Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis Lakeland Press Conference Transcript

Governor DeSantis: (00:00)
Yeah Mark. Attorney General. Well good morning. It’s wonderful to be back in Polk county and always wonderful to be joined by such a great group of folks. Among whom today is our attorney general, Ashley Moody. We also have assistant chief Hans Layman, from right here in Lakeland PD. We have Lieutenant Michael Lewis, Officer Steven Bondsick, Officer Miguel Acevedo, Officer Matt Svodo, Claremont police chief Chuck Broadway, Winter Park police chief Michael Deal, and then our wonderful legislative delegation from this area, Senator Star Jolynn-Burgess. The fact that I’m announcing a monetary issue today we have Senator Stargill here, that’s a good sign in terms of the prognosis for this. We also have representatives Burton, Killibrew, and Tomko, and I want to thank them for all that they’ve done to support the state of Florida, but particularly to support the men and women in law enforcement.

And you remember the summer of 2020, there was a fever sweeping the country. A lot of it was really targeted at attacking the men and women who wore the uniform, the men and women of law enforcement. A lot of the disorder and the rioting that we saw was, in some respects, targeted at the people that wore the uniform. And so there was a movement throughout the country to defund, or reduce funding, or reduce support for the people that wore the uniform. And in Florida, we said at the very beginning, that is not going to fly in the state of Florida. We’re going to stand with the men and women of law enforcement. We did that last summer when all this unrest was happening, I had the national guard and the state police forces out supporting all the folks in the local areas. Handled it very, very well, and we want to thank the people that wore the uniform during that time, which was very difficult.

So we’ve been 100% behind them because we understand, all the things that we care about, fighting for economy, education, all these things that are so important, you don’t have safe communities, you don’t have rule of law and order, a lot of that stuff isn’t going to matter. So it’s fundamental that we have safe communities and you don’t have safe communities if you’re not supporting the folks who wear the uniform. And so were proud in Florida of being a state where people who were in uniform know they’re appreciated. They know they got the support, certainly of the governor and the attorney general, but also our legislature, and the people throughout the state of Florida.

In fact, last year during the legislative session, we felt it was important to show our appreciation for what folks have done. Certainly since the coronavirus pandemic obviously dealing with unrest last summer. And so we were able to secure a $1000 bonuses for every sworn law enforcement officer in the state of Florida. And so that was, I think, about 60 to 70,000 sworn law enforcement. We also did the fire and the EMTs, the first responders. So we’re proud to have done that. And what people would say to me who got the bonuses, it’s like, look, the $1000, obviously nice. When you’re in this profession, you’re not necessarily going to be wealthy. So it’s nice, but it was much more than the money was showing that the state of Florida supported them and cared.

And so we’re happy to have done that, and I think it’s also worth just reflecting on the first responders that we shown appreciation for. We’re coming up now on the 20th anniversary of September 11th. We actually have some folks here who’ve moved down from the NYPD to join here in Lakeland. We’ve got one guy that’s going to talk. Officer Svodo’s going to talk about his experience. But just remember when 9/11 happened to people that were running in there were the people wearing the uniforms. They were going in, NYPD, FDNY port authority, and they did. We lost a lot of great people doing that, but they were getting people out of the buildings, knowing that they would likely themselves never get out of the buildings.

And so anytime something happens, we saw most recently with this crazy guy on drugs and in Polk county, you need the folks in uniform to go respond to these crises. And so as we get to the 20th anniversary of 9/11, we got to thank those first responders yet again. And hopefully we don’t face anything on that scale ever again in our country, but we know whatever comes down the pipe, they’ll be there for us. And I think people appreciate people who wear the uniform. They’re not asking for accolades or anything. I think they just want to know they have the support of the community, and you have that here. And I think the Lakeland PD is interesting, and one of the reasons why we’ve come here is because as they needed spots to fill on their force, they looked around the country and saw areas where some of these officers were not being treated well, were not being supported. And so they had 12 vacancies they needed to fill, and assistant chief Layman saw the opportunity, and they specifically went to cities where the morale was low in the police force and where they were not getting the full throated support of the community and of the elected officials.

