January 20, 2025 • 24 mins
Deputy Chief Dana Coston joins us on the Cape CopCast to share his remarkable journey through the ranks of law enforcement. He started his career in the midst of the crack epidemic in Fulton County, Atlanta, and eventually relocated to Cape Coral in 2000, where he's served his community since. Learn how his diverse experiences from serving as a school resource officer to his pioneering work with the FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force, have shaped his approach to modernizing law enforcement communications and social media strategies. Deputy Chief Coston is responsible for the creation of the department's Public Affairs Office, which serves as the liaison between the community and the agency. He played a pioneering role in the department's focus on transparency and adaptability.
Explore the intricacies of maintaining public trust in law enforcement through transparent communication and strategic social media use. Delve into the Cape Coral Police Department’s innovative approach to storytelling, where Deputy Chief Coston emphasizes the importance of being upfront about both triumphs and setbacks. Discover how the department’s guerrilla news outlet-style Public Affairs Office engages the community with dynamic content, especially during critical situations. This episode shines a light on the evolving relationship between the department and the community through social media engagement and the diverse experiences of the Public Affairs team.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
Welcome back to the Cape Cop cast, the official
podcast of the Cape Coral PoliceDepartment.
My name is Lisa Greenberg.
I'm one of the hosts.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
And I'm Officer Mercedes Simons.
Together, we make up the PublicAffairs Office, and today we
have our boss.
This is Deputy Chief DanaKoston, and we'll let him tell
you a little bit about himself,hi.
Speaker 3 (00:22):
Hi there, ladies.
Thank you for having me on.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
We're so excited to have you on.
Speaker 3 (00:27):
As you said, I'm Deputy Chief Dana Koston.
I oversee the administrativedivision of the Cape Coral
Police Department, whichencompasses the Professional
Standards Bureau, the CommunityServices Bureau and the
Communications and LogisticalSupport Bureau.
I also have some otherancillary duties that fall under
my umbrella, and that includesthe public affairs office, so
that is how I ended up beingyour boss.
Speaker 1 (00:49):
I don't know that there would be anyone better
equipped to be our boss, andwe'll get to more on that in
just a bit Considering youstarted the public affairs
office at the Cape Coral PoliceDepartment we'll talk more about
that in a bit.
But I kind of want to walkpeople through your rise,
through the ranks here in CapeCoral.
Speaker 3 (01:05):
Yeah, I started my law enforcement career in 1997.
I was a police officer with theFulton County Police Department
in Metro Atlanta.
I did my first three years as apatrol officer there in high
drug, high crime areas duringthe really the height of the
crack epidemic in the UnitedStates.
At that time I was young andnewly married and we decided we
(01:29):
wanted to get out of metroAtlanta.
I'm born and raised here inFlorida.
I'm actually from Tampa, mywife's from Cape Coral, oh wow.
So when we were looking atcoming back to be a little
closer to family and afterreviewing options, this looked
like the place to go and CapeCoral really stuck out in my
(01:49):
mind as a place that I wouldwant to come and work.
I left Fulton County inDecember of 99.
And I began here in January of2000.
Speaker 1 (01:57):
That's awesome.
Speaker 3 (01:58):
Yeah, so when I began here, I did my first couple of
years in patrol.
I began here, I did my firstcouple of years in patrol.
I was looking to try to getinto some specialties and I
ended up going to our youthservices division as a school
resource officer.
I was an SRO at Colusa MiddleSchool for almost four years and
during that time I became thedepartment's gang specialist.
(02:20):
I was part of the multi-agencygang task force here and my work
doing that got me noticed byone of our captains who was over
investigations at the time andhe told me that there was a
position that I should take alook at and it was for the Joint
Terrorism Task Force.
I did about three years as adetective assigned to the FBI
Joint Terrorism Task Force, butaround 2008, I decided, you know
(02:44):
, I probably need to focus backon advancement in my career here
.
I wanted to see what I could doback home at my home agency, so
I focused on that and then in2009, I promoted sergeant,
became a patrol sergeant and inaddition to being a patrol
sergeant, I was also a member ofour Fertile Order of Police
(03:05):
Lodge 33 executive board and Iwas doing social media for the
FOP and around that time it wasa tough backdrop here in Cape
Coral.
We were the canary in the coalmine.
With the housing crash, capeCoral lost over a billion
dollars of taxable valueessentially overnight, and there
was a pretty dark time wherethere was discussion of
(03:27):
potential layoffs and we didn'thave any growth, and it was hard
.
The chief of police at the timewas Jay Murphy and he would
always come out on holidays andhelp relieve the supervisors so
that they could maybe run homeand have a little time at home.
And it was Christmas Eve, 2010.
And I won't forget it.
(03:48):
We were watching a house fire.
Someone's Christmas tree, Ithink, caught fire and fire
department was doing their thing.
And we were talking and heliked what he was seeing, that
we were doing with the FOP'swebsite and social media.
And he said you know, hey, whatwould you recommend?
And I said, well, I wouldcertainly modernize the police
(04:10):
department website.
The department didn't havesocial media.
No departments had social media.
It was a very, very new thingfor police departments to get
into.
And I said and whatever you do,sir, if it's at all possible,
get somebody out there talkingabout the good work that the men
and women of the department aredoing.
(04:30):
We were taking a beating interms of PR and we didn't have a
department public informationofficer anymore.
I didn't think anything of it.
We were just havingconversation as we were on the
scene and a couple of weekslater I'm doing payroll, as at
the beginning of a shift, andthe chief calls and he says, hey
, hey, you want to come up anddo all that stuff that you were
(04:51):
talking about.
