Chief's Chat #39: National Police Week

National Police Week isn’t just a feel-good tradition for us. It’s a week that holds two truths at the same time: pride in the profession and a clear-eyed look at the sacrifice behind the badge.

Hosts Lisa Greenberg and Officer Mercedes Simonds of the Public Affairs Office sit down with Chief Anthony Sizemore to talk about what Police Week looks like at the Cape Coral Police Department. We get into the moments that build culture and connection, from the formal memorial ceremony with honor guard and reflection, to the simple power of command staff cooking burgers and hot dogs for the troops.

We then discuss how we honor line of duty deaths, the risks that don’t always get attention like traffic crashes, and why police suicide and officer mental health have to be part of modern law enforcement leadership. Chief shares a framework we keep coming back to: real remembrance is action. That means doing the job the right way, treating people with respect, and giving full effort on every call. It also means building a supportive police department environment with peer support, trauma resources, and financial wellness education so stress doesn’t quietly pile up.

Transcript

Welcome And Police Fire Support

SPEAKER_00 0:04

Welcome back to another episode of the Cape Copcast Chiefs Chat Edition. I'm Lisa Greenberg, one of your hosts.

SPEAKER_02 0:10

And I'm Officer Mercedes Simons. Together we make up the public affairs office. And this week we have Chief, and we're going to be talking a little bit about National Police Week.

SPEAKER_00 0:18

Indeed, we are. It's a great week. Yeah. This is one of my favorite weeks working here. Me too.

SPEAKER_02 0:22

You know, it was kind of funny because a couple days ago we had our National Police Week ceremony, and the fire chief came and we were kind of talking back and forth because I think it was last week. They have one day. They get national or international firefighters day. And we get a whole week. And he's like, What's that about it? I'm like, I don't know. We get the whole week. But we we love it. We have a lot of different events that we do, and um, it's nice because they come over to support us too.

SPEAKER_01 0:48

Yeah, credit to them. I mean, they came over a couple of times, right? They they brought they have a relationship with a local, I believe a mom and pop baker and brought over cookies for us. We're so good. They were so good. Big surprise, you know, of sitting at my desk actually working. He caught me in the act of doing my job, and he had a big box of cookies, and we took some pictures. And it's um it's more than just photo ops. We got a really good relationship with them. And they came to our ceremony on Wednesday, uh, which is really cool. So cool. You don't see that. You know, a previous city manager that used to work here um actually commented and said, I've never worked in a jurisdiction where the police and fire actually get along the way you guys get along. And I I've never seen it any other way, so I've only heard of that rivalry. We got a really good relationship with them. It's they're awesome. It's pretty cool.

SPEAKER_00 1:35

Yeah, it was really great.

SPEAKER_01 1:36

Enough about them.

SPEAKER_00 1:38

It's about us this week. It's been awesome, though. I mean, there's we always have different things each day of the week to celebrate the men and women who work here, and it's really about them. I love how our command staff really almost like takes themselves out of this week and makes it about the people who are working on the first floor, the people who are out on the road, the people who are, you know, our detectives and things like that. And it's just really awesome to see.

Ceremony Traditions And Cookouts

SPEAKER_01 2:01

It's important for us to to let the men and women know that we appreciate them. Uh, we have a great community that has a lot of community support. And I I think we're the envy of a lot of places in the country. Um, but it's still a tough job. It can still be lonely. There's still challenges. Um, you know, you're away from your families. You know, I used to joke the only person who worked more Christmases than I did is Santa, you know, and and you miss kids' birthdays or so. The the birthday party is supposed to be Saturday, but you're working, so we're gonna do it on Sunday, or we'll do it the next week. I mean, it just becomes the life. And that that's just one thing, you know, you get exposed to a lot of things. Um, there are some traumatic incidents where you have child drownings or uh car crashes or or you know, up to including homicides. It could be very difficult. So it's important for us as a staff to show how appreciated our members are. And you look at last week, we talked about uh vacancy rate and responding to calls and and numbers, and you can almost accidentally treat the men and women as a number or a figure or a hash mark and a tally count. And they're not. They're they're fathers, they're mothers, their sons, daughters, sisters, brothers, parents, real people. Yeah right, and and that's what this week's about. It started in 1962, where uh President Kennedy declared May 15th, which is today, um National Peace Officers Memorial Day, and the week in which it falls is National Police Week. And we've been celebrating police week as long as I've been here, and I've been a cop thirty years this year, and it it gets better every yeah. And we culminate it here. We have two two big events, right? There's a lot of little little events that happen, but the two big ones are our ceremony that we do right out front at Protector's Plaza, uh, with the honor guard, the presentation of colors, and our chaplain comes out. I give a speech, and everybody gathers, and and and it's a fellowship moment. That's number one. That's the formal, and then we have a more relaxed where the command staff, that's why I'm dressed like this, um, we cook for the troops. Hamburgers, hot dogs. I think we got pulled chicken this year, and it's hot down there, but we we played up a lot of food, and then everybody comes down. And my favorite part about it, I love to to grill and cook, but to sit back and watch all of the the guys and gals get together and sit and have a meal and laugh and and appre be appreciated. And it it was a big thing for me when I was at that level, and now the joy of being able to do that, it's it's pretty special.

