Search News
For the Media
For media inquiries, call CWA Communications at 202-434-1168 or email comms@cwa-union.org. To read about CWA Members, Leadership or Industries, visit our About page.
CWA Crime Fighters: Making a Positive Difference
Mickey Mouse T-shirts, a medieval jousting tournament, bargain hotels and restaurants all compete for the dollars tourists bring to central Florida. This is the city of Kissimmee visitors see as they head west on Route 192.
But 20 miles from Disney World is another Kissimmee most tourists bypass, where laughing children play in well-maintained parks, where senior citizens stroll through a quaint and historic downtown, and where families sleep securely in comfortable and affordable housing.
Protecting the quality of life for both locals and tourists is a police department of more than 100 officers, their rank and file represented by the Central Florida Police Benevolent Association/CWA Local 3196.
The Kissimmee police handled more than 86,000 calls in 1999 when, according to state law enforcement statistics, robberies dropped 17.8 percent and burglaries fell 4.5 percent.
In a 1998 survey conducted by the city, more than 72 percent of citizens reported having “very positive” feelings toward their police for both traffic enforcement and crime prevention.
Kissimmee police teach youth safety programs in elementary schools and conduct a high school program to alert students to the dangers of drunk driving.
“Job one of any local government is to provide for the public safety,” says Mayor Frank Attkisson. “The men and women of the Kissimmee Police Department allow our citizens to live the dream of America’s founding fathers.” He calls them “heroes.”
The police, of course, see yet another side of Kissimmee — or of any city — from which law-abiding citizens must be protected.
Roll Call
At 6 a.m. the station is abuzz as officers coming off a 12-hour shift depressurize in the squad room. Next door a fresh shift reports for roll call. The city is divided into two districts with about 30 officers assigned to the east side and 60 to the west. About a dozen officers work each shift, two days on, two days off and alternate weekends. Each officer is assigned a regular area to patrol.
“We did this to make officers accountable for what happens on each beat and make them more responsible to the community,” says Sgt. Keith Rex, who today is in charge of both districts. Usually Rex covers the west district, while a colleague handles the east, but today the east district sergeant is detailed to training. Both, while they continue to work the streets, are considered supervisors, currently ineligible for the bargaining unit. They report to Cmdr. Russ Barnes, who answers to new Police Chief Mark Weimer. Several sergeants, officers say, have expressed interest in the union.
Rex alerts officers to possible suspects at large and to calls that have come in for various beats. “If it’s a non-emergency, we try to hold the call in that beat for that officer. If it’s an emergency, we send whoever’s available or send a backup officer. We’re getting back to community-based policing, where officers get out of their cars and talk to the public,” he says.
West side officers read and initial “beat logs” before heading to their cars. Most of the same information is sent by e-mail to east side officers already on the street. All Kissimmee police cruisers are equipped with computers as well as voice communication.
Curbing Drug Trade
A little past 7 a.m., Patrol Officers Scott Mason and Regis “Twin” McCue drive separate cars into McLaren Circle. Two officers are assigned to this east side neighborhood because statistics show it’s a high-crime area. Palm trees are silhouetted against the intensely bright sky as are the plain cinder block dwellings known as “Habitat Housing.” Renters here often depend upon public assistance.
Mason, job steward for his shift, points to a crowd of about 20 poorly dressed men and women hanging out next to a drainage conduit. “Those people are mostly users and prostitutes,” Mason says. Most, seeing Mason’s cruiser, disperse before McCue walks in from a cluster of trees and a fence screening the other side of the field.
One shirtless man continues to loiter, and a woman is sitting in a discarded living room chair. She is surrounded by litter including a beer bottle partially concealed in a brown paper bag. McCue orders both to freeze. Mason pats down the man and McCue searches the woman’s purse, looking for drugs or weapons.
“We have people who hang out by that fence and drink or smoke dope,” Mason explains. “Officer McCue startled those two. They had what you call a crack pipe, but there’s nothing in there but (cocaine) residue, which makes it a misdemeanor.”
The officers also find a clear plastic sandwich bag containing white clumps of wax. “They’ll try to sell that to prospective crack buyers and rip ‘em off; it looks the same,” Mason says.
The officers write up a charge for possession of drug paraphernalia and order the vagrants to move on.
“Twelve years ago, as many as 300 people hung out here,” says Mason. “And with drugs, of course, come other, violent crimes. We hit it hard and you can see it’s not like that anymore. Later on in the day, your sellers will start coming out. You can tell — they’ll have spotters who ride bicycles, and they’ll tell them when the police are coming, so you’ve got to try and sneak up on them. It’s like a cat and mouse game.”
