INSIDE the Lakeland Police Department

Do I Stop or Be Careful and Prudent?

One of the nuances coming out of the new law permitting photo enforcement of red light running violations in Florida is the "careful and prudent" standard for right turns on red. A full stop is not required for photo enforcement activities. Drivers may roll through an intersection, provided they are careful and prudent, and will not receive a Notice of Violation from our red light camera program.

However, drivers need to understand careful and prudent only applies to photo enforcement and not when enforced by an officer on scene.

The statute for right turns on red still requires drivers to come to a full stop at the white stop bar before entering the designated crosswalk or the intersection itself. Careful and prudent is not the standard here - coming to a complete stop remains the standard.

Confused? Join the club.

Here is the bottom line - you are always safe if you come to a complete stop before turning right on red. After all, it is still the law in Florida. We will use the new careful and prudent standard for photo enforcement of red light running violations at the five monitored intersections. Officers working traffic in the field will still use discretion during their enforcement efforts, but an officer observing a driver rolling through an intersection may issue a uniform traffic citation for the offense regardless of whether the driver was careful and prudent.

It's best to stop before turning right on red.

- Asst Chief Bill LePere

Presidents' Roundtable Public Safety Awards Luncheon

We just got back from the 42nd Annual Presidents' Roundtable Public Safety Awards Luncheon where public safety professionals around Lakeland and Polk County were honored for exemplary acts of service.

The luncheon and awards are hosted by the many civic clubs in the greater Lakeland area who pause this time of the year to give recognition to law enforcement officers, firefighters, and emergency medical service employees for their acts of bravery and dedicated service to our community.

Agencies receiving recognition included the Lakeland Police Department, Lakeland Fire Department, Polk County Sheriff's Office, Polk County Fire Department, Polk County Emergency Medical Services, Florida Highway Patrol, and the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.

Congrats to LPD Officer of the Year Marvin Tarver and Honorable Mention to Jim O'Neill.

Special recognition was given to the family of PCSO Sgt. Ronnie Brown who died last year from injuries sustained while trying to restrain a combative prisoner in the jail.

Our thanks to the civic groups who helped present the awards and the numerous corporate sponsors who helped support the program and provided financial resources to offer four scholarships to students whose parents work in public safety.

- Asst Chief Bill LePere

Traffic Safety and Protest Marches

We want to let the public know about plans to close a portion of South Florida Avenue on Sunday afternoon as the Coalition of Immokalee Workers prepares to conduct a protest march in the road between Southgate and Munn Park that afternoon. Northbound traffic will be diverted from the roadway starting around 2:00 PM on Sunday and lasting until 4:00 PM or so as the protesters make their way up the road. Southbound traffic will not be affected.

Traffic will be detoured around the group as they make their way north on South Florida Avenue. The march will go north on South Florida Avenue to Walnut Street, east on Walnut to Lake Morton Drive, and then north on Kentucky Avenue to Munn Park.

Both the Lakeland Police Department and the Florida Department of Transportation reviewed the road closure application and subsequently approved the request.

I realize some drivers will be inconvenienced with the march occurring in the roadway on a Sunday afternoon (glad it's not on a Friday evening at 5:00 PM), but we checked with our General Counsel and determined the march was a constitutionally protected event that we would have a hard time denying. Additionally, the CIW is paying the overtime expenses required for the officers and supervisors needed to safely escort the protesters from Southgate to Munn Park. On-duty resources are not expected to be used for the event.

With the exception of some noise emanating from the people participating in the march, we do not anticipate any problems along the route or at the rally/concert at Munn Park that follows.

- Asst Chief Bill LePere

And the Winner Is...

LakelandPD celebrated the exceptional service of our members in 2009 during our annual awards presentation last night. Recognized for their actions included members receiving Meritorious Service Awards and Lifesaving Awards, as well as naming the Officer of the Year, Detective of the Year, and Civilian of the Year.

Officer of the Year went to Officer Mark Eby for his courage during an encounter with an armed subject threatening suicide. Officer Eby was forced to give up his location of cover and approach the armed subject on foot who deliberately aimed a shotgun at him. The personal courage required to face such imminent danger is part of what makes Mark such a respected member of our organization. We applaud his willingness to expose himself to a lethal threat in order to keep our community safe.