SPEAKER_00 4:51

Yeah, it's awesome. Definitely one of the highlights of of working here for sure, is seeing everyone down there enjoying it.

SPEAKER_02 4:58

Yeah, and you don't like as an like officers, you're out running calls, you don't get to sit down very often with the meal, uh, with each with each other to have a meal and to see everybody, like all your different command staff people, and and especially like the night guys, you guys are doing your own nighttime shift for them because sometimes there's not a lot of overlap between the night and the day. So unless you're intentional about it, it's kind of one of the, you know, one of the times that they actually get to see you, you get to appreciate them more.

SPEAKER_01 5:29

Right. They can feel forgotten. Yeah. Right. When you work at night, I I worked at night for half my career, you know, not in a row, but you know, over the course of it between working the street or being a supervisor. Um, and you can really feel like it's just you and your crew and nobody else is around. There's a lot of benefit to that. It's pretty cool.

SPEAKER_02 5:47

Yeah, some people like that.

Line Of Duty Losses And Suicide

SPEAKER_01 5:48

It's really good, really good bonding um to do that, but you can also feel like you're on an island. So not only do we cook during the day, but we come back and do it at night. And we usually would cater something. This year we're going, you know, extra intentional, and we're gonna fire that grill back up and and have that same experience during the day at night. So I'm excited about that for this evening. Um you know, but it is a serious week when you when you think about it, and you think about it regionally, right? You've got City of Fort Myers, um, the most recent, um, but they've had several officers die in the line of duty um for the City of Fort Myers PD. So I know that um Chief Fields and his crew do a very, very memorable ceremony. Um yesterday, Thursday, the Lee County Sheriff's Office did theirs. I've been to that ceremony many times. They do a fantastic job of honoring uh their fallen. Uh we have been extremely blessed here. Uh we've had uh a couple of close calls, um, but we have not had that tragedy. You know, and you look at Charlotte, I've been to uh several funerals for for Charlotte County, so it is in this region. And when you look at the numbers, right, in 2025, 111 law enforcement officers, federal, state, tribal, city, in total lost their lives in the line of duty. Forty-four of those were gunshot, you know, uh shootouts. Thirty-four, I believe, are in that number, were traffic crashes. And that's one that you don't think about a lot, but getting to the call for service and and it's a it's a tragedy. We had uh the motorcycle officers over on the East Coast um within this year, yeah uh that that were killed. Um very tragic. And then one that people don't talk about, but we're starting to talk about is um suicide.

SPEAKER_02 7:44

Yeah.

