robinson i believe pat is the new face of the state of the art community led intelligent led policing in our community deputy robinson his emerge over the last few months and probably years with a stunning pedigree and philosophy of policing that i believe reflects municipal what the municipal forces are doing in our community and need to do is they move forward he has been a force in building relationships with the greater community which i believe is necessary for what we're doing in the great city of say or so to welcome deputy chief thank you ma'am it's an honor to have you here so honored to be here a thank you i'm going to start with good go rams all right my dad actually taught at sarasota high school for twenty seven years before he retired i went to play football at the college of the holy cross in western massachusetts graduated with my bachelor of arts degree and history and political science i came home and bumped into a coach that i had in high school who recommended that i apply for a job at the police department applied for the p d and two weeks later i was in the police academy and three months after that i was hired and that was in two thousand so i've been with the force for fifteen years well that's fantastic education you talked about your education what did you major in at holy cross was it was history was my major and i had a minor in political science oh how fitting  interesting because i was looking at the broad base of your education talk to me about training obviously i want to attended the sarasota county criminal justice kennedy over to see t i and once i got out i came to ask p d and we go through our city school obviously to  ensure that we are meeting the standards of the state overall but we also and instil the values of the police department into the new officers to get them out on the road because the general training that you're seeing in the academy is state wide so we really  hone in on what we expect our officers and obviously i went through that quite a while ago and it's much better now than when i went through but i've also attended numerous advanced training schools for just my job specific training which i was a patrol officer i was a street crimes officer i was a detective for five and a half years before being promoted to sergeant i was a patrol sergeant a crimes street crime sergeant detective sergeant and i was promoted the rank of captain from the rank of sergeant a couple years ago about four years ago  now shortly after being promoted to captain i attended the f b i national academy and i just recently was able to attend and have the honor of graduating from the police executive research forum senior management institute for police that's held through perf at the boston university campus in downtown boston which was a phenomenal program oh sure and you're very young it's interesting with in your age how many people that are very very young is this a new wave of police officers that are going through this training at a pretty young age because you've built up quite a resume of not only education but training sure and is that the future you know i think a lot of things just like in corporate america a lot of it is drive desire and availability and really having excellent mentors coming up through the ranks who provide you those opportunities but you also have to reach out and grab it and you know one of the things that we've seen is a demographic shift in policing over the last few years we're reaching a time period in which some some of our first groups of our drop participants are coming of age so we've had a number of retirements upwards of thirty over the last few years currently in our training program today we have over twenty three brand new police officers going through either agency specific training field training or in the academy and they  span a broad demographic both educationally background racial ethnic and gender and it really is that's going to be the evolution of policing in the near future it's not just to do with age i'm sort of an a an aberration in the timing because i did have excellent mentors and coaches i've had excellent police chiefs in my current chain of command colonel moyer who took over and was was instrumental in helping me prepare for to take over his job and the chief is  a huge influence on how we not only myself but the agency as a whole are policing the city as are soda and she's been really taking us from one paradigm to a new paradigm of community based policing sure and i think that reflects  your philosophy of policing well and i think overall the country as a whole at this juncture is expecting something else out of the police in the eighty's and ninety's it was the war on crime the war on drugs and i think in general the conversation has changed as such to be more of a inclusive policing where instead of just being an occupying structure that comes in the neighborhoods and then leaves when the problem is done the communities are demanding that we become part of the community become part of the conversation and include them in some of the decision making and clearly at the end of the day we still have a job to do but there's a lot of discretion how we get from point a to point b but really the overall so the overarching theme for us is doing the right thing at the right time for the right reason right and i think the city of sarasota and i want to talk about that for a moment what are the needs of the city you talk about community policing i think we in our community demand that we demand relationships with our police force that's that's we demand to be safe so how what i like to talk about is how is the city of sarasota the what is happening with the city we are getting on very busy urban core a lot of new development a lot of the vents people are coming here what's the role of the police department of this type of municipality what are our needs that we need met and how are you what is the state if it's a struggle if  it's an impetus for you to work with the city of the kind of city that we are absolutely and i'm glad you asked that question of vice mayor you know over the last few years and the budget crunches of the early two thousand we lost boards of twenty seven percent of our sworn force and forty four percent of our our civilian staff that's forced us to open our doors and partnership more with other groups so instead of having the luxury of having two hundred four police officers were at no numerous specialty units and i could assign we've actually had to go back to our patrol officers and ask for more out of them and basically make them more of a generalist to make sure that they know more about the different events that are going on in the responsibility of the police department but ultimately we want to ensure that the residents visitors and guests of our residents visit the city of sarasota are safe that they have positive interactions