Detective of the Year went to Detective Jim O'Neill with our Criminal Investigations Section. Det. O'Neill works frauds for us and is known as someone who will take a single case and follow all available leads to the point that he often ends up with multiple new cases that spin off from the original crime. Jim was recognized for a case where the suspect not only defrauded a local bank using a stolen credit card but subsequent investigative efforts revealed the same suspect, originally from California, used the stolen card in Gainesville, Jacksonville, and St. Petersburg. The investigation did not stop there. Additional evidence showed the card was also used in New Hampshire and New York. The total take was estimated to be $37,000. Tenacity and attention to details, including two latent fingerprints lifted from a fraudulent receipt in New York, helped bring this case to a successful conclusion.

Civilian of the Year recognition went to two Crime Prevention Practitioners in our Community Services Unit. CPP Anna Ricks and CPP Cindy Sharp were named Co-Civilians of the Year for their tireless efforts to conduct crime prevention programs throughout the community. In addition to working with local Neighborhood Watch Groups, Ms. Ricks and Ms. Sharp were involved in planning and conducting such events as National Night Out, Citizens Police Academy, Cops for Kids Christmas program, LPD Open House, Back to School Bash, Red Ribbon Week, and the Amscot Bike Helmet giveaway just to name a few. These dedicated professionals work hard to demonstrate that "by working together we can make a difference."

We could not be more proud of our department if we wanted to be. It is indeed an honor to attend these award ceremonies and listen to the cases for which we bestow awards. This is not to suggest that other acts of courage, dedication, and commitment do not occur everyday here, but these are truly the cream of the crop. Our congratulations to the award winners.

- Asst Chief Bill LePere

Developing Performance Management Best Practices

The recent Senior Leadership meeting for all City departments focused on performance management, that is the process of measuring what you do and then finding ways to do it better. It's something that LakelandPD has been involved with for many, many years.

This year's meeting, an initial step in preparing for the annual retreat for City Commissioners next year, emphasized not only measuring what you do (outputs) but to also measure what your results are (outcomes). Trying to measure results (particularly in police work) is more complex than it seems, but if done right links outcomes with a strategic plan to report on how well an organization achieves its goals.

This is all very timely for the City of Lakeland as you may have seen or heard about a recent directive from the White House that requires federal agencies to produce systems where government data can be accessed online in a transparent, understandable format.

It seems like performance measures have been a key element of our operations forever at LakelandPD, and we're committed to transparency in reporting both our outputs and outcomes. The challenge is to design a way to accomplish this so the information is succinct and easily understood by the public without getting bogged down in the data.

We publish crime stats on our website and provide access to daily maps of crime in the community or your neighborhood. We also uploaded key performance measures until earlier this year when we changed data managements software and had to begin a lengthy process to change our reports. (We're still working on that one.)

Our goal for now is to create new online reports that will provide the performance data most often requested from the public. (It seems like the current business phrase for all of this is "performance dashboards.") Below are samples of performance dashboards for violent and property crimes we are developing. If all goes well, they will be uploaded later this weekend and will become part of a comprehensive redesign of our website. (More on that another day.)

 

As always, your comments and feedback are appreciated.

- Asst Chief Bill LePere

Should the Police "Follow" You?

One of the many changes we are seeing with the emergence of social media is how virtual and actual relationships are established and maintained. These changes fit well into our community policing philosophy of partnerships with the community, in this case the social media community. We now have hundreds of followers, some from all over the country, who are interested in our media releases and informational blog postings. We are appreciative of their interest in LakelandPD.

But should we be "following" them?

For many people, the thought of the police following them (such as while driving down the road) generally produces panic, fear, and sweaty palms. And to now have the police follow you on Twitter or Facebook or via blogs, well, I wonder where should we draw the line between social interaction with the community and respect of one's personal space?

We follow a couple dozen entities on Twitter, mostly businesses or organizations in our community with whom we have a professional or personal relationship. Of course we follow numerous police agencies also to get ideas and keep up with what our peers are doing, but we do not automatically follow everyone who follows us. Some police agencies follow many more in their community under the auspices of maintaining a more open relationship with residents and businesses. The decision as to who we choose to follow is really on a case by case basis.

Now I realize that privacy is almost non-existent in the social media realm. We put stuff out there knowing others are likely going to see and read it, all with the realization that we can somewhat restrict who sees our posts, updates, and profiles on Twitter and Facebook.

So I ask this question to get a deeper understanding from our social media community - how would you react if you got notice that LakelandPD wanted to follow you on Twitter?

- Asst Chief Bill LePere

Lock It or Lose It - Cases from the Weekend

In our efforts to get the word out to folks just how important it is to lock our vehicles and secure valuables left inside the passenger compartment, I thought I might summarize the "Lock It or Lose It" cases from this past weekend.

