Chief's Chat #38: Faster Response Times with More Calls & the Kayla Rincon-Miller Murder Trial

In this episode of the Cape CopCast 'Chief's Chat,' we cover:

• The conviction in the murder of 15-year-old Kayla Rincon-Miller
• The arrests of 15 people in a years-long narcotics investigation by NETFORCE
• The latest data showing our calls for service are up, our response time is down, and our vacancy rate is the lowest it's been in years

Chief Sizemore shares what it was like sit with Kayla's family in court, and why we keep saying a guilty verdict is justice but not closure. We also discuss what it takes to build a case from the smallest starting point, including digital forensics, analytics, and a timeline strong enough to stand up in trial.

We then talk about how the collaborative NETFORCE arrests underscore the real link between violent crime and narcotics trafficking across Southwest Florida, with a multi-year investigation involving fentanyl, cocaine, MDMA, THC wax, major currency seizures, and 30 firearms removed from circulation. The takeaway is simple: criminals cross borders, so effective policing has to cross them too.

We close with the numbers that shape everything: calls for service are climbing fast, yet our Priority 1 response time drops below five minutes. We explain how data-driven policing, redistricting into four precincts, and smart deployment help reduce the time from ring to knock and why we still need staffing growth even with a low vacancy rate. 

Transcript

Welcome And Week Overview

SPEAKER_00 0:04

Welcome back to another episode of the Kid Copcast Chiefs Chat Edition. I'm one of your hosts, Lisa Greenberg. Mercedes is off today, but we'll catch her next week. So it's just the two of us today, Chief.

SPEAKER_01 0:14

Just us.

SPEAKER_00 0:15

Just us holding it down. We've had a very busy

Kayla Rincone Miller Trial Verdict

SPEAKER_00 0:18

week.

SPEAKER_01 0:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 0:18

One of the big things, of course, that we've gotten a lot of media inquiries about, a lot of community interest about is, of course, the trial that we had this week in the murder of Kayla Rincone Miller.

SPEAKER_01 0:27

Yeah, we talked about it briefly last week and it was wrapping up. Uh Monday was closing arguments and then jury deliberation. And uh fortunately, we got a conviction in a very big case. Uh two years ago, a very vibrant, beautiful 15-year-old girl was out with her girlfriends, went to the movies at Coralwood Theater. Uh, after the movie was done, they were walking to McDonald's, and there was an attempted robbery. And in the course of that robbery, uh, Kayla was shot, and she died from her injuries. And it was um all of those cases are difficult, but this was for uh traumatized friends who saw a silver car leaving, and that's where you start, and to have the ability between technology and dedicated human beings and put that together to build a case um out of nothing, and then present that case to the state attorney's office with all of the complications that are involved in a case like that, um, the teamwork involved between our agency and uh the prosecutors with uh Amira Fox's team, and uh just the the compliments that I received on behalf of our detectives who prepared the case for them to be able to take it to the goal line. And in particular, uh our forensics and analytics team who took a lot of forensic data, digital forensics, and put together a timeline of what happened. Um it's it was a still a very tragic case. Um Kayla's not coming back, and that that's very sobering. Um, and and being with her family during the trial really hits that home. Um, but to be able to deliver a guilty verdict is um it's it's just a tremendous job by our people. So I just wanted a tip of the cap to them and also to the prosecutors for really uh driving it home and and getting that win.

SPEAKER_00 2:35

Absolutely. And I think you said it best when you said that it's not closure, but it's justice, right? Like there's nothing that's ever going to change the reality that her family is currently in. Um, but it's a step toward justice and making sure that at least the people behind all of this are being held accountable. And it's crazy. Um that case happened just a few months after I started working here, and that was kind of my first big thing that I witnessed here and um, you know, getting to talk to her mother and all of that. I mean, it it's it seems like a long time has passed, but at the same time, it was pretty quick to see how we went from that night to where we are now with with someone being convicted.