Now I, coming up in the in thenineties as a police officer,
when the chief calls and asks,do you want to do something?
The answer is always yes.
So, absolutely, sir, I wouldlove to do that.
He goes great, I don't have abudget, I don't have a position,
it's going to be extra dutiesand responsibilities and you're
(05:11):
coming up to professionalstandards.
Yes, sir, okay, wow.
So he brought myself and thenLieutenant Sizemore up into PSB,
to PSB, and we were responsiblefor personnel and training,
accreditation, internal affairsand then, additionally, doing
the public affairs function.
So I spent a couple of years inthere and then the public
(05:34):
affairs function became its ownthing.
It split off and went to thechief's office, and I spent
about seven years in the publicaffairs role in total, so from
2010 to 2017, very long, hencethe gray in the beard and in
2017, we had to reconstitute ourschool resource officer unit
(05:58):
and I was asked to help withthat.
I had promoted to lieutenant inplace, but I was one of the few
people who had been a schoolresource officer left in the
department, so I spent about ayear and a half in community
services as a lieutenant.
I went down to patrol for ayear as watch commander and then
promoted to captain and thenmoved back to professional
(06:21):
standards, where I spent aboutthree years overseeing personnel
training, accreditation,internal affairs and then
promoted to deputy chief lastyear.
Speaker 1 (06:30):
Busy.
Speaker 3 (06:31):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (06:32):
That's incredible.
That is a journey for sure.
You got a little bit of a tasteof everything in your time.
Speaker 3 (06:39):
I can say I've been there, done that, got the
t-shirt for a lot of things.
Speaker 1 (06:43):
Well, I'm grateful for you for launching Public
Affairs, because I would not behere right now.
It's probably pretty crazy tosee the growth and the changes
that have happened within publicaffairs from when you started
it in 2010 ish, until now.
Speaker 3 (07:01):
It's vastly different .
First of all, we're sitting ina dedicated podcast studio in
the building Right.
That's insane to me.
Speaker 1 (07:11):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (07:11):
I think it's great.
When we started this, it was meand now Chief Sizemore.
Basically, we divided theduties.
I was responsible foreverything behind the scenes
website, social media.
He was responsible for beingthe spokesperson, and the goal
was we're going to let thecitizens inside the walls of the
(07:33):
PD and we want to give them alook at the people, the
equipment, the cases, and wewanted to tell the story of what
we're doing and be as open andtransparent as we could possibly
be, and that meant we're goingto tell you the good, the bad
and the ugly and we're going tobe upfront about it, but we're
going to be the ones to tell youand to own it, regardless of
(07:55):
what it was.
So we had.
We were given the mission.
We wanted a new website, socialmedia presence and we wanted to
have a big splash and a biglaunch, and we had 90 days to do
it.
We got the website launched, wegot onto social media Facebook,
youtube, twitter and Instagramand we developed our own
(08:17):
processes internally and reallygot going and it took off.
We were one of the pioneer lawenforcement agencies in the
country using social media atthe time, so much so that I
ended up traveling and doinginstruction on social media and
law enforcement for the FloridaLaw Enforcement PIO Association
(08:41):
and then doing some joint workwith other agencies across the
country that were just dippingtheir toe in the water at that
time.
Speaker 2 (08:47):
And I think that kind of gets into like the goal of
the public affairs office is notonly to like share what we're
doing and tell our story, but tobe transparent, because I think
that's kind of what peopledemand at this point.
Speaker 3 (08:59):
Good, bad or indifferent.
We are subject to theperceptions of law enforcement
across the country and we havean amazing department.
We have a tremendous servicepopulation here in Cape Coral.
We're not immune from crime andwe are a police department of
almost four about 400 humanbeings.
(09:20):
There are going to be mistakesmade.
There are going to be thingsthat are done incorrectly,
outside of policy and, sadly,sometimes illegally.
I've had every type of newsconference you can imagine from.
Our officers have made amazingsaves.
They've gotten into andsurvived lethal force encounters
to where we've had to arrestour own.
So it's important for us, as anagency that relies on public
(09:47):
trust, to own those things, allof them.
Celebrate your success, butunderstand that that's a
snapshot in time, becausetomorrow you may have something
that's going to be like.
Remember that good thing wetold you about.
Yeah, we messed up over here.
It's important for us as anorganization to be upfront when
we have a mistake.
It's not that we were immunefrom them, but what did we do
(10:07):
once we discovered it?
Speaker 1 (10:08):
Right, because anyone in any profession at any time
can make a mistake that reflectspoorly upon the department or
wherever they work, and it'sabout how it's handled and what
you do, moving forward, what thedepartment does, what that
individual does, moving forward.
Speaker 2 (10:22):
Right, and that's changed.
I think it's just a completelydifferent perception when before
it would come from the mediaand the media would get to spin
it however we want, and westarted saying, no, here's what
we did, we did it wrong.
Here's all the evidence.
Here's everything you mightneed or any questions you might
have, because I think that makeseverybody feel better when
you're up front and you comeforward.
Speaker 3 (10:44):
The belief that there is the blue wall of silence or
that, you know, cops don't lookout for themselves.
My experience has actually beenquite the opposite.
I think that the lawenforcement profession and the
individuals within it are someof their own harshest critics
and the first ones to throwtheir own to the wolves when
(11:04):
they do something wrong, anddeservedly so.
We have done our best to ownthe mistakes that the agency has
made and say, okay, yes, thiswas a mistake that occurred and
if it was criminal in nature, wedealt with crime.
If it's just procedural, thenhere's the policy and procedure
change we've made and here'swhat we're doing different going
forward.
But we've been very publicabout those things and I've
(11:28):
actually had conversations withPIOs from other departments
where they go.