"The victim stated she parked her car in front of a business in the 800 block of N. Massachusetts Avenue between 1530 and 1600 hours, leaving the vehicle's windows down and her purse sitting on the front passenger side floor board. The vehicle was left unlocked and unsecured. The victim returned to her vehicle and discovered her purse was missing."

Hmmm, wonder why that happened...

"At approximately 1038 hours on Sunday morning, the victim left her vehicle running while she ran into a residence in the 100 block of W. Hancock Street for a moment. When she returned to the vehicle, the victim's purse was gone."

She's lucky the car wasn't stolen as well as her purse...

"The victim advised that between 1920 hours and 1940 hours, her vehicle's driver's side window was shattered and her purse was taken from the passenger side seat."

As in, left in plain view rather than secured somewhere safe like the trunk...

These are three victims from the weekend's crime report who could have prevented the theft of their purses if they had practiced the concepts of "Lock It or Lose It". Two other car burglaries occurred this weekend to locked vehicles and had car stereos taken. While these types of offenses are difficult to prevent, our other victims had a chance to take some simple precautionary measures that would have minimized their chances of becoming a crime victim.

Remember - "Lock It or Lose It!"

- Asst Chief Bill LePere

LakelandPD Celebrates Two Well-Deserved Retirements

We celebrated a couple of well-deserved retirements late last week as two of our long-tenured members retired from our department.

Captain Tom Day ended his 32-year career with LakelandPD with a celebration event on Thursday, and Ms. Connie Bowman retired on Friday with over 30 years of service to our community.

      

As for Captain Day, he was well known in Lakeland for his commitment to physical fitness and competitions. Tom was the driving force behind our highly successful Police Olympics teams and our running teams in annual events like the Corporate Cup Run. He also had a special place in his heart for the Olympians of the Special Olympics as he coordinated our annual Torch Run. Tom served in every bureau of our department, with his last assignment being as a Patrol Captain and SWAT Commander, having been a former SWAT and K-9 Officer. He plans to continue his drive for physical fitness by participating in a couple of international triathlons. We wish him well.

Ms. Bowman was one of those members whose work behind the scenes as an Administrative Assistant to the Assistant Chiefs helped keep our department moving. She was my assistant for six wonderful years, through which she kept me on time and on task. Her 30-year career started in our Records Section, but Ms. Bowman worked as an Assistant to many of our former Assistant Chiefs over the years. I first met Ms. Bowman when I applied to become an Auxiliary Police Officer in 1980, never realizing that one day I would have the privilege of working so closely with her. Rumor has it she will be taking extras trips to the beach now to get some of that wonderful Florida sand in between her toes!

Both of these retirees will remain part of our extended LPD family. We wish them well in their retirements and look forward to many return visits to the police station whenever they want ot come back and see old friends.

- Asst Chief Bill LePere

Social Media and Law Enforcement

I engaged in a most interesting dialog Friday morning with a visitor to my office. Michael Vallez had read our blog and wanted to stop by for a visit to discuss our social media policy at LakelandPD. I encourage you to visit his blog and learn more about his social media projects, particularly related to law enforcement.

For nearly 90 minutes we discussed how police departments can benefit from the explosion of social media to engage our communities in two-way conversation about a wide range of public safety issues. We spoke about the dynamic paradigm shift that social media is creating for society, how people establish relationships today via this media, and how law enforcement can either be on the front of this wave or get run over if we choose not to engage our customers.

Mike took pages of notes while we spoke, but in the end I think I got more out of our meeting than he did (though he was polite assured me that is not the case). In any event, he left us with quite a bit of information to digest as we constantly think of ways to expand and improve how we use social media at LakelandPD.

Thanks Mike for reaching out to us.

- Asst Chief Bill LePere

School Resource Officers Online Resource Center

The School Resource Officers in Polk County have created a new blog and resource website called PCASO.net for students, parents, school personnel, and other SROs. A quick visit to the site will provide you with announcements of upcoming events, blog posts related to current issues affecting our students, and links to numerous resources.

You will also find a complete listing of SROs across Polk County. Every SRO from the various police departments and sheriff's office are listed there and the schools they serve.

The SROs just completed a public safety video reminding students of the requirement to buckle up every time they get into a vehicle, either as a driver or passenger. You may call it a "Click It or Ticket" reminder. Check it out!

- Asst Chief Bill LePere