Mason became a police officer 12 years ago because he wanted to help people. “It’s not what I thought it would be — it doesn’t seem like you help them enough. But I enjoy the times when you can actually put a smile on somebody’s face or see a sigh of relief from them.”
He once saved the life of a man who was being kicked by several people and beaten with a hammer. The man’s sister wrote him a thank-you card. “That’s the kind of thing that makes you feel glad you’re doing this.”
Mason’s work in McLaren often brings him into contact with children, and he strives to earn their trust. “You’ll give somebody advice and see them follow it, where they’ll get off the bad track and onto the good, excel in school and in sports and make something of themselves,” he says.
Kissimmee police officers also volunteer at the local YMCA, teaching swimming to McLaren youth.
Traffic Patrol
Late morning, Motorcycle Officer Tracey Bishop pulls off the Rt. 192 commercial strip and into a neighborhood of contemporary, single-family homes with well-manicured lawns. Because her police model Harley-Davidson is much smaller than a cruiser, Bishop is able to work from concealment as she monitors an intersection controlled by a stop sign. She pulls onto the sidewalk, screened off by a hedge, around a curve from the intersection.
This is part of the department’s STEP — Selective Traffic Enforcement Program. Officers pick intersections where an unusual number of motorists have recently run stop signs or red lights or stretches of road where motorists have been speeding. They concentrate on writing tickets at that location until the activity slows down. It’s not long before Bishop is giving a citation to a woman driving a blue Honda.
Bishop, 30, has been with the department two years. A former prison guard for the Florida Department of Corrections, she participated in a 14-week “law enforcement crossover” program and applied to the Kissimmee P.D. She started out on east side patrol.
“I only recently transferred to motors,” Bishop says. “It’s something I’ve always wanted to do. I’ve ridden my whole life.”
Another advantage of motorcycles over police cars is that they can squeeze through tighter spaces to get quickly to the scene of an accident.
“We’ve had tourists who have come to town from out of state — of course they’re here to see Disney World — so 1-92's heavy in traffic,” Bishop explains. Ideally officers will clear a path for an ambulance, if needed, to transport victims to the hospital. But sometimes, it’s worse.
“We had a gentleman run over by a semi and killed two weeks ago,” says Patrol Officer Wes Erickson. “Later that day we had a van accident — the back panel door popped open and a woman fell out and it rolled on top of her — and we had a car that lost it and did three or four flips behind that.”
When there is a fatality, Kissimmee police officers take responsibility for informing survivors.
“We try not to make phone calls,” says Erickson. “It’s something you want to do a little more personally.”
Still, the occasional phone call is inevitable.
“Christmas Eve, one year I worked, there was this lady,” Erickson recalls. “She had a wedding ring on and you could tell she had kids. It was obvious she was not going to make it. It’s really difficult around the holidays when you’ve got to call somebody and tell them ‘Mama’s not coming home.’”
“It’s difficult for anybody,” says Bishop. “You’re always concerned with the family.”
She said the department makes stress counseling available to help officers cope.
Families in Trouble
Mid-afternoon, following a thunder storm, just about all cars are busy investigating fender-benders or false burglar alarms set off by lightning. Rex takes a call from dispatch:
“We’ve got a domestic dispute on John Young (Pkwy.),” the radio crackles. “We’ve got an injunction. The guy’s there — beating on the door. The wife’s not there; she’s on her way home.”
About a week ago a husband and wife split up after a fight. She left him, took the kids and petitioned the court for an restraining order to keep him away. Rex learns from dispatch that the restraining order hasn’t been served. Until it has, this is a civil matter and there’s little police can do. Rex calls for a sheriff’s deputy to serve the court document and for Officers Lonnie Rice and Greg Alayon to back him up.
The husband, distraught and defensive, answers the door, a young girl in his arms, while an older child, unhurt, plays in the living room.
The three officers engage the man in a lengthy interview, keeping him calm until the wife gets home and the deputy arrives. The injunction is served — peacefully — and the man is ordered to leave the premises until a hearing is held.
Sometimes peer pressure will lead adolescents to experiment with drugs or alcohol, skip school or even run away from home, and frustrated parents turn to the police.
“If you take the time to talk to some of these kids, you find they’ve got the same problems we do,” says Erickson, 42, who has raised a family of his own. “We spend time with them and let them know we’re on their side; we’re not out to hassle them just because we’re older. I’ve had return calls from a lot of parents who tell me that because I spent time with their kids, they aren’t having trouble anymore.”