And so they went up to New York City over three days, they interviewed a bunch of folks with NYPD, and they were able to hire 13 officers to come down and be law enforcement officers here in the state of Florida. They’ve also gotten from some other police forces throughout the country. But this is something where you have people that have chosen this profession, and they have an opportunity to come to communities, cities, counties, the state of Florida, knowing that they’re going to be appreciated. And so we see an opportunity, given how morale was low throughout many parts of our country amongst people in law enforcement, we have an opportunity to capitalize on that here in the state of Florida. Because we do need to fill positions. If you look, we have a lot of positions overall in Florida for a whole host of things in the economy, but law enforcement is one. We need to get people in.

So we are making a push in this next legislative session to have a package designed for recruiting and retaining good solid law enforcement professionals. And we’re going to have three basic programs that are going to help Florida capitalize on this moment and make sure that we have the strongest core of law enforcement personnel anywhere in the country.

So the first thing that we’re going to do is we’re going to offer a $5,000 signing bonus for anybody who is new to law enforcement in the state of Florida. Now that may mean somebody who’s younger, who decides to go into law enforcement who’s already a Florida resident, but it would also apply to someone moving from another state. So if you come from New York or Seattle or someplace like that, you obviously would get paid whatever they could do, but then the state would then kick in a $5,000 signing bonus. We think that that’s a way to draw good talent from within our own state to enter the profession in the first place, but we also think it’s a way to capitalize off some of the folks who are not getting the support they need and to say, “You know what, you’ll be supported in Florida, and we’re also going to make sure that we do our best to make it”-

… In Florida and we’re also going to make sure that we do our best to make it worth your while. So we think that that’s going to be something that will be very, very effective.

The second proposal will work in concert with the first and it’s consistent with what the Lakeland PD has already done. We are going to have a recruitment program that specifically looks to remove roadblocks for out-of-state law enforcement officers looking to relocate to Florida. So the proposal will provide the State Officer Certification Exam, free of charge, to law enforcement officers relocating to Florida. We will also cover the cost of any necessary equivalent training programs for relocating officers up to $1,000 per officer. So this is an open invitation for folks in other states to look to Florida as a place where they can not only excel professionally, but also live in a great community like we see here in Polk County.

The third and final proposals to create a law enforcement academy scholarship program to cover the cost of enrollment for men and women seeking to serve their state and communities through a law enforcement academy. The initiative will remove barriers for motivated, high quality law enforcement recruits who may not qualify for other state financial assistance, through a state college or technical center. For those attending a private academy and amount equal to the average tuition and fees incurred at a public institution will be covered. We provide support and rightfully so, for people going to our universities. Why don’t we provide support for folks going into law enforcement academies. We are going to be doing that, making sure we’re covering our basis.

Why is this important? If you look at what some of these communities did by turning their back on law enforcement, by removing funding or cutting funding, you saw almost invariably in those areas, steep increases in violent crime. Now, part of that is because they’re shorthanded. They don’t have the funding. They need a part of it is morale is low. The folks wearing the uniform know they’re not going to be supported and most likely would even be scapegoated if anything goes wrong, so no wonder why you have such poor outcomes in so many parts of our country.

We aren’t going to do that here in Florida. We’re going to make sure that we have supported folks who understand that we’ve got their back and we understand that crazy policies like the defunding law enforcement has no place in the state of Florida and in fact, I’m happy when we did our bill, our law enforcement and anti-rioting bill, one of the most important provisions of that bill was to say if any local government tries to defend law enforcement, the state of Florida is able to comment effectively, veto that cut, and restore the funding for law enforcement.

We’re not going to let a local government jeopardized their constituents by indulging in some of these failed policies. So, we’ve got your back here. We have had that for many years. Now, comes the time where we think we can bring some really good folks who have great training and seen a lot, bring some of those folks to Florida with these incentives, and also get more of our young people interested in the profession. Not a profession if you think that no one’s supporting you. It may not be something that that people want to do. This is showing that we will be here. We’ll be supporting you. We understand how important this function is to safe and prosperous community.

So, I’m excited to announce the proposal here in Florida for the first time. I did mention it at the FOP Convention in Indianapolis, and I’m happy to have support from the legislature and I think this will be something that’ll be really, really welcomed when the session starts next year.

I want to bring up our attorney general, who I know is very happy to hear that we were proceeding along these lines here in the state of Florida. So, Attorney General Moody, the floor is yours.

Attorney General Moody: (11:54)
Thank you, governor and thank you so much for those of you that are here to celebrate and shine a light on this amazing announcement today.