I can't believe you put that out.
I can't believe you put thatout.
I'm like why wouldn't you putit out?
Florida public record lawnumber one.
Once the case is closed,basically everything is
available, so there's no reasonnot to, and you are your own
best storyteller and you haveall of the information.
(11:51):
You should be breaking thestories about your department
good, bad and indifferent andpart of our guiding philosophy
was we basically ran the publicaffairs office like a guerrilla
news outlet, and Lisa and Iworked together.
In fact, I worked with you onyour first day as a reporter.
You probably don't remember it,but you had a death
(12:12):
investigation your first day asa reporter in the city and I
remember working with you onthat.
You also were on our websiteforever.
Speaker 1 (12:21):
Oh boy, the worst photo ever.
Speaker 3 (12:23):
But us being able to tell everything and put it all
out there takes away the abilityfor selective editing.
And I get it.
Most of the time it's not doneout of malice.
It is.
Most reporters, unless they'rean investigative reporter, get
two minutes on their piece thatthey have to turn and they have
(12:46):
got to create something that'seye-catching.
And you're competing withsocial media and other news
outlets and whatever'sentertaining for the those
minutes of attention.
And so I get it.
Then we said, well, let's dothe same thing, but let's, we
(13:07):
may do the two minute piece, butthen we're going to give you
links to everything so you canread the whole police report or
read the whole internal affairsinvestigation, cause we have
those things and we have theability to do that Exactly.
Speaker 1 (13:18):
And you know, it's interesting to.
Obviously, while you were inpublic affairs, social media was
pretty big, but I don't thinkit's was quite as big as it is
now.
And when you talk about thebeginning, like I remember being
a reporter in 2014 and seeingthe Facebook and you'd go to the
Facebook and there might belike a paragraph post about
(13:38):
something or there might be likea map or whatever, and now it's
like you have to create thisdynamic content and there has to
be reels for Instagram and youhave to use trending audio and
it's become so much more thanjust a post on Facebook.
Speaker 3 (13:52):
It has.
And now we're you know we'rebroadcasting or we're podcasting
, and then we're posting thingsacross platforms.
You know there'll bereformatted and cut to, you know
, cut to the right time but thewhole video will go out on on
YouTube.
That's not something that wehad even grown into when I was
doing it, and I was a one manband for a good portion of that
(14:15):
seven years.
I ended up with getting asecond person in the latter half
of my time in there, but it'sgrown and it's a function that
is crucial so that citizens knowwhat's happening in their
police department, but it's alsoa tremendous resource for
information for the community,like most recently with the
(14:37):
hurricane resource for peopleand they're not going to
traditional news media anymore,they're going to social media
and even websites.
you know we have our officialdepartment website.
That's the buttoned up officialrepresentation of the
organization online.
Social media is kind of behindthe scenes.
It's where we get a little moreinformal and we can let people
(15:00):
kind of ask questions and see alittle bit of you know how the
sausage gets made.
Speaker 1 (15:04):
For sure, and I think there used to be this big
dependence on traditional media.
You know, even when you startedin this office in 2010, the
biggest way probably to get theword out about a death
investigation or whatever it maybe was, hey, letting the news
know there's a deathinvestigation happening at this
address.
You go there, you get in frontof the camera, you let them
(15:24):
interview you, but now we're atthis point where, for us anyway,
that's almost secondary to whatwe're doing.
Most of our focus is on contentcreation, social media planning
and things like that, and sowhen we're having a news
conference about a particularincident or crime, our first
thought is we got to Facebook,live it and get it on Instagram.
(15:46):
Oh, by the way, let's get thenews here as well, which is not
to say for anyone who's involvedin news still, who may be
listening.
We still love you, we stillneed you.
Still.
Who may be listening?
We still love you, we stillneed you.
But just, the relationshipitself has changed because we
have the ability to whether it'sjump on a podcast like this and
record a quick five minuteswith the chief about a
particular situation and justupload it ourselves, or whether
(16:08):
it's like, hey, we have thisreally cool training going on.
Let's post it to Facebook, andif the news wants to come and
check it out, that's great too.
But we efficient, quick,dynamic way to tell our own
stories now.
Speaker 2 (16:23):
Right, and one of the things that we recently put out
was one of those situationswhere our training successfully
allowed us to save someone'slife and we were really proud of
that.
But no use of force ever lookspretty right.
Violence looks violent.
We were able to tell that storyfrom the police side of things
share that, put that out in kindof like a real format, the
(16:45):
police side of things.
Share that, put that out inkind of like a real format, and
then able to explain it, pauseit, explain it, say here, stop,
look, look and see this guy hada weapon here.
This is like potentially howthis officer reacted and I think
that's really helpful comparedto maybe what we've had in the
past.
Speaker 3 (16:58):
And it's such a different world that we're
policing in and that you arehelping us get the message out
to the citizens.
And because, when I left yes,we were we're.
We're now in the smartphone era.
Everyone's got a persistentconnection to the internet in
their pocket that has theability to live stream in 4k,
(17:20):
and all of our officers havebody cameras on that are showing
what's happening from almosttheir point of view.
You would think with all ofthat, there's fewer questions.
In fact, it's quite theopposite, because, as we know,
you know, cameras give you oneperspective on things.
Sometimes you need multiple toget a full picture and, like you
(17:40):
said, use is a force.
It's an unfortunate reality inour job.
They don't look pretty.
No one's John Wick out there onthe street.
It's very different, and thereare times where people are not
going to like what they see,regardless of the fact that it
might be a justifiable use offorce.