SPEAKER_01 3:20

Right. That's the uh typical cadence for a trial in a big case like that. And yeah, it was uh St. Patrick's Day, 2024, uh, in the evening. And um I had her mother and father, you know, in my office. I meet with all of the family members of major crimes like that and provide a commitment in a face-to-face meeting that we are going to do everything we can, leave no stone unturned. And it was um it was a powerful moment to be in the courtroom with her um with the pressure ratcheted up and to to have that release. And you you said it, it's it's not closure. When you lose a child, and then you lose a child in that manner, that there will the pain will be there forever. Um, but to have someone accountable, two people accountable for it, is um is what you're looking for. And I have this conversation with people that you don't really know it until you're going through it, but you're almost walking in a dream, it doesn't feel real, your compass is just kind of slowly spinning, doesn't know where to go. And then when you get a guilty verdict, it doesn't put you at peace, but it'll stop the spinning needle of the compass in the direction of peace, and then you can start to move and and that that they gravitate towards that because it's it's very telling.

SPEAKER_00 4:45

For sure.

SPEAKER_01 4:46

I've had circumstances uh violent crime has affected um my personal life, so I understand that um where where she's at. I didn't lose a child, but um to have a family member you know killed by violent crime, I I get it. And that's that worked for me was that slow spinning compass, at least it's in the direction of peace. And then everybody's journey is different as as they go there. So it was um a very long Monday, you know. Oh yeah. Closing arguments, I think we're at 10.30 in the morning. And uh myself, the investigating detectives, the sergeant from that unit, um, Kayla's family, uh, we were in the court uh and we walked out of there about 9:30 at night. It was a uh long, um, emotionally draining day, but um very pleased with the outcome.

SPEAKER_00 5:39

Definitely awesome work by our detectives and those prosecutors. And I don't know if you want to touch on this, but we also had something on Wednesday that was pretty significant as well with the NetForce news conference that we did.

NetForce Takedown And Drug Seizures

SPEAKER_01 5:50

Yeah, um, multi-year investigation, um, numerous defendants that were peddling fentanyl, cocaine, MDMA, uh THC wax, which is what is used to make vapes. So they'll put you know other narcotics into a uh marijuana vape. Um hundreds of thousands of dollars in currency, 30 plus firearms taken off the street. So um just a great job by the detectives and analysts and prosecutors in that case uh that are getting ready to take over uh and and take this to trial. But just the work that's done by the men and women for years to get these done, and it continues. And I said um at the press conference on that day, uh we were a founding member of NetForce, which is a nexus of violent crime and narcotics trafficking together across the region. So we partner up with the feds, uh, Homeland Security, um, the state, and all of the local jurisdictions. Um Carmai Marcino from the Sheriff's Office, Jason Fields from Four Myers, uh Kevin Rambosk from Collier, and all of our local partners. And we provide resources and people and time and put into these cases because the criminals don't observe jurisdictional boundaries, so we don't either. And I think it's a model for what real cooperation looks like. We're not trying to grab headlines, or that's this happened in the Cape, so we're taking it, or you know, we're not gonna help in Lee County because that's not a responsibility. That's just not the way we operate. We we work as a team and are and it carries through the organization that all the way down to the individuals that are doing surveillance or or executing search warrants and seizing evidence. We're all one team and it it shows.

SPEAKER_00 7:42

Yeah. 15 people arrested. It was impressive and great work there as

Quarterly Metrics And Call Volume Surge

SPEAKER_00 7:46

well. One of the other things I know we wanted to dive into today, we got these statistics, these reports back. So we have a really, really awesome planning and research analyst, Shri. She is incredible and she provides us with these metrics that we get quarterly to kind of get an insight on where we're at when it comes to calls for service, where we're at when it comes to response times and staffing levels and all of that. And I know we wanted to dive into some of the statistics here because they are pretty impressive.

SPEAKER_01 8:13

Yeah. Everything we do here is data driven and analytical and data informed. So any strategic decision or any uh deployment of people or um research for acquisition of equipment, software, it's all based on data. You know, we don't, it's a very dated reference, but some people will get it. It's not like Hill Street Blues, which was a show, and they would do roll call, and the Sarge would say, let's keep it quiet out there and just go get them. And um those days are gone. We we find out what's happening, um, historical trends and real-time data and and really turn the lights on for us to plan where we're gonna go. So part of that work product that we use to inform those decision decisions is from this analytical data. And we look at it, obviously, and there's a lot of telling information in there. And we teased it last week that we were gonna try and put some um consumability to data. So how do we do what we do? How do we take this information? What do what goes into it for our decision making to then provide a service that you see on the street?

