's one to ten. You do not want to exceed one supervisor to 10 operators, especially in policing, where you have basically 10 independent contractors out there without the supervisor next to them. They're they're acting independently and they'll they'll team up and do calls for service, but the supervisor has to supervise their work, their output, um, their appearance, everything that a supervisor would do in any other field. Once you get over 10, it's too much. And we are approaching that. And when you do approach that or exceed that span of control, then you need another supervisor for that group, right? So that's kind of the basis for this. When you go all the way to the top, my we have almost 500 people in this organization, between uh sworn officers, professional staff, and and even a volunteer force that does a lot of work. I count them um almost a full person, right? So we're we're almost 500 people. Well, I don't supervise 500 individuals, right? Of course. I have deputy chiefs underneath me, so the building is split in half. We have an operational side, which is everything you think of with the police department, and then an administrative side, which is the things you don't think about, and you're like, ah, that's how these guys and gals get to work because of these people. Those are divisions. So we have the department at the top. The department is split into two divisions, operational and administrative. And we'll just take the operational one. In that division, it's split up into bureaus. So we have patrol bureaus, special operations, which

Strategic Plan Becomes Action

SPEAKER_00 16:05

is traffic, marine, canine, aviation, all the fun stuff, and then investigations, all of our detectives, forensics, all of that. There's a lot of people in each one of those bureaus that each uh the the workers report to a sergeant who reports to a lieutenant, and then the the bureau, investigations, let's say, has narcotics, there's a sergeant with that group, there's property crime, and all the detectives, and a sergeant with that group, and then financial crimes and major crimes and forensics, all those individual units have a sergeant or or civilian equivalent. They report to the lieutenant, and that lieutenant reports to the bureau commander, which is a captain. Right. So when a unit outgrows a unit status, it's too big for the bureau, it will become its own bureau and all the requisite supervision for it. If a bureau outgrows the division, it will become its own division. Right? That's you symmetrically grow that way. So you don't just willy-nilly uh put somebody in charge over here and move them. There's it's very uh symmetrical and and organized. So when you look at the numbers that we've done, 250 people, 70 promotions, almost every one of those promotions is below the rank of deputy chief. I have promoted a deputy chief, and then there was a retirement. You were I haven't increased that. So when you look at span of control, we have the deputy chief over this division, deputy chief over this division. In the operations one, patrol is a bureau. So there's a captain of patrol, that captain works for a deputy chief. Our patrol bureau has grown and it has outgrown that bureau status. It is big enough now, the city is big enough, the call volume is big enough that patrol needs to be its own division. Right. Because of the the onboarding. Now, all 250 people, not all of them are sworn, so let's pick 100 and I think it's 120, something like that. All 120 didn't go to patrol, they didn't just double,

Span Of Control Explained

SPEAKER_00 18:10

um, but a good proportion did. And the patrol bureau is poised to continue to grow. So it's becoming a little dangerous to have that many people with that span of control. We need another layer of accountability, supervision, and quality control. So patrol's gonna pop out of the bureau status under the operations division, and we're gonna have a patrol division.

SPEAKER_01 18:38

Right. So it'll now be three divisions instead of two, correct. And then come down from there.