Use of force and being able toexplain this is what was
(18:03):
perceived.
this is why it occurred is sovaluable, especially when you
look at uses of force that arecontroversial and some of the
aftermath that can happen as aresult of that.
And agencies realize that now.
And we face the same problemwhen there's a controversial use
of force or use of force thatinvolves internal affairs
investigation, there is a periodof time where nothing's going
(18:26):
to be released on that, andthat's not because the agency's
trying to hide things, it'sbecause we have an obligation by
law to provide the involvedofficers due process and the
investigation has to beconcluded before things can be
released.
And you know a lot of agenciesare now seeing okay, well, we
(18:47):
can still preserve their officerbill of rights and still
release some of the body camerasso that we can at least squash
some of the questions that mightbe out there in the community.
And agencies are growing andthey're improving and that's a
good thing.
Speaker 2 (19:02):
And that's one of those things like, obviously,
any form of social media comeswith comments and some of them
might not be nice and peoplearen't meant to agree first off,
I think we can all see that Oneperson thinks this way and one
person thinks this way and, nomatter how much they argue back
and forth, they're probably justnot going to agree.
But that's one of those thingsthat, through transparency, we
keep our comments on, becauseyou're allowed to have your
(19:25):
opinion and your opinion.
We might not agree with you orsomebody else might not agree
with you, but you can still putthat out there and you know we
can look at those and we caninteract with people and kind of
explain, maybe add this factand think about this, and then
you know it kind of makes senseto them.
And I think one of the simplethings that we talk about is
like traffic.
They're like oh well, like youknow, you guys aren't out there
(19:45):
doing anything and we'll go andwe'll post stats from an app
that we had that day and they'relike oh well, actually you guys
are out there and I read someof them.
Speaker 3 (19:56):
It's so funny.
You know, regardless we'll talkabout traffic.
You know that's one.
You know why aren't you outthere doing it?
We have 3,000 lane miles ofroad in the city of 120 square
miles with approximately, at anygiven time, 35-ish officers on
the road that are just in thepatrol bureau.
Then you tack on canine trafficunits.
(20:17):
All that, our men and women aremaking more traffic stops than
they have in the history of thedepartment.
The fact that you don't see ithappening directly in front of
your house or where you workdoesn't mean it's not happening.
And the chief talked about thelayer cake of traffic
enforcement and we're certainlydoing that and as we grow we're
going to be adding more of thosetypes of things.
(20:37):
But the comments are always fun.
Because I would like to tellyou that they were a lot
different when I was in publicaffairs.
The complaints are the sameTraffic's terrible, the city's
growing too much, there's toomany people here.
Well, newsflash, we're onlyhalfway built out.
So those of you who arelistening, we're going to double
to about 400,000 by the timethe city's built out and we're
(20:58):
going to be in a perpetual stateof growth for the department
and traffic constructionprobably all over the city.
So that's, you know just whatyou can get ready for.
Speaker 1 (21:07):
Yeah, I mean, it just opens you up to a completely
different level of engagementbecause we are always accessible
to them through social media,you know.
But that is, it goes both ways,right?
So, while we're lucky that wehave this way to be accessible
to the people at all times, itgoes both ways.
They always have access to usand can reach out to us and
(21:29):
express themselves however theychoose to do so.
Speaker 3 (21:32):
And generally people like it when the police
department responds to theircomment and when you tag them
and you respond to their commentand you know, some of the
comments are positive, thosethat are negative, and that's
fine.
Like you said, we don't have toagree as a matter of policy,
you know, unless it's aviolation of our terms of
service on the Facebook page, weleave comments up and that's
(21:53):
okay.
What we have found is that thegroup of people who are part of
that Cape Coral PoliceDepartment community on Facebook
, they tend to police themselvesa little bit.
Community on Facebook, theytend to police themselves a
little bit.
And when you get the out oftown detractors and the trolls
and all that, our citizens stickup for us, which is, you know,
that says a lot.
We have goodwill with ourcitizens here.
(22:13):
The cops are generally verysupported by the citizens here,
for sure, and that extends tocomments on social media.
Speaker 2 (22:21):
For sure.
Speaker 1 (22:21):
We have so many supportive people, though, and
the funny thing is is for thosewho aren't like we also fight
for their freedom of speech, soexactly, I always say that the,
the negative comments are theloudest, sometimes the silliest
as well, but overwhelmingly weget, you know, a lot of support,
which is good.
Speaker 3 (22:38):
And I also find a lot of the negative comments not
all of them, but a lot of themcome from people that don't live
here, have never been here,never going to come here.
Speaker 1 (22:46):
Yep, yep, it's true, and I'm like why are you here?
Go to your own department'spage.
Oh, I'm sure they have.
I'm sure they have too.
They're probably on everydepartment's page.
Is there anything else eitherof you can think of that you
want to cover?
Speaker 3 (23:07):
No, I appreciate you finally letting me come in and
talk with you.
It's great seeing the work thatyou all are doing.
I'm very happy to see that thepublic affairs mission is
continuing and expanding.
It's exciting.
Speaker 1 (23:13):
It is.
Speaker 2 (23:14):
And.
Speaker 3 (23:14):
I think we got the right team in place to get it
done.
Speaker 1 (23:16):
Thank you and thanks for coming.
And you know we had to get somepractice reps in before we had
our boss on the podcast.
We had to get a few in the tankfirst, before we let you in,
you know.
Speaker 3 (23:24):
Well, you know, you're a seasoned broadcast
professional and Mercedes is aseasoned police officer, and I
think that that's kind of areally good double team there,
where we have those twodifferent experiences brought
together that really make whatwe're doing here in public
(23:46):
affairs very special.
Speaker 1 (23:47):
Thank you.