with our police officers every time they talk to them because it's not about making a friend but it's about making a supporter and we are the first line of government from the federal government to the city government so if an individual has an excellent encounter with law enforcement they're going to say they're going to leave here and say wow you know sarasota is a great place and the police officers there are phenomenal and that's what we want people to do every time that they interact with our police officers great point and further discussing that talk about recruiting and maintaining our police force people coming here what are the new and improved officers that are coming down the pike right now i've gone to many of your swearing in ceremonies that is a sight to behold when you go to s p d and when they get their awards they get there with the new recruits coming in that are sworn to talk to me about how that's going well like i said earlier we have both a challenge and the opportunity to have a lot of our senior leadership and a lot of are senior officers coming of retirement age that's a challenge as far as succession planning is concerned but we are taking proactive steps to ensure that our mid level supervisors have the training and availability to move forward in those ranks se ssly and we have some great sergeants and great senior officers that are going to be first line supervisors coming up but let's talk about our new recruits you know we really are pushing one of the one of the things that we're hearing from our community is they want a more reflective police department that was  in president obama's twenty first century task force on community policing and we have begun that in earnest and we're trying to pick the best of the best it's not just picking you know you because you're this or because there are that we want to get the best people that are reflective of our demographic and i think we're doing a phenomenal job we have individuals that have with experian they're coming from other law enforcement agencies to work with us because let's be honest we can't put fifty brand new people on the road all at one time it's very difficult this job is filled with nuances and le legalities that one misstep could it could definitely affect the outcome of a case so we're trying to get a good mix of experience a good mix of backgrounds just recently we've had our oldest recruit is in his forty's and our youngest recruit is just twenty one so it's a broad base of experience levels life skills they all bring that to the table that make them more more effective police officer when i was last week when we had the event there and you were swearing in these that it was seven officers it was phenomenal to to witness the pedigree and this this new and improved police force it was wonderful to see and you're right it did reflect so much of the demographic that's changing and a back to your what your goals  are you talked about we understand your philosophy how are you the chief you have a style different people in administration have different styles how is your style going to move this forward in how you work with not only the chief but everybody else you've explained a lot of that but you have a style shirt and how is that how does that impact all of us in the community by looking to you i hope positively at the end of the day the chief you know over the over the last few years where i've gotten known the chief she is definitely a leader in the field of community based policing yes she's she has developed courses she teach she teaches those courses nationwide she's very active in a lot of the nationwide conversations pertaining to the cutting edge of community based policing so unfortunately all in law enforce a lot of times we can become very comfortable in the way that we do things and i think the chief has come in and really challenge to our organization to take it to the next level and incorporate some nationwide best practices to enact them within our community and i think what you're seeing is we've we've made incredible strides in our community outreach we're having many more engagement events within the community one  things i'm quite certain you've noticed and i'll pitch it if i haven't is our facebook and twitter account sure we have a phenomenal facebook page we are on if there's a major event in the city of sarasota there's an update within an hour and really the whole idea is inclusion and communication between the citizenry and the police if you have the information about what's happening why we're doing something things that are going on in your neighborhood a level of trust can be built between the officer that arrives on scene to handle your problem and if there's a trusting relationship there albeit just a minor at the beginning we want to build on that trust so really at the end of the day the police department is only as effective as the citizenry lets us be so if we have a good relationship it benefits all of us good point it is because we do we have a city that is has certain needs and in back to the events and all the good things that are happening all the things that are happening in our city whatever issue comes before the city commission or anybody else we need a good present police force and state of the art and you've just explained how state of the art you really are this is amazing and it's really wonderful to see we've covered a lot of material here we're kind of running out of time  deputy chief is there anything else you'd like to add absolutely you know one of the we talked a lot about our personnel but we are moving ahead with a lot of technological advance and that will will technological advances part of me that are going to increase the effectiveness of our force one of our new record system it's going to give us a lot more information that's readily accessible to our detectives and our other law enforcement partners and they are the sheriff's office in order for p d venice p d longboat key word we are looking forward to coming online with a new i a program that  will be able to track any concerns or complaints to ensure that if there are issues were we are proactively addressing them it going to make us more effective and efficient and be able to use our resources in the best way that we possibly can but at the end of the day i have to say i'm very proud to be a sarasota police officer and to work with the men and women of our department and i'm just i'm happy to be able to police in the community that i grew up it really is an honor well i think you so much you are indeed the new face of all of this you really are my message to you is keep up the good work keep us safe but also as i said at the meeting the other day that commission in the citizens of sarasota have your back i want to thank you so much for coming today and that's it for another edition of commissioners corner see you next time