MY family has been in Florida for five generations. I have never been more proud to stand here and say, I am a Floridian. I am proud of the state. I am proud of the leadership of Governor DeSantis. As the wife of a law enforcement officer who understands firsthand what it means to take that oath and wear a badge, and every day know that it may not go as planned. That’s an incredible thing to sign up for a profession where you’re putting your safety behind the safety of others.

I’m proud to say with this governor’s assistant and all of these amazing leaders standing with us today, Florida is now the most pro-law enforcement state in the nation. Thank you, Governor DeSantis.

I will tell you, when you look at the nonsensical policies going on right now, we have record numbers of drugs flowing into this nation. We have criminals, where while enforcement is being forced to release them, based on policies out of Washington. It is incredibly negligent to say, we’re going to not only slash funding for police, but in some of these politicians cases, there’s bragging about wanting to abolish wholeheartedly agencies. It is idiotic. It is negligent. I believe it’s criminal and that’s why we need leaders like Governor DeSantis, who’s willing to stand up, propose creative solutions to filling the vacancies that we have throughout our state. There are all kinds of reasons for that.

Maybe the officer’s here might be feeling what’s going on, the discourse in our nation. Maybe they’re feeling that in their ranks. Maybe we need to ensure that they have financial incentive, to look upon law enforcement as a profession that they can provide for their family.

But there are reasons we have vacancies and what I admire about this governor is he’s willing to dig into the details, determine why that may be, identify the vacancies throughout Florida and respond to the needs of law enforcement and the community, and not respond to a woke mob.

In Florida, we welcome law enforcement. We hope you will see what this governor is doing in the state of Florida; that we will stand behind law enforcement. You’re not only welcomed. Your profession will be celebrated as a noble one, and we will make sure that you have the tools and the resources you need to do your job and do them well, so thank you so much.

Great. Well, thank you. Assistant Chief Hans Lehman. The floor is yours.

Assistant Chief Hans Lehman: (14:37)
Thank you. Morning everyone. Again. I would like to thank the governor and attorney general for attending and having a press conference here. The legislation that he is talking about, I think will be huge for most agencies in Florida that aren’t doing signing bonuses now. That I think is a key to attracting a lot of qualified applicants for us.

I was asked to speak a little bit about our recruiting problem that we had and it’s nationwide and statewide, but we have deficits and we’re trying to fill as deficits and we’ve done everything from targeted media advertising; social media. We have a full-time recruiter that is every academy in the state, twice a year, and we knew we still needed to do more. With everything going on, we talked about it this past spring, and we said, “Let’s try to do an actual out-of-state recruiting trip, not just outside of Florida, but way outside of Florida.”

We sent a crew of seven up to New York City. We decided on that one because there’s 30,000 plus officers in that area, so we knew that we could target that area pretty heavily and pretty quickly. We spent three days up there and spoke to probably close to 300 officers from varying agencies at a hotel and it was amazing. Everyone still wants to serve. They still want to be a police officer. They still want to serve and we had over a hundred of them apply.

They still want to serve. And we had over a hundred of them apply and went through backgrounds. Some couldn’t come over right now, they need to wait until next year. But as it stands right now, we’re starting six on Monday. And then another six will start in October and one after that. So like the Governor said, 13 officers will be starting here at Lakeland by the end of the year. And that will get close to filling us up. And that is a huge effort by our background team and by the Department and a couple other chiefs in the room. And they know that hiring is hard right now. And just like the Governor said, it’s hard and that’s what we did is, we tried to go a little bit outside the box, and that was … the story for us is we took our recruiting on the road and we had a great success with it. And I think the signing bonuses will only help even more with that. With that I will turn it over to officer Matt Spano and starting with this on Monday from New York city.

Speaker 4: (17:07)
Good morning, everybody. Again my name is Matthew Spano. I just want to start out by telling you a little bit about how I heard about the Lakeland police department. I originally heard about them on Facebook. They were doing a recruitment process in, I think, Times Square. I just happened to be there for a training that I was there for. So I stopped by, I sat down with the dedicated team of background investigators in the Lakeland Police Department. They were just telling me a little bit about life in Florida.