I'm grateful for sure.
Got a good group, a good boss,a good teammate.
Speaker 2 (23:52):
Yeah, it's a pretty good job when you like, coming
to work every day, you know 100%.
Speaker 3 (23:57):
You have to say that I'm here.
Speaker 1 (23:59):
I swear he's not paying us.
Well, he is technically payingus, but you know Well, thank you
so much for coming.
We appreciate you.
Speaker 3 (24:06):
Thank you, ladies.
Speaker 1 (24:07):
And we will see you next time here on the Cape
Copcast.
Have a good one.
Welcome back to the Cape Cop cast, the official
podcast of the Cape Coral PoliceDepartment.
My name is Lisa Greenberg.
I'm one of the hosts.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
And I'm Officer Mercedes Simons.
Together, we make up the PublicAffairs Office, and today we
have our boss.
This is Deputy Chief DanaKoston, and we'll let him tell
you a little bit about himself,hi.
Speaker 3 (00:22):
Hi there, ladies.
Thank you for having me on.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
We're so excited to have you on.
Speaker 3 (00:27):
As you said, I'm Deputy Chief Dana Koston.
I oversee the administrativedivision of the Cape Coral
Police Department, whichencompasses the Professional
Standards Bureau, the CommunityServices Bureau and the
Communications and LogisticalSupport Bureau.
I also have some otherancillary duties that fall under
my umbrella, and that includesthe public affairs office, so
that is how I ended up beingyour boss.
Speaker 1 (00:49):
I don't know that there would be anyone better
equipped to be our boss, andwe'll get to more on that in
just a bit Considering youstarted the public affairs
office at the Cape Coral PoliceDepartment we'll talk more about
that in a bit.
But I kind of want to walkpeople through your rise,
through the ranks here in CapeCoral.
Speaker 3 (01:05):
Yeah, I started my law enforcement career in 1997.
I was a police officer with theFulton County Police Department
in Metro Atlanta.
I did my first three years as apatrol officer there in high
drug, high crime areas duringthe really the height of the
crack epidemic in the UnitedStates.
At that time I was young andnewly married and we decided we
(01:29):
wanted to get out of metroAtlanta.
I'm born and raised here inFlorida.
I'm actually from Tampa, mywife's from Cape Coral, oh wow.
So when we were looking atcoming back to be a little
closer to family and afterreviewing options, this looked
like the place to go and CapeCoral really stuck out in my
(01:49):
mind as a place that I wouldwant to come and work.
I left Fulton County inDecember of 99.
And I began here in January of2000.
Speaker 1 (01:57):
That's awesome.
Speaker 3 (01:58):
Yeah, so when I began here, I did my first couple of
years in patrol.
I began here, I did my firstcouple of years in patrol.
I was looking to try to getinto some specialties and I
ended up going to our youthservices division as a school
resource officer.
I was an SRO at Colusa MiddleSchool for almost four years and
during that time I became thedepartment's gang specialist.
(02:20):
I was part of the multi-agencygang task force here and my work
doing that got me noticed byone of our captains who was over
investigations at the time andhe told me that there was a
position that I should take alook at and it was for the Joint
Terrorism Task Force.
I did about three years as adetective assigned to the FBI
Joint Terrorism Task Force, butaround 2008, I decided, you know
(02:44):
, I probably need to focus backon advancement in my career here
.
I wanted to see what I could doback home at my home agency, so
I focused on that and then in2009, I promoted sergeant,
became a patrol sergeant and inaddition to being a patrol
sergeant, I was also a member ofour Fertile Order of Police
(03:05):
Lodge 33 executive board and Iwas doing social media for the
FOP and around that time it wasa tough backdrop here in Cape
Coral.
We were the canary in the coalmine.
With the housing crash, capeCoral lost over a billion
dollars of taxable valueessentially overnight, and there
was a pretty dark time wherethere was discussion of
(03:27):
potential layoffs and we didn'thave any growth, and it was hard
.
The chief of police at the timewas Jay Murphy and he would
always come out on holidays andhelp relieve the supervisors so
that they could maybe run homeand have a little time at home.
And it was Christmas Eve, 2010.
And I won't forget it.
(03:48):
We were watching a house fire.
Someone's Christmas tree, Ithink, caught fire and fire
department was doing their thing.
And we were talking and heliked what he was seeing, that
we were doing with the FOP'swebsite and social media.
And he said you know, hey, whatwould you recommend?
And I said, well, I wouldcertainly modernize the police
(04:10):
department website.
The department didn't havesocial media.
No departments had social media.
It was a very, very new thingfor police departments to get
into.
And I said and whatever you do,sir, if it's at all possible,
get somebody out there talkingabout the good work that the men
and women of the department aredoing.
(04:30):
We were taking a beating interms of PR and we didn't have a
department public informationofficer anymore.
I didn't think anything of it.
We were just havingconversation as we were on the
scene and a couple of weekslater I'm doing payroll, as at
the beginning of a shift, andthe chief calls and he says, hey
, hey, you want to come up anddo all that stuff that you were
(04:51):
talking about.
Now I, coming up in the in thenineties as a police officer,
when the chief calls and asks,do you want to do something?
The answer is always yes.
So, absolutely, sir, I wouldlove to do that.
He goes great, I don't have abudget, I don't have a position,
it's going to be extra dutiesand responsibilities and you're
(05:11):
coming up to professionalstandards.
Yes, sir, okay, wow.
So he brought myself and thenLieutenant Sizemore up into PSB,
to PSB, and we were responsiblefor personnel and training,
accreditation, internal affairsand then, additionally, doing
the public affairs function.
