No Back Up

Forget all the politics and the command staff issues... I just want some back up! We are dangerously short-staffed and something terrible shouldn't have to happen for attention to be brought to this matter. I know certain command staff and district staff read this board, so let's do something about this. It is pathetic when a priority call is voiced and all you hear is crickets on the radio. Or when a deputy asks for a x94 and you hear crickets. Or my x94 is 15+ minutes away, and I'm not talking about being in the country... 25-30 minutes in that case.

I firmly believe a lot of the morale issues here would greatly improve with more manpower. We get stressed out and gripe about other issues when we have had a rough night humping calls, with 15 more calls stacked. We need to fill these 300 open positions... obviously it isn't an easy task, but we need it to happen. Waiting over 10-15 minutes for a x94 x18 is not what HCSO should be proud of.

I know posting here doesn't do much, but they do read this. My supervisors won't push these issues upward because "everybody knows we are running a skeleton crew". I'm starting to think we need to go to the media and show them how poorly staffed we are. The citizens deserve better and we deserve to have adequate back up and manpower to handle the increasingly violent criminals in this county.

AMEN!

Your post is no doubt the truth. The problem with going to the media so that they can broadcast the complete lack of "adequate & sufficient" staffing of Deputies on the streets of Hillsborough County, Florida and thus anger the County's Residents who are clearly at a higher risk when compared to almost all other Citizen to Officer Ratio's across the United States, is the following:

First off the local media has shown time and time again, that they frankly just don't care about the glaring officer safety issues and the lack of available back-up for HCSO Deputies. Sheriff Gee has them all wrapped neatly around his little finger and he has shown repeatedly that he does not care enough about his Deputies to use the media to bring the desperately needed attention to this officer safety crisis at HCSO.

Second off, when was the last time the Citizens of Hillsborough County stood up in great numbers to support local Law E.forcement, because the Deputies of HCSO are being overworked, in great danger due to the lack of available back-up on the street and under too much stress trying to cope year after without any relief in sight.

Despite the fact that this dangerous situation also directly effects the Deputies ability to fight crime in most neighborhoods of Hillsborough County, the County Citizens only see this as "griping" and the possibility of having to pay additional Property Taxes to pay for more Deputies on the street. We already know where they stand on this issue, regardless of the personal danger increases to the Deputies and the fact that they risk a greater chance of becoming a victim of crime in Hillsborough County. They will sound off like they always do and call all HCSO Deputies Whining crybabies and lucky to have a job at all! Basically, no matter the level of crisis & increased danger, they still expect you to be superhuman and show up immediately when they call for service. It's not the Sheriff who has to face and listen to the angry verbal tirades when you show up 2-3 hours after the complaint came in because there was 30 calls holding ahead of their call, it's you who has to repeatedly calm them down, try to act professional and then write a Offense Report of a crime that you know stands very little chance of ever being solved and depending on the nature of the crime, will be quickly classified as "No Further Leads" and closed by a Detective that can barely keep their head above water from the insane number of cases assigned to them each month!

So while your just trying to survive out on the street and keep your stress level under control, remember not to drive too fast or park too long, because "Big Brother" just had to throw another match in your grill, called "GPS"!!!!!

Report of a crime that you know stands very little chance of ever being solved and depending on the nature of the crime, will be quickly classified as "No Further Leads" and closed by a Detective that can barely keep their head above water from the insane number of cases assigned to them each month!

Oh please. Do you know how many reports the property detectives handles in the 80's? Or the number of calls the street deputy responded to while working a much shorter day then the current 12 hour shifts?

Detectives back then work on average 120 cases a month. Back then there was no use of the telephones as Major John Cacciatore demanded that every victim was contacted in person and within 72 hours after the case was assigned.

On the street it was not uncommon for a deputy to take 12-15 calls and write 8-10 reports in a 8.4 hour day.

The problem you are fighting is that Gee and Docobo, plus and a major part of their command staff, were part of this era and when they hear someone complaining about this subject smile and laugh as to how this Office has made major strides since these days.

The last I checked, this is 2014... not the 80's.

The last I checked, this is 2014... not the 80's.

And your response is why those with your mentality will never understand the brass. The point of the 80's post was that Gee, Docobo and several others on the command staff had to work much harder than those in the Office today and thus this is one reason why when those that complain, the complaints fall on death ears.

You are complaining to those that worked far many more cases, handled many more calls and ORP's in a much shorter work day and had to wait far much longer for ask ups, ie Charlie zone getting back up from the University or Town and Country area.

So when you talk about how rough you have it today, many will laugh at you.

The shortage is not because Gee won't fill the positions, it is because the BOCC, even though they approved the positions, refuse to provide the funding needed to fill them.