Past the Pall
While patrol officers often succeed in preventing domestic violence, some cases end up in CID, the Criminal Investigation Division, where 10 plainclothes detectives equal in rank to patrol officers perform follow-up investigations into major crimes.
Investigator Norman Lanphere, a 12-year veteran, has two homicides awaiting trial.
“The first one was a 3-year-old girl who we believe got punched to death by mama’s boyfriend,” says Lanphere. “It took us a while to get enough evidence, but we were finally able to put him in jail.”
Building a case, Lanphere says, is to a large extent, “just applying common sense. You’ve got a bunch of pieces, and you put them all together.”
The wife in this case was involved in an abusive relationship, and separate interviews of man, woman and child revealed certain inconsistencies. The boyfriend’s story was that the child’s injuries just “all of a sudden came on,” Lanphere said. He believes the woman lied to protect the boyfriend but finally broke down and told the truth.
Investigator Daniel Davies, working in tandem with family services, just finished building a case against a man who allegedly was physically abusing his wife and two daughters. The man’s teenaged daughter actually fled the country to escape the beatings, Davies said, and “there’s an adult son involved. Of course he won’t touch him, because he will fight back.”
Most vulnerable is the youngest daughter, age 7.
One night there was a fight and the police were called.
The man fled, but officers removed the wife, son and youngest daughter to a shelter. “After interviewing them, I got a warrant for the guy for aggravated assault — based on an allegation that he pulled a knife on his wife — and also for domestic violence battery,” Davies said.
The man was arrested and released pending trial, but Davies continued to press a child abuse investigation. “After an interview by the child protection team, we established probable cause and got another warrant.”
That second warrant is still active. The suspect has disappeared.
Sometimes It’s Personal
Davies recalls the little girl’s fear when he and the CPT investigator interviewed her at the shelter.
“Water built up in her eyes and she started to shake,” Davies said. “I told her it was OK to cry, and she just had this look of relief. She ran over to me, put her head on my shoulder and cried for about 10 minutes. And during the CPT interview, she was joking around with the CPT investigator. The investigator laughed, and the first thing the little girl did was ask if it was OK if she laughed as well. She’s suffered a lot of emotional abuse.”
The girl just turned 8 and they gave her a party at the shelter.
“It’s the first birthday party she’s ever had,” Davies said. “It just makes you feel good. She’s not around that violent environment any more. She’s experiencing what most kids get to experience.”
Officer Davies, 32, is married with a daughter of his own. They’ll celebrate her birthday this month. She will be 3.
But 20 miles from Disney World is another Kissimmee most tourists bypass, where laughing children play in well-maintained parks, where senior citizens stroll through a quaint and historic downtown, and where families sleep securely in comfortable and affordable housing.
Protecting the quality of life for both locals and tourists is a police department of more than 100 officers, their rank and file represented by the Central Florida Police Benevolent Association/CWA Local 3196.
The Kissimmee police handled more than 86,000 calls in 1999 when, according to state law enforcement statistics, robberies dropped 17.8 percent and burglaries fell 4.5 percent.
In a 1998 survey conducted by the city, more than 72 percent of citizens reported having “very positive” feelings toward their police for both traffic enforcement and crime prevention.
Kissimmee police teach youth safety programs in elementary schools and conduct a high school program to alert students to the dangers of drunk driving.
“Job one of any local government is to provide for the public safety,” says Mayor Frank Attkisson. “The men and women of the Kissimmee Police Department allow our citizens to live the dream of America’s founding fathers.” He calls them “heroes.”
The police, of course, see yet another side of Kissimmee — or of any city — from which law-abiding citizens must be protected.
Roll Call
At 6 a.m. the station is abuzz as officers coming off a 12-hour shift depressurize in the squad room. Next door a fresh shift reports for roll call. The city is divided into two districts with about 30 officers assigned to the east side and 60 to the west. About a dozen officers work each shift, two days on, two days off and alternate weekends. Each officer is assigned a regular area to patrol.
“We did this to make officers accountable for what happens on each beat and make them more responsible to the community,” says Sgt. Keith Rex, who today is in charge of both districts. Usually Rex covers the west district, while a colleague handles the east, but today the east district sergeant is detailed to training. Both, while they continue to work the streets, are considered supervisors, currently ineligible for the bargaining unit. They report to Cmdr. Russ Barnes, who answers to new Police Chief Mark Weimer. Several sergeants, officers say, have expressed interest in the union.