So I spent a couple of years inthere and then the public
(05:34):
affairs function became its ownthing.
It split off and went to thechief's office, and I spent
about seven years in the publicaffairs role in total, so from
2010 to 2017, very long, hencethe gray in the beard and in
2017, we had to reconstitute ourschool resource officer unit
(05:58):
and I was asked to help withthat.
I had promoted to lieutenant inplace, but I was one of the few
people who had been a schoolresource officer left in the
department, so I spent about ayear and a half in community
services as a lieutenant.
I went down to patrol for ayear as watch commander and then
promoted to captain and thenmoved back to professional
(06:21):
standards, where I spent aboutthree years overseeing personnel
training, accreditation,internal affairs and then
promoted to deputy chief lastyear.
Speaker 1 (06:30):
Busy.
Speaker 3 (06:31):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (06:32):
That's incredible.
That is a journey for sure.
You got a little bit of a tasteof everything in your time.
Speaker 3 (06:39):
I can say I've been there, done that, got the
t-shirt for a lot of things.
Speaker 1 (06:43):
Well, I'm grateful for you for launching Public
Affairs, because I would not behere right now.
It's probably pretty crazy tosee the growth and the changes
that have happened within publicaffairs from when you started
it in 2010 ish, until now.
Speaker 3 (07:01):
It's vastly different .
First of all, we're sitting ina dedicated podcast studio in
the building Right.
That's insane to me.
Speaker 1 (07:11):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (07:11):
I think it's great.
When we started this, it was meand now Chief Sizemore.
Basically, we divided theduties.
I was responsible foreverything behind the scenes
website, social media.
He was responsible for beingthe spokesperson, and the goal
was we're going to let thecitizens inside the walls of the
(07:33):
PD and we want to give them alook at the people, the
equipment, the cases, and wewanted to tell the story of what
we're doing and be as open andtransparent as we could possibly
be, and that meant we're goingto tell you the good, the bad
and the ugly and we're going tobe upfront about it, but we're
going to be the ones to tell youand to own it, regardless of
(07:55):
what it was.
So we had.
We were given the mission.
We wanted a new website, socialmedia presence and we wanted to
have a big splash and a biglaunch, and we had 90 days to do
it.
We got the website launched, wegot onto social media Facebook,
youtube, twitter and Instagramand we developed our own
(08:17):
processes internally and reallygot going and it took off.
We were one of the pioneer lawenforcement agencies in the
country using social media atthe time, so much so that I
ended up traveling and doinginstruction on social media and
law enforcement for the FloridaLaw Enforcement PIO Association
(08:41):
and then doing some joint workwith other agencies across the
country that were just dippingtheir toe in the water at that
time.
Speaker 2 (08:47):
And I think that kind of gets into like the goal of
the public affairs office is notonly to like share what we're
doing and tell our story, but tobe transparent, because I think
that's kind of what peopledemand at this point.
Speaker 3 (08:59):
Good, bad or indifferent.
We are subject to theperceptions of law enforcement
across the country and we havean amazing department.
We have a tremendous servicepopulation here in Cape Coral.
We're not immune from crime andwe are a police department of
almost four about 400 humanbeings.
(09:20):
There are going to be mistakesmade.
There are going to be thingsthat are done incorrectly,
outside of policy and, sadly,sometimes illegally.
I've had every type of newsconference you can imagine from.
Our officers have made amazingsaves.
They've gotten into andsurvived lethal force encounters
to where we've had to arrestour own.
So it's important for us, as anagency that relies on public
(09:47):
trust, to own those things, allof them.
Celebrate your success, butunderstand that that's a
snapshot in time, becausetomorrow you may have something
that's going to be like.
Remember that good thing wetold you about.
Yeah, we messed up over here.
It's important for us as anorganization to be upfront when
we have a mistake.
It's not that we were immunefrom them, but what did we do
(10:07):
once we discovered it?
Speaker 1 (10:08):
Right, because anyone in any profession at any time
can make a mistake that reflectspoorly upon the department or
wherever they work, and it'sabout how it's handled and what
you do, moving forward, what thedepartment does, what that
individual does, moving forward.
Speaker 2 (10:22):
Right, and that's changed.
I think it's just a completelydifferent perception when before
it would come from the mediaand the media would get to spin
it however we want, and westarted saying, no, here's what
we did, we did it wrong.
Here's all the evidence.
Here's everything you mightneed or any questions you might
have, because I think that makeseverybody feel better when
you're up front and you comeforward.
Speaker 3 (10:44):
The belief that there is the blue wall of silence or
that, you know, cops don't lookout for themselves.
My experience has actually beenquite the opposite.
I think that the lawenforcement profession and the
individuals within it are someof their own harshest critics
and the first ones to throwtheir own to the wolves when
(11:04):
they do something wrong, anddeservedly so.
We have done our best to ownthe mistakes that the agency has
made and say, okay, yes, thiswas a mistake that occurred and
if it was criminal in nature, wedealt with crime.
If it's just procedural, thenhere's the policy and procedure
change we've made and here'swhat we're doing different going
forward.
But we've been very publicabout those things and I've
(11:28):
actually had conversations withPIOs from other departments
where they go.
I can't believe you put that out.
I can't believe you put thatout.
I'm like why wouldn't you putit out?
Florida public record lawnumber one.
Once the case is closed,basically everything is
available, so there's no reasonnot to, and you are your own
best storyteller and you haveall of the information.
(11:51):
You should be breaking thestories about your department
good, bad and indifferent andpart of our guiding philosophy
was we basically ran the publicaffairs office like a guerrilla
news outlet, and Lisa and Iworked together.
In fact, I worked with you onyour first day as a reporter.