Gee doesn't fill the positions because he can't fill them fast enough. Too many deputies are leaving and jumping from this sinking ship. They only hire non-experienced individuals and require a very long training process, and as a result, they can't bring enough people through the door to simply cover the number of deputies leaving. I'm not saying I disagree with extensive training, but we will never have adequate staffing without hiring experienced cops without requiring them to complete the entire academy again.

Those 300 vacancies are approved and budgeted for. Just like everything else, nothing is going to change until a deputy is seriously hurt or killed and a lawsuit is filed. Our command staff is so afraid of the public, that the only way anything gets done around here is when they are fearful of bad press or a lawsuit... it all boils down to one word - LIABILITY. They want nothing to do with it.

They have done nothing but foster contempt for their leadership style. Every single deputy on my squad has serious and legitimate complaints about working here; most will leave when the opportunity comes, and some can't leave because they have been here too long. HCSO has become the two-year training option for deputies to get certified and experienced, then leave to go to an agency that values its deputies and fights crime with adequate staffing and a positive family atmosphere.

They have done nothing but foster contempt for their leadership style. Every single deputy on my squad has serious and legitimate complaints about working here; most will leave when the opportunity comes, and some can't leave because they have been here too long. HCSO has become the two-year training option for deputies to get certified and experienced, then leave to go to an agency that values its deputies and fights crime with adequate staffing and a positive family atmosphere.

Im sure its not a secret, can you please name this agency so I can look at all the positive comments on their board? Ive looked around LEO affairs and all I see is *****ing and moaning from typical cops.

They have done nothing but foster contempt for their leadership style. Every single deputy on my squad has serious and legitimate complaints about working here; most will leave when the opportunity comes, and some can't leave because they have been here too long. HCSO has become the two-year training option for deputies to get certified and experienced, then leave to go to an agency that values its deputies and fights crime with adequate staffing and a positive family atmosphere.

Im sure its not a secret, can you please name this agency so I can look at all the positive comments on their board? Ive looked around LEO affairs and all I see is *****ing and moaning from typical cops.

Please don't go with that excuse! I can personally assure you or anyone else right now, that the way Gee & Docobo treat people, combined with their total lack of quality & ethical leadership, one cannot go wrong by leaving this unfriendly and hostile work environment the first chance they get. Sure, many other agency chat Forumns have their share of people who bad mouth the place, but that is typical human nature to some degree. But having personally worked at other Law Enforcement jobs, including a long time at HCSO, the current problems here trump anything I have ever dealt with elsdwhere. If I were younger and did not have so many years vested towards my State Retirement, I would leave this place so fast, heads would be spinning. Unless you currently work at HCSO under the present day conditions, one has no idea just how low employee morale is and just how difficult it has become to find any positives or the motivation to simply come to work each shift. You cannot compare anything from the 1980's with today's HCSO. It is a entirely different beast. Now I do agree that most deputies had a completely different work ethic back then, but you must remember that things were much simpler back then. Now with GPS, Laptop Computers and everybody on earth having a cell phone and video camera, you cannot take a deep breath without somebody monitoring you in your fancy & outdated white shirt or somebody needing something done by "Yesterday"! All you have to do is talk to anybody who recently left this office and they will immediately tell you that it was the best decision they have ever made and how it feels like a ton of unnecessary stress was lifted off their shoulders, even at the slick sleeve deputy level. Gee has effectively destroyed any & all of the family atmosphere that was left and on top of that, he plays "hide & seek" as Sheriff and has not been seen in person by hundreds of deputies in many years! That is simply unforgiving to most of us.

[Average Joe]

Gee doesn't fill the positions because he can't fill them fast enough. Too many deputies are leaving and jumping from this sinking ship. They only hire non-experienced individuals and require a very long training process, and as a result, they can't bring enough people through the door to simply cover the number of deputies leaving. I'm not saying I disagree with extensive training, but we will never have adequate staffing without hiring experienced cops without requiring them to complete the entire academy again.

Those 300 vacancies are approved and budgeted for. Just like everything else, nothing is going to change until a deputy is seriously hurt or killed and a lawsuit is filed. Our command staff is so afraid of the public, that the only way anything gets done around here is when they are fearful of bad press or a lawsuit... it all boils down to one word - LIABILITY. They want nothing to do with it.

They have done nothing but foster contempt for their leadership style. Every single deputy on my squad has serious and legitimate complaints about working here; most will leave when the opportunity comes, and some can't leave because they have been here too long. HCSO has become the two-year training option for deputies to get certified and experienced, then leave to go to an agency that values its deputies and fights crime with adequate staffing and a positive family atmosphere.

If you care to bring up the BOCC minutes from when the market crashed and things went into the dumper you would find where these positions were given to Gee with the promise they would be budgeted when the economy turned around. We are still waiting for the BOCCC to live up to their promise.