SPEAKER_00 9:26

Right. And it's interesting because so we have almost 40,000 calls for service in a one quarter period.

SPEAKER_01 9:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 9:34

Which if you compare to the whole entire calendar year of 2025, is like half of what we saw in 2025.

SPEAKER_01 9:44

Right. So it just shows that our workload is going up year over year. Um, there's a percent percentage attributed to that. But when you when you drive around, right, and you live in this community, you get a feel that it's getting busier, it's getting bigger, there's things happening. We have that feel, you know, without any backing, you just get a and sometimes the the data can be the opposite of what you feel, right? Right? Like, oh my gosh, there's so many shark attacks you see on TV. This was years ago, and then when you look at the data, there's actually less. This is not the case. That it looks and feels, and all of your senses are engaged, that we're bigger and busier. We feel that at the police department, and then when you run the data, it backs it up. So what you're saying is last year's total, and we're at one quarter of the year um on pace to blow that away.

SPEAKER_00 10:41

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:41

Yeah. And that's not an anomaly, that's been happening for years. And that is one of the key metrics that we use to inform our budgeting and ask for more people, places, and things. And if if I go to uh the city manager and the finance director and the city council or even community groups and say, I need more people, well, what do you base that on? Why would you want to get more people so I can I don't do it to be bigger and better than the the other chiefs at a chiefs conference. I do it because the work is definitively showing we are busier. Yes. And that's what this relays.

Redistricting To Cut Response Times

SPEAKER_00 11:19

And what's also interesting is despite our calls for service going up to that extent, we have been able to lower our response time to priority one calls.

SPEAKER_01 11:30

And that's a little bit of the scientific method, right? And you know the scientific method is you have a hypothesis or an educated guess on this is going to happen if we do something, or um, and you try to disprove your hypothesis in any way to make it not true. But if you're unable to do that and your hypothesis comes true, then it is correct. Now, what does that mean, the scientific method for what we're doing? We um talked about it here, we redistrict or change the geography of how we respond. So we used to have the three districts here, right? So we had South, which was Veterans South, and then Central was Veterans to Pine Island, and then North was Pine Island North, and it ran east and west. Well, we outgrew that. We did that from 2006 to uh about a year, year and a half ago, and we changed to four precincts that mirror the city, southeast, southwest, northeast, northwest, and then have different response zones, very symmetrical. There's four within each one. And then based on workload, the number of officers assigned to those zones is what is different, but the actual layout is the same. Well, we didn't do that because it looked neat, or we wanted to use the word precinct, or um we did that to reduce the workload from 33 and a third percent to 25 percent. Because if you have a 25% workload, that's a reduction from 33, and you can fill that space with proactive activity. Well, the other thing that is a big part of that is the city is designed to traverse north and south. We have a lot of canals and you have to go over them and without boring people with it. We were oriented east and west. Right. So we're kind of going against the grain. Well, we switched it. And for one officer, one day, you may not notice that, but when you make a shift like that and you staff and deploy differently with the goal of reducing the time from ring to knock, you should, our hypothesis was if we redistrict, reorient, and go more north and south, strategically place our people. I bet over a long data set, which is a year, and the entirety of patrol, not just one officer, one shift, but the entire division over a year, we should see a reduction. Excuse me, and we have a market reduction of what we're looking for. We have a baseline that we try to get to of five minutes. So in a priority one call, real deal emergency, five minutes from ring to knock is what we shoot for. We were over that, which tells us well, how many people do I need to get to that number? And by onboarding more people through the budgetary cycle to keep pace with growth, coupled with our strategic redesign, I believed that that was gonna impact positively our response time in the first quarter of the year dramatically did that.

SPEAKER_00 14:44

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 14:45

So we're sub-five minutes by quite a bit.