Rex alerts officers to possible suspects at large and to calls that have come in for various beats. “If it’s a non-emergency, we try to hold the call in that beat for that officer. If it’s an emergency, we send whoever’s available or send a backup officer. We’re getting back to community-based policing, where officers get out of their cars and talk to the public,” he says.
West side officers read and initial “beat logs” before heading to their cars. Most of the same information is sent by e-mail to east side officers already on the street. All Kissimmee police cruisers are equipped with computers as well as voice communication.
Curbing Drug Trade
A little past 7 a.m., Patrol Officers Scott Mason and Regis “Twin” McCue drive separate cars into McLaren Circle. Two officers are assigned to this east side neighborhood because statistics show it’s a high-crime area. Palm trees are silhouetted against the intensely bright sky as are the plain cinder block dwellings known as “Habitat Housing.” Renters here often depend upon public assistance.
Mason, job steward for his shift, points to a crowd of about 20 poorly dressed men and women hanging out next to a drainage conduit. “Those people are mostly users and prostitutes,” Mason says. Most, seeing Mason’s cruiser, disperse before McCue walks in from a cluster of trees and a fence screening the other side of the field.
One shirtless man continues to loiter, and a woman is sitting in a discarded living room chair. She is surrounded by litter including a beer bottle partially concealed in a brown paper bag. McCue orders both to freeze. Mason pats down the man and McCue searches the woman’s purse, looking for drugs or weapons.
“We have people who hang out by that fence and drink or smoke dope,” Mason explains. “Officer McCue startled those two. They had what you call a crack pipe, but there’s nothing in there but (cocaine) residue, which makes it a misdemeanor.”
The officers also find a clear plastic sandwich bag containing white clumps of wax. “They’ll try to sell that to prospective crack buyers and rip ‘em off; it looks the same,” Mason says.
The officers write up a charge for possession of drug paraphernalia and order the vagrants to move on.
“Twelve years ago, as many as 300 people hung out here,” says Mason. “And with drugs, of course, come other, violent crimes. We hit it hard and you can see it’s not like that anymore. Later on in the day, your sellers will start coming out. You can tell — they’ll have spotters who ride bicycles, and they’ll tell them when the police are coming, so you’ve got to try and sneak up on them. It’s like a cat and mouse game.”
Mason became a police officer 12 years ago because he wanted to help people. “It’s not what I thought it would be — it doesn’t seem like you help them enough. But I enjoy the times when you can actually put a smile on somebody’s face or see a sigh of relief from them.”
He once saved the life of a man who was being kicked by several people and beaten with a hammer. The man’s sister wrote him a thank-you card. “That’s the kind of thing that makes you feel glad you’re doing this.”
Mason’s work in McLaren often brings him into contact with children, and he strives to earn their trust. “You’ll give somebody advice and see them follow it, where they’ll get off the bad track and onto the good, excel in school and in sports and make something of themselves,” he says.
Kissimmee police officers also volunteer at the local YMCA, teaching swimming to McLaren youth.
Traffic Patrol
Late morning, Motorcycle Officer Tracey Bishop pulls off the Rt. 192 commercial strip and into a neighborhood of contemporary, single-family homes with well-manicured lawns. Because her police model Harley-Davidson is much smaller than a cruiser, Bishop is able to work from concealment as she monitors an intersection controlled by a stop sign. She pulls onto the sidewalk, screened off by a hedge, around a curve from the intersection.
This is part of the department’s STEP — Selective Traffic Enforcement Program. Officers pick intersections where an unusual number of motorists have recently run stop signs or red lights or stretches of road where motorists have been speeding. They concentrate on writing tickets at that location until the activity slows down. It’s not long before Bishop is giving a citation to a woman driving a blue Honda.
Bishop, 30, has been with the department two years. A former prison guard for the Florida Department of Corrections, she participated in a 14-week “law enforcement crossover” program and applied to the Kissimmee P.D. She started out on east side patrol.
“I only recently transferred to motors,” Bishop says. “It’s something I’ve always wanted to do. I’ve ridden my whole life.”
Another advantage of motorcycles over police cars is that they can squeeze through tighter spaces to get quickly to the scene of an accident.
“We’ve had tourists who have come to town from out of state — of course they’re here to see Disney World — so 1-92's heavy in traffic,” Bishop explains. Ideally officers will clear a path for an ambulance, if needed, to transport victims to the hospital. But sometimes, it’s worse.
“We had a gentleman run over by a semi and killed two weeks ago,” says Patrol Officer Wes Erickson. “Later that day we had a van accident — the back panel door popped open and a woman fell out and it rolled on top of her — and we had a car that lost it and did three or four flips behind that.”