Speaker 4: (17:33)
It was an eye opener. He said that you could park your police vehicles in front of your house. And to me, I thought that was mind blowing. I used to have to lie about what I used to do. I used to have to tell people I was a bartender because it was almost like I was ashamed to be a law enforcement officer. And the fact that the Governor did the $1,000 sign-on bonus for law enforcement officers, it really spoke to me. I think everybody, regardless of the career that you chose, you want to be appreciated at what you do. It doesn’t matter what job you do. So I knew as soon as I saw the Governor making all these strides to bring all these law enforcement officers down here, I knew this is where I wanted to be. And I’ll tell you that I’m very excited for this next chapter of my life. And I really appreciate all the hard work that everybody does down here. Thank you.

Speaker 5: (18:25)
Can you want to just tell them about when you first got into NYPD and how many years you were there? [crosstalk 00:18:32]

Speaker 4: (18:31)
Sure, sure. Yeah, sure. So I was only in the NYPD for about two years. When I was there I realized very quickly that the job was not what I expected only because I wanted to do all these things to help people, and the tools and the laws that were set in front of me did not allow me to do so. So looking in to other options, knowing that I still wanted to be in law enforcement, knowing that I still wanted to help people, I wanted to see what I can do to progress my career. And I’m happy to say that I found a home in Florida.

Speaker 5: (19:10)
All right.

Speaker 4: (19:12)
Thank you everybody. I appreciate it.

Okay absolutely. All right. He’s not the only one that’s made the move to Florida recently, but we’re excited. I think Lakeland has really done a great job and we’ve hats off to them. And I think this, once this becomes reality is going to provide help to a lot of different law enforcement agencies throughout the state of Florida. It would apply here and apply at the Polk County Sheriff’s Office, it would apply to any of these places. And we figured that there were … we looked at kind of how many vacancies we expect and what could happen and so we think this is something that’ll really make an impact. And quite frankly, is not going to be a major, major budget item, all things considered. And so we’re happy to be able to do it. We’re happy that folks want to view Florida as a place where you could have this career and be appreciated.

And again, the money is one thing and obviously everyone wants to make more, there’s nothing wrong with that. But I think the bonus that we did $1,000 and I think the same with the signing bonus, it’s more of just showing people that we appreciate what you’re doing. And then we care about you and we want you to succeed here. And we understand how important it is to have good men and women in this profession. So God bless everybody and we’ll get this done hopefully early on in the next legislative session. Okay. Anyone questions about this or anything?

Speaker 6: (20:39)
Anything you’d want to say to the Lakewood police officers that did respond [inaudible 00:20:43] in this area?

Yeah. I think that it was a … I think Great Grady’s folks, I think there was a lot of deputies involved in that. Sheriff’s and … this is an outrageous crime. This guy was totally off his rocker. It needs to have the full weight of the law brought down. When you have something like that happening. What do you do? These are the folks that you call upon. They’re there for you time and time again. And so we’ve seen this time and again, when we were in Surfside, within minutes you had first responders showing. They’re digging in the rubble, they’re going and getting rescue people, knowing that the rest of that building could collapse. Of course, I mentioned September 11th. So these are folks who, they’re the ones that have to be at the tip of the spear when anything happens in society that’s dangerous and that endangers the community. And I think the least we can do is let them know that we support them.

Speaker 7: (21:40)
Governor you recently said that unvaccinated individuals had no impact on numbers and Dr Fauci was quoted saying that [crosstalk 00:21:44]

That’s not what I said. No, no, no, that’s not what I said. Not that I ever expect to be quoted properly. What I said was, if you’re going to force vaccine mandates on people, just to understand that what the data is showing us about the vaccine, the data is showing us you’re much less likely to be hospitalized or die if you’re vaccinated. That is true. And I think you see it in the statistics. However, the vaccinations have not created herd immunity. So if the idea is that having herd immunity, you force everyone to do this, and that will create a herd immunity that has not happened. It’s still spreading. People who, I mean, obviously in Florida, we’re going down now which is great, but that’s not what … the issue is, is it creating a herd immunity? Fauci also said if 50% were vaccinated, you would not see any surges anymore.

Well, that isn’t true. Look at obviously the Sunbelt, look in the Pacific Northwest, look at Hawaii, huge surges that you’ve seen. And so, but just understand what you’re doing. If you’re forcing somebody to show proof of this to eat at a restaurant or to do basic tasks, go to the grocery store. There are some places around, if you look at some of these places that have really gone off the deep end they say, to go to the grocery store you should have to do that. So we’re not doing that in Florida. But the theory behind it is that if you make everyone have to do this under penalty of law, that somehow you wouldn’t have spread, and I think we just have to be honest about what it’s doing and what it’s not doing. We had hoped that if you had 50%, then you wouldn’t have that.