SPEAKER_00 14:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 14:49

Right? It takes a lot to drop it in like 10 second increments. Now, I would caution everybody that it's a smaller snapshot, it's not a full year. But what it does, I think, is prove that using data and using analytics and being smart about how you do things at the police department as opposed to look and feel. Look and feel will get you somewhere, and you can do pretty well with look and feel. We've done it for a long time in this profession. But when you take experience and look and feel and and plug that into the wall with real-time data, it can show that you might have been off track or tell you to push the gas and go even further. So our look and feel was backed up by the data, and we are getting there quicker. Now, because there that's a great metric, and you think, good, we can ease off because we made it there. You can't do that because the other data set that we have is that the workload is going up. So if you do not continue, we now have the direction, we have the recipe. If you don't keep cooking, you're you're gonna run out of food, right? So it shows us two things that we were pretty smart in the way we did it, and we didn't just wing it. We had an idea and then we used data to show that this should do this, unless there's an anomaly or some kind of problem, and it worked. Now, because we are going up in the workload that we have, we have to continue to do that. So we're pointed in the right direction, we've onboarded people, it's part of a 10-year plan that we've talked about a lot on Project 35. So it validates a lot of what we've been doing. It shows that project 35 is legit and that we need to continue on that pathway, right? We know where we need to be. We designed a map out of nowhere, and and this data is informing us that that map is true, yep, and go full speed in that direction. So it was very um for a non-see it on the street type of police action, that was a big win to know that uh there are a lot smarter people than I that are working on this, that take instinct, look, feel, and experience, and then put real science behind it and it's achieving results. And that result, all of that stuff we just talked about, what does that mean to you, um, the person at home, the business owner, the resident, the visitor of Cape Coral, is that A, emergencies are happening and they are increasing, but when you call, we you can trust that we have designed our facility and our operations to be able to get to you quicker. And the data showing that we are. And the data will also show that if we do not continue, once you figure out the path and you're doing it right, you need to keep doing it. Because if you don't, you will sink back. And it that reminds me of an old quote that I got from a football coach that said, You're either better today than yesterday or worse today than yesterday. You do not stay the same. There is no such thing. So if you think we're good, we're just gonna hold back and stay the same, you have committed to getting worse. So you got the right idea, get on it, be better than yesterday, because staying the same is just not the option.

SPEAKER_00 18:18

For sure. It really isn't an option because these numbers, uh, these calls for service, the population, it's gonna continue to grow. And we're gonna need to continue to add more personnel to the streets to be able to maintain the level that we currently serve.

SPEAKER_01 18:32

You just said it. That's just to maintain.

SPEAKER_00 18:35

Right. Just to maintain.

SPEAKER_01 18:37

But if the goal is to improve, then you got to get even more even more, even more aggressive. So I'm encouraged

Hiring, Vacancy Rate, And Growth Needs

SPEAKER_01 18:44

by it.

SPEAKER_00 18:44

What I also found interesting is that our vacancy rate is about 5%.

SPEAKER_01 18:50

Right.

SPEAKER_00 18:50

And that is the lowest vacancy rate that our department has seen in the last seven years.