When there is a fatality, Kissimmee police officers take responsibility for informing survivors.
“We try not to make phone calls,” says Erickson. “It’s something you want to do a little more personally.”
Still, the occasional phone call is inevitable.
“Christmas Eve, one year I worked, there was this lady,” Erickson recalls. “She had a wedding ring on and you could tell she had kids. It was obvious she was not going to make it. It’s really difficult around the holidays when you’ve got to call somebody and tell them ‘Mama’s not coming home.’”
“It’s difficult for anybody,” says Bishop. “You’re always concerned with the family.”
She said the department makes stress counseling available to help officers cope.
Families in Trouble
Mid-afternoon, following a thunder storm, just about all cars are busy investigating fender-benders or false burglar alarms set off by lightning. Rex takes a call from dispatch:
“We’ve got a domestic dispute on John Young (Pkwy.),” the radio crackles. “We’ve got an injunction. The guy’s there — beating on the door. The wife’s not there; she’s on her way home.”
About a week ago a husband and wife split up after a fight. She left him, took the kids and petitioned the court for an restraining order to keep him away. Rex learns from dispatch that the restraining order hasn’t been served. Until it has, this is a civil matter and there’s little police can do. Rex calls for a sheriff’s deputy to serve the court document and for Officers Lonnie Rice and Greg Alayon to back him up.
The husband, distraught and defensive, answers the door, a young girl in his arms, while an older child, unhurt, plays in the living room.
The three officers engage the man in a lengthy interview, keeping him calm until the wife gets home and the deputy arrives. The injunction is served — peacefully — and the man is ordered to leave the premises until a hearing is held.
Sometimes peer pressure will lead adolescents to experiment with drugs or alcohol, skip school or even run away from home, and frustrated parents turn to the police.
“If you take the time to talk to some of these kids, you find they’ve got the same problems we do,” says Erickson, 42, who has raised a family of his own. “We spend time with them and let them know we’re on their side; we’re not out to hassle them just because we’re older. I’ve had return calls from a lot of parents who tell me that because I spent time with their kids, they aren’t having trouble anymore.”
Past the Pall
While patrol officers often succeed in preventing domestic violence, some cases end up in CID, the Criminal Investigation Division, where 10 plainclothes detectives equal in rank to patrol officers perform follow-up investigations into major crimes.
Investigator Norman Lanphere, a 12-year veteran, has two homicides awaiting trial.
“The first one was a 3-year-old girl who we believe got punched to death by mama’s boyfriend,” says Lanphere. “It took us a while to get enough evidence, but we were finally able to put him in jail.”
Building a case, Lanphere says, is to a large extent, “just applying common sense. You’ve got a bunch of pieces, and you put them all together.”
The wife in this case was involved in an abusive relationship, and separate interviews of man, woman and child revealed certain inconsistencies. The boyfriend’s story was that the child’s injuries just “all of a sudden came on,” Lanphere said. He believes the woman lied to protect the boyfriend but finally broke down and told the truth.
Investigator Daniel Davies, working in tandem with family services, just finished building a case against a man who allegedly was physically abusing his wife and two daughters. The man’s teenaged daughter actually fled the country to escape the beatings, Davies said, and “there’s an adult son involved. Of course he won’t touch him, because he will fight back.”
Most vulnerable is the youngest daughter, age 7.
One night there was a fight and the police were called.
The man fled, but officers removed the wife, son and youngest daughter to a shelter. “After interviewing them, I got a warrant for the guy for aggravated assault — based on an allegation that he pulled a knife on his wife — and also for domestic violence battery,” Davies said.
The man was arrested and released pending trial, but Davies continued to press a child abuse investigation. “After an interview by the child protection team, we established probable cause and got another warrant.”
That second warrant is still active. The suspect has disappeared.
Sometimes It’s Personal
Davies recalls the little girl’s fear when he and the CPT investigator interviewed her at the shelter.
“Water built up in her eyes and she started to shake,” Davies said. “I told her it was OK to cry, and she just had this look of relief. She ran over to me, put her head on my shoulder and cried for about 10 minutes. And during the CPT interview, she was joking around with the CPT investigator. The investigator laughed, and the first thing the little girl did was ask if it was OK if she laughed as well. She’s suffered a lot of emotional abuse.”
The girl just turned 8 and they gave her a party at the shelter.
“It’s the first birthday party she’s ever had,” Davies said. “It just makes you feel good. She’s not around that violent environment any more. She’s experiencing what most kids get to experience.”
Officer Davies, 32, is married with a daughter of his own. They’ll celebrate her birthday this month. She will be 3.