You probably don't remember it,but you had a death
(12:12):
investigation your first day asa reporter in the city and I
remember working with you onthat.
You also were on our websiteforever.
Speaker 1 (12:21):
Oh boy, the worst photo ever.
Speaker 3 (12:23):
But us being able to tell everything and put it all
out there takes away the abilityfor selective editing.
And I get it.
Most of the time it's not doneout of malice.
It is.
Most reporters, unless they'rean investigative reporter, get
two minutes on their piece thatthey have to turn and they have
(12:46):
got to create something that'seye-catching.
And you're competing withsocial media and other news
outlets and whatever'sentertaining for the those
minutes of attention.
And so I get it.
Then we said, well, let's dothe same thing, but let's, we
(13:07):
may do the two minute piece, butthen we're going to give you
links to everything so you canread the whole police report or
read the whole internal affairsinvestigation, cause we have
those things and we have theability to do that Exactly.
Speaker 1 (13:18):
And you know, it's interesting to.
Obviously, while you were inpublic affairs, social media was
pretty big, but I don't thinkit's was quite as big as it is
now.
And when you talk about thebeginning, like I remember being
a reporter in 2014 and seeingthe Facebook and you'd go to the
Facebook and there might belike a paragraph post about
(13:38):
something or there might be likea map or whatever, and now it's
like you have to create thisdynamic content and there has to
be reels for Instagram and youhave to use trending audio and
it's become so much more thanjust a post on Facebook.
Speaker 3 (13:52):
It has.
And now we're you know we'rebroadcasting or we're podcasting
, and then we're posting thingsacross platforms.
You know there'll bereformatted and cut to, you know
, cut to the right time but thewhole video will go out on on
YouTube.
That's not something that wehad even grown into when I was
doing it, and I was a one manband for a good portion of that
(14:15):
seven years.
I ended up with getting asecond person in the latter half
of my time in there, but it'sgrown and it's a function that
is crucial so that citizens knowwhat's happening in their
police department, but it's alsoa tremendous resource for
information for the community,like most recently with the
(14:37):
hurricane resource for peopleand they're not going to
traditional news media anymore,they're going to social media
and even websites.
you know we have our officialdepartment website.
That's the buttoned up officialrepresentation of the
organization online.
Social media is kind of behindthe scenes.
It's where we get a little moreinformal and we can let people
(15:00):
kind of ask questions and see alittle bit of you know how the
sausage gets made.
Speaker 1 (15:04):
For sure, and I think there used to be this big
dependence on traditional media.
You know, even when you startedin this office in 2010, the
biggest way probably to get theword out about a death
investigation or whatever it maybe was, hey, letting the news
know there's a deathinvestigation happening at this
address.
You go there, you get in frontof the camera, you let them
(15:24):
interview you, but now we're atthis point where, for us anyway,
that's almost secondary to whatwe're doing.
Most of our focus is on contentcreation, social media planning
and things like that, and sowhen we're having a news
conference about a particularincident or crime, our first
thought is we got to Facebook,live it and get it on Instagram.
(15:46):
Oh, by the way, let's get thenews here as well, which is not
to say for anyone who's involvedin news still, who may be
listening.
We still love you, we stillneed you.
Still.
Who may be listening?
We still love you, we stillneed you.
But just, the relationshipitself has changed because we
have the ability to whether it'sjump on a podcast like this and
record a quick five minuteswith the chief about a
particular situation and justupload it ourselves, or whether
(16:08):
it's like, hey, we have thisreally cool training going on.
Let's post it to Facebook, andif the news wants to come and
check it out, that's great too.
But we efficient, quick,dynamic way to tell our own
stories now.
Speaker 2 (16:23):
Right, and one of the things that we recently put out
was one of those situationswhere our training successfully
allowed us to save someone'slife and we were really proud of
that.
But no use of force ever lookspretty right.
Violence looks violent.
We were able to tell that storyfrom the police side of things
share that, put that out in kindof like a real format, the
(16:45):
police side of things.
Share that, put that out inkind of like a real format, and
then able to explain it, pauseit, explain it, say here, stop,
look, look and see this guy hada weapon here.
This is like potentially howthis officer reacted and I think
that's really helpful comparedto maybe what we've had in the
past.
Speaker 3 (16:58):
And it's such a different world that we're
policing in and that you arehelping us get the message out
to the citizens.
And because, when I left yes,we were we're.
We're now in the smartphone era.
Everyone's got a persistentconnection to the internet in
their pocket that has theability to live stream in 4k,
(17:20):
and all of our officers havebody cameras on that are showing
what's happening from almosttheir point of view.
You would think with all ofthat, there's fewer questions.
In fact, it's quite theopposite, because, as we know,
you know, cameras give you oneperspective on things.
Sometimes you need multiple toget a full picture and, like you
(17:40):
said, use is a force.
It's an unfortunate reality inour job.
They don't look pretty.
No one's John Wick out there onthe street.
It's very different, and thereare times where people are not
going to like what they see,regardless of the fact that it
might be a justifiable use offorce.
Use of force and being able toexplain this is what was
(18:03):
perceived.
this is why it occurred is sovaluable, especially when you
look at uses of force that arecontroversial and some of the
aftermath that can happen as aresult of that.
And agencies realize that now.
And we face the same problemwhen there's a controversial use
of force or use of force thatinvolves internal affairs
investigation, there is a periodof time where nothing's going
(18:26):
to be released on that, andthat's not because the agency's
trying to hide things, it'sbecause we have an obligation by
law to provide the involvedofficers due process and the
investigation has to beconcluded before things can be
released.