SPEAKER_01 18:55

And I'd be willing to bet that eight years ago was artificial, right? Because we were still on the heels of a self-imposed slowdown because of the Great Recession. Yep. So funding uh nationwide, right? We everybody had to slow down. Um, and and it took us a long time to get out of that. I know seven years ago wasn't the Great Recession, but we we were uh, I think it was when the Great Recession happened in 08-09, and they said, hey, this is really happening. We're we're grinding to a halt. How long is this gonna last? An economist said 2014. And back in 2008 or nine, you're like, 2014. Well, they were right, it took that long. And then other areas of the country to include Cape Coral, it took a little bit longer than that. Now, part of that was just the this macroeconomics that we won't get into, but we also had some uh policymakers at the time, not our current, but at the time, who um I will say made some colossal missteps. And not at the police department, I'm talking at a um at a voting level. And those missteps prolonged our recovery. So you get into eight, nine years ago, we were still kicking the rust off the machine. So when you talk about our vacancy rate, we'll circle back to that. It's the lowest we've had in seven or eight years, it's probably longer than that, right? But we stopped. Everybody stopped. So I'm going back almost 30 years. Um, when we were much smaller, we had a very low, I mean, vacancy rate wasn't even a thought back then because it was, you know, Jim left, so we'll hire somebody to replace Jim. Well, now when you get, you know, 300, almost 350 people, that's a big, big number. So when you look at vacancy rate, why is that important to me and you and everybody else? Well, it's important to you because vacancy rate means we don't have enough people, and we're talking about having people to get people. Vacancy rate to me means that, but it also means in a growing city, in a growing police department, I have to go ask for more people. I can't ethically ask for more people if I haven't filled what you know, that's having a full plate of dinner and then going up to get seconds. You didn't even eat yours yet. You got I'm not giving you more food until you eat your food. Right. That's what that means. Well, in order to go ethically ask for more food, you gotta finish yours. Well, what does that look like in hiring and staffing? That is vacancy rate. Can't ask for more people if we're not full. The Bureau of Labor Statistics and other studies say 10% vacancy rate is pretty full. And that's policing, corporate, any industry, 10% vacancy rate is virtually full. Anything at 10% you can ever Ethically expect to go ask for more people. We are doing so well on our recruiting and retention that we are down to five percent, which is unheard of, especially today. Even in Florida, which is a law and order state, back the blue, very police supportive, from the governor all the way down to local officials, it's still a struggle to hire because it's the if you listen to the national narrative, people don't want to be cops anymore, or they're not taking care of them, or they're just letting the criminals back out. All these other narratives. Um and then you have um it the the competitiveness, right? If there's a uh trying to get these candidates, I'm pitted against other police chiefs to try to get them here. And there's winners and losers in there, you know, and there that that comes down to culture, uh, pay, working environment, working conditions. There's a lot of reasons why you become competitive or not competitive in the market. So even in Florida, there are places that are struggling, and they would pay to be 10% vacancy. So for us to be at 5% is really a tip of the cap to the city, the community, um, our city government for making sure that our people are uh total compensation, salary benefits, and I think it's big for uh not me, but everybody in the building that that takes care of each other and wellness and wanting to be here. And there is still a very strong desire in in the nation for people to be police officers. You just have to work to get them. We've been doing that work, that work is paying off, and we are, like I said, recruiting very strong, and we can get the pick of the best people, and we're hiring the best people. And where it becomes our responsibility is to get them to want to stay here. So our retention rate is very high. What does all that mean? It means two things. I mean, number one, during this budget season, if you go back to what we just talked about, the workload is there, the moves that we're making are successful, and the missing ingredient is to continue to grow and get more people. I need to go ask for more people, and I feel confident and morally and ethically, and and sound ground or solid ground to do that because we are full. So you've heard me talk about at budget workshops or community town halls, or even excuse me, throughout the budget process that I'm 40, 50 people from where we need to be. That can be misunderstood to mean we have 40 or 50 vacancies. And then that can feed into a false narrative that no one wants to work here. Nobody wants to be a cop, they're not taking care of them, there's a leadership void, uh, it's a terrible place. That that's absolutely not the case. We are full, but we need to grow. Yep. Right. So using my visual stuff, we'll use this. I'm allowed to fill this up with water. I filled it all the way up. I got more water, I need a bigger vessel to hold it. Same thing here. We we've got everybody that we can get. I need more people to be able to answer what we talked about before.

SPEAKER_00 25:31

Absolutely. And it's awesome to have this data as concrete. This is an opinion. This isn't, you know, subjective. This is objective information that shows that we're doing what we need to be doing and we need to continue to have our foot on the gas. Right. Absolutely. Um, anything else that we're missing for

JC Park Ribbon Cutting And Wrap-Up

SPEAKER_00 25:50

the week?

SPEAKER_01 25:50

JC Park.

SPEAKER_00 25:51

Oh, yes.

SPEAKER_01 25:52

Ribbon cutting today.

SPEAKER_00 25:53

Today.

SPEAKER_01 25:54

And then tomorrow, there's an event. I believe there's it's either a movie in the park or just get out and enjoy the new park. So that's an outdoor event. I'm sure there's some stuff in um in the Southeast entertainment district. Um, you got another, I'm hoping, couple weeks before you know the humidity bomb drops. And uh this beautiful window that we've had is you can see it starting to shut. So get out, enjoy it before it is uh the dog days.

SPEAKER_00 26:25

It's coming quick. I even yesterday or two days ago, we had a coffee truck that came into the parking lot and set up, and we were waiting outside. And I I was like, Oh my gosh, it's already so hot. Yeah, we're getting there. So take advantage of the time we have. And uh, otherwise, if that's it.

SPEAKER_01 26:40

That's great.

SPEAKER_00 26:41

Awesome. Thank you so much for joining us, and we will catch you next time. Have a good one.

unknown 26:45

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