Turning Remembrance Into Daily Action

Wellness, Tools, And Better Service

SPEAKER_01 7:44

And there aren't really accurate counts about that, but it's an increasing so I tie it all in together because it it's something that we as a as leadership in police, not just myself and my command staff, but across the country, is what role do we have? And when you talk about um police memorial week, how do you memorialize? How do you remember the fallen? Well, obviously you do ceremonies and you do um remembrance and you shroud the badge and you you today's times, you make posts about it and and you acknowledge it. But that's that's not it. Real true remembrance and honoring is those are action words, so you have to do something. So when you're when you're when you have this energy and you want to do something, what do you do to honor them? And the the best way, not the only way, but the best way that I can think of is to take your opportunity, your privilege and blessing to be able to put on the uniform or the the shirt and tie if you're a detective and and come to work. You don't have to come to work, you get to come to work. And when you look at it from the lens of honoring and remembering, you get to do that. And you do the job the right way for them. That's how you honor them. You treat people the way you'd like to be treated, you give full effort to solve crime or all the way down to a quality of life issue, put yourself in that situation. What would you want to do in your neighborhood if you were experiencing something that was a nuisance? You treat it the way it deserves to be treated, as if your parents or your loved ones were experiencing that type of a of an incident. You do the job the right way. So you point your compass in the direction of the right way, and when you know that you're going the right way, you go full speed. That's how you honor them. Right? And and as leaders and command staff, you honor by taking care of your people. You know, I said it uh on Wednesday. You shouldn't wait until to be blunt, till one of your officers is at a funeral. When they're in a casket is not the time that you honor them. Right. That's not the time that you take care of their family, is when they're grieving. You take care of them now and and you treat 'em like gold. You let them know that they matter. And you provide them with the tools. Um, if there's a a better system out there or or asset that we can get to make the job better, then you get it. And you move mountains to get it. And it's not easy. You have to fight, you have to butt heads with finance people, um, you have to to convince either through cooperation or or battle to get the things that your staff needs. I think that's leadership's job. You need to acknowledge w what we talked about with with suicide. And and provide wellness outlets, right? And what are the what are the triggers for for people to be in that situation? Well, it starts in the workplace. You need to make sure that it's a welcoming, supportive environment. You need to make sure that they have the safety when they go out into the street. You need to make sure that if they experience something very um traumatic or shocking, you know, most of our people were um from all walks of life, but you're drawn to this profession because you understand the right way to do things and the right way to live. So you've experienced a certain lifestyle and you're going to be exposed to something that you probably were not around. You know, maybe you were and you overcome it, or have overcome it. But most people lived a certain um, I won't say sheltered, but a a traditional not exposed to a lot of things. And when you become exposed to a lot of things, it can wear on you over time. We need to recognize that and provide outlets for people to talk if that's what you need, to decompress if that's what you need. Um, and then another big component that we're starting to learn about wellness is financial wellness. You know, you look at um not a political thing, but gas is high, bills are high for everybody, for our staff too. And one of the greatest stressors in life is financial security. So we provide financial uh education for our people so that they're not making foolish decisions and give a whole 360 holistic view on wellness. So that's what we can do. And all of those things that I just talked about are action items. And if you you do those anyway, you should. But if you put kind of the eye doctor this can you do this better, that better, you know, you put the lens. You look through the lens of honoring the fallen on police week, this is what you do. And and I'm very proud of our department and the men and women who work with us that bring those ideas upward, and we as as leaders engage them.

SPEAKER_02 12:31

I think just like within such a short period of time, we've come such a long way. And Monday we actually have a podcast coming out with Officer Frasen talking about peer support and our our different options and kind of how that process works, and just providing officers that have been through a lot, or um, maybe you just notice something's off, you check in with somebody, just different checks and balances to make sure that the people around you that you work with that you deal with on a day-to-day basis are doing okay. And I think that's huge.

SPEAKER_01 13:01

Right. And and finding people in the organization, you know, it's not me. I don't walk around and do wellness checks on people all day. I wish I could. I have to rely on people who are better at it than me. And the guy you're gonna talk to on Monday is better at it than you. He's awesome. And he is our our lead for peer support. He's big into the space, and it was a ground up um effort, and he was one of the ones. So, but you know, kind of stepping back. This is all how you we honor the fallen. We we honor the profession that was declared, you know, this week in in the 60s to do that. Well, you do that by doing things, and these are the things that you do, all the way from me sweating over a grill, all the way to providing somebody the the tools they need to be financially secure and and emotion emotionally prepared. And we always like to tie this back to the public. If you're taking care of your people and if you're honoring and doing those things, you're gonna get a better product at the point of sale when you call the police.

SPEAKER_00 14:02

So exactly. Yep. All of it's uh essentially to be better for the city that we're all serving.

SPEAKER_01 14:09

Yep, and that we're a part of, right?

SPEAKER_00 14:11

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 14:12

So hopefully after this week, our our bellies will be full, our cup will be full. Thanks for the burgers, cheese.

SPEAKER_00 14:20

Yes, I'm excited for my burger today.

SPEAKER_01 14:22

And then we'll do uh get back to physical wellness after that.

SPEAKER_00 14:25

Yeah, after today. We'll we'll focus on the physical wellness again, maybe uh run a few laps on the treadmill.

SPEAKER_02 14:31

Look, burgers are proteins. I have no issues with that.

SPEAKER_00 14:33

That's true.

SPEAKER_02 14:34

Exactly. And life's about balance. 100%.

SPEAKER_00 14:37

I don't know what I'm gonna tell myself when I'm eating a couple cookies later, but we'll worry about that later.

SPEAKER_02 14:42

That's it. We'll blame the fire department.

SPEAKER_00 14:44

Yeah, there we go. All right, anything else, Chief? No, that's it. Awesome. Well, happy police week. It's been a great week, and um, I guess we'll catch you all next time. Thanks for listening and watching.

SPEAKER_02 14:54

Take care. Stay safe.