And you know a lot of agenciesare now seeing okay, well, we
(18:47):
can still preserve their officerbill of rights and still
release some of the body camerasso that we can at least squash
some of the questions that mightbe out there in the community.
And agencies are growing andthey're improving and that's a
good thing.
Speaker 2 (19:02):
And that's one of those things like, obviously,
any form of social media comeswith comments and some of them
might not be nice and peoplearen't meant to agree first off,
I think we can all see that Oneperson thinks this way and one
person thinks this way and, nomatter how much they argue back
and forth, they're probably justnot going to agree.
But that's one of those thingsthat, through transparency, we
keep our comments on, becauseyou're allowed to have your
(19:25):
opinion and your opinion.
We might not agree with you orsomebody else might not agree
with you, but you can still putthat out there and you know we
can look at those and we caninteract with people and kind of
explain, maybe add this factand think about this, and then
you know it kind of makes senseto them.
And I think one of the simplethings that we talk about is
like traffic.
They're like oh well, like youknow, you guys aren't out there
(19:45):
doing anything and we'll go andwe'll post stats from an app
that we had that day and they'relike oh well, actually you guys
are out there and I read someof them.
Speaker 3 (19:56):
It's so funny.
You know, regardless we'll talkabout traffic.
You know that's one.
You know why aren't you outthere doing it?
We have 3,000 lane miles ofroad in the city of 120 square
miles with approximately, at anygiven time, 35-ish officers on
the road that are just in thepatrol bureau.
Then you tack on canine trafficunits.
(20:17):
All that, our men and women aremaking more traffic stops than
they have in the history of thedepartment.
The fact that you don't see ithappening directly in front of
your house or where you workdoesn't mean it's not happening.
And the chief talked about thelayer cake of traffic
enforcement and we're certainlydoing that and as we grow we're
going to be adding more of thosetypes of things.
(20:37):
But the comments are always fun.
Because I would like to tellyou that they were a lot
different when I was in publicaffairs.
The complaints are the sameTraffic's terrible, the city's
growing too much, there's toomany people here.
Well, newsflash, we're onlyhalfway built out.
So those of you who arelistening, we're going to double
to about 400,000 by the timethe city's built out and we're
(20:58):
going to be in a perpetual stateof growth for the department
and traffic constructionprobably all over the city.
So that's, you know just whatyou can get ready for.
Speaker 1 (21:07):
Yeah, I mean, it just opens you up to a completely
different level of engagementbecause we are always accessible
to them through social media,you know.
But that is, it goes both ways,right?
So, while we're lucky that wehave this way to be accessible
to the people at all times, itgoes both ways.
They always have access to usand can reach out to us and
(21:29):
express themselves however theychoose to do so.
Speaker 3 (21:32):
And generally people like it when the police
department responds to theircomment and when you tag them
and you respond to their commentand you know, some of the
comments are positive, thosethat are negative, and that's
fine.
Like you said, we don't have toagree as a matter of policy,
you know, unless it's aviolation of our terms of
service on the Facebook page, weleave comments up and that's
(21:53):
okay.
What we have found is that thegroup of people who are part of
that Cape Coral PoliceDepartment community on Facebook
, they tend to police themselvesa little bit.
Community on Facebook, theytend to police themselves a
little bit.
And when you get the out oftown detractors and the trolls
and all that, our citizens stickup for us, which is, you know,
that says a lot.
We have goodwill with ourcitizens here.
(22:13):
The cops are generally verysupported by the citizens here,
for sure, and that extends tocomments on social media.
Speaker 2 (22:21):
For sure.
Speaker 1 (22:21):
We have so many supportive people, though, and
the funny thing is is for thosewho aren't like we also fight
for their freedom of speech, soexactly, I always say that the,
the negative comments are theloudest, sometimes the silliest
as well, but overwhelmingly weget, you know, a lot of support,
which is good.
Speaker 3 (22:38):
And I also find a lot of the negative comments not
all of them, but a lot of themcome from people that don't live
here, have never been here,never going to come here.
Speaker 1 (22:46):
Yep, yep, it's true, and I'm like why are you here?
Go to your own department'spage.
Oh, I'm sure they have.
I'm sure they have too.
They're probably on everydepartment's page.
Is there anything else eitherof you can think of that you
want to cover?
Speaker 3 (23:07):
No, I appreciate you finally letting me come in and
talk with you.
It's great seeing the work thatyou all are doing.
I'm very happy to see that thepublic affairs mission is
continuing and expanding.
It's exciting.
Speaker 1 (23:13):
It is.
Speaker 2 (23:14):
And.
Speaker 3 (23:14):
I think we got the right team in place to get it
done.
Speaker 1 (23:16):
Thank you and thanks for coming.
And you know we had to get somepractice reps in before we had
our boss on the podcast.
We had to get a few in the tankfirst, before we let you in,
you know.
Speaker 3 (23:24):
Well, you know, you're a seasoned broadcast
professional and Mercedes is aseasoned police officer, and I
think that that's kind of areally good double team there,
where we have those twodifferent experiences brought
together that really make whatwe're doing here in public
(23:46):
affairs very special.
Speaker 1 (23:47):
Thank you.
I'm grateful for sure.
Got a good group, a good boss,a good teammate.
Speaker 2 (23:52):
Yeah, it's a pretty good job when you like, coming
to work every day, you know 100%.
Speaker 3 (23:57):
You have to say that I'm here.
Speaker 1 (23:59):
I swear he's not paying us.
Well, he is technically payingus, but you know Well, thank you
so much for coming.
We appreciate you.
Speaker 3 (24:06):
Thank you, ladies.
Speaker 1 (24:07):
And we will see you next time here on the Cape
Copcast.
Have a good one.
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