SPEAKER_00 18:44

Absolutely. And a division is run by a deputy chief. So we had in our plan to get another captain because a bureau was gonna pop out. That's still in the works, but it is it needs over wants. The uh the more emergent need is the need to make patrol its own division. So we that's a that's a must do um from a liability standpoint. There's a there's a phrase um as a leader, you either know or should have known that that's that's an issue. I I have both. I should know that and I do know that. That's an issue. And if you get um poor quality control on the street and officers start getting getting off the mission or starting getting into trouble or operating outside of policy, the potential is for a lawsuit, right? And the first thing a lawsuit is going to be is do you have adequate training? Do you have adequate supervision? Do you have adequate systems in place to ensure that that kind of quality control is measured? Well, the knower should have known is I know that we are approaching red line, and we need to pop that out and recalibrate the supervision there to ensure that we have that. That is what my job is is to make sure that we're insulated from. From certain liabilities like that. So it's it's very important that we uh remove patrol, make it its own bureau, and that will be led by a deputy chief. So somebody within the building uh that has gone to the required schooling and tenure will be eligible for that. They'll and they will move into that role. So that's that's a real-world example of what is Project 35, what is this 10-year growth plan? It sounds cloudy, there's not a lot of specifics to it unless we talk about. And that's one of the specifics in Project 35 is there's a whole restructuring of the way patrol is going to be built in 10 years. Well, the first step is to create the the command infrastructure to be able to adequately deploy and supervise to deliver what people expect us to be doing.

SPEAKER_01 20:53

100%.

SPEAKER_00 20:54

So we've got the the data to support the growth and the call volume and the need for this. So that's that's not a concern. It's it's just a a matter of pulling the trigger and doing it. So the time is right, it's something that's been building,

Why Patrol Becomes A Division

SPEAKER_00 21:10

but we didn't need it. It was a want, it was a goal, it was something that we were looking at. You know, we've been doing this planning for five years. This is something five years ago I saw. Well, the day has come. So that's that's a big one that's gonna come um in this uh budget building exercise that we're doing that will take effect by the end of the calendar year, we will be ready to expand and and right size the the agency.

SPEAKER_01 21:37

For sure. And again, just to kind of hammer it home, people at home should care about this because it all comes down to how we can continue to bring people the service that they have come to expect, that they deserve. If they want the same level of service that they've been receiving, this is a move we have to make as the city continues to grow.

SPEAKER_00 21:55

Right. When you call the police, you don't have the deputy chief show up, right? But you will have the product that a right-sized, adequately staffed and organized department can deliver. So the officer that shows up to help you will be a better product, you will get better service, and you will get what you expect because of all the moves that we've done on the back end. This is a pivotal move for us.

SPEAKER_01 22:23

It's exciting. Yeah. It's really cool. I know just being on this end of it, kind of seeing all the pieces fall into place, it's really cool to watch. And it'll definitely be something that will truly benefit the department, benefit our city as we continue to grow. It's crazy how fast we're growing here in Cape Coral. Um, my husband is actually from Cape Coral and he always talks about how when he was a kid, like so much of this area was undeveloped. It was, you know, he'd like, I drive down Pine Island Road and there was nothing there. And now it's just, I mean, it's booming. So we got to keep up. And this is just one step in the several different things that we are implementing that are gonna help with that.

SPEAKER_00 23:00

Right. And just real quick, one of the things that somebody might say is, well, but but I drive down my street and there's seven houses for sale. Sticks in the ground with for sale are not an equivalent to an exodus of people or calls for service. It is a an apples and oranges conversation. And how do I know this? Because I lived through 2008, where you couldn't take two steps without seeing a for sale sign or a foreclosure, and our population increased. Yeah. And with every, um, I don't have the numbers in front of me, but with every thousand people or eight hundred people that come in, it generates X amount of calls for service. And and we have the data that I spoke of on that on the white paper backup that shows our workload straight up. So it's independent of macroeconomical um discussions like that. The real thing on the street is, and you drive around and you see it, it's getting busy, it's getting packed, and we need

Staffing, Liability, And Quality

SPEAKER_00 24:00

to keep pace.

SPEAKER_01 24:00

We got to keep up. All right. Thank you, Chief. Anything else you can think of? We cover it all.

SPEAKER_00 24:04

A little chilly today. Bundle up.

SPEAKER_01 24:06

Oh my gosh, I know chili for sure. I I wore a tank top today, and I was like, that was a mistake.

SPEAKER_00 24:10

Well, you got a big fur coat in the office.

SPEAKER_01 24:12

Definitely, absolutely. All right, y'all. Well, thank you so much for listening and joining us, and we will see you next time. Have a good one.