We had hoped you could build herd immunity that way, but that just hasn’t happened. It’s not happening in Israel. It didn’t happen in the UK. It’s not happening in the United States. It doesn’t mean that there’s not positive impacts. But the positive impacts is mostly reducing the vaccinated individuals a chance of being severely ill. Also, I would say, if you look at what we’ve done, we’re leading the nation and pushing early treatment for people with COVID. And that’s people that are not vaccinated, but it’s also people that are vaccinated who are high risk, who still see some of them ending up in the hospital. So we were able to do that.

… ending up in the hospital. So we were able to do that. This has been available since December. We found that most of the people that were going, being admitted to hospitals, yes, most were not vaccinated, but almost none of them got the monoclonal treatment, the antibody treatment early on in their illness. If they had done that, a lot of those people would not have done. So we’ve done stuff. We’ve done the one here in Polk County. It’s seen 2,800 patients, it’s administered treatments, and what you’re finding is we’re seeing the hospital census decline rapidly. We’re seeing the emergency room visits for COVID-like illness decline. We’re seeing daily hospital admissions decline.

So those are very, very good trends, but that’s about understanding where there was a need for action, and then we did this in … I mean, we were able to put together a lot of sites very quickly. We’re going to open up a couple more, so we’re going to have, by the end of this week … We’ll be up to 25 sites throughout the State of Florida, all of them being able to do up to 320 infusions a day. Now most of our sites don’t have that much demand, but I would say the one here in Polk is probably doing between 150 and 200 every day. Some of the other ones like Bonita Springs, they do 300 a day pretty consistently, and then others do around a hundred.

But the point is, is that by doing that, getting it early, we’re keeping thousands of people out of the hospitals and that’s obviously better for their health. It’s saving lives, for sure, because not everyone that gets admitted to the hospital recovers, and it’s also helping relieving a burden on the healthcare system because we had had higher levels of COVID patients. Now that’s going down, so we’re going to keep this going in that direction.

But one of the reasons why we thought that this was something that needed to happen was because yes, people just didn’t seem to know about it, even though it had been available since December, so we’ve raised the spotlight. Now other states are following Florida, but it was based on the fact that you were still seeing people who were fully vaccinated test positive. Again, we didn’t see the herd immunity that we had hoped for, and so in that situation … We’ve already had great testimonials about this. Very elderly people who’ve been fully vaccinated for months get COVID, are symptomatic, and then they get the infusion, and either they stay out of the hospital … some of them do get admitted, but I can tell you we’ve had a number of these folks who get discharged and the doctors are saying, ” Had you not gotten the monoclonal, you probably wouldn’t be getting discharged right now.”

So it’s been a big success and it’s something that we’re going to continue to do, but it is something that we recognize that this stuff… People were testing positive, both vaccinated and unvaccinated, and so in terms of hoping to just get herd immunity and all of a sudden that has not happened anywhere yet in our country or in some of our other countries, particularly those that have been highly, highly vaxxed. You just got to look at the data, and you got to make judgments on the basis of that, but I think we filled a real need with what we did with the monoclonals.

Speaker 8: (27:06)
Governor, the Buccaneers kick off on Thursday at home. Full capacity, sold out. I know you were pushing for that last year. Your thoughts on the season, what it means for Tampa coming off the Super Bowl.

It’s a great question. Last year we learned if you want to win a Super Bowl, just go get yourself a goat, and we got the goat, and we won the Super Bowl. I’m excited for it because I can tell you last year’s Super Bowl, I mean, it was exciting to win, but I was a Bucs fan when they wore the orange uniforms, and they would lose most of the games growing up. So it’s been a long ride for me, and I know many fans in the Tampa Bay area. In fact, when you would go in the 80s, if you’d go to a game, there’d be more fans for the opposing team than there would be for the Bucs back then. Coach [inaudible 00:27:55] did a great job bringing in, and obviously they won a Super Bowl under Jon Gruden, but it’s been lean.

So Brady and other people, they have great stuff, and so could they do it? Could they win on their home field? They did, it was great. But I’ll tell you, it would’ve been nice to have more people there than were in the stadium. My view was, is look, you say you can only have 25,000 people, but yet after the game you got 100,000 people swarming the streets. What honest difference does that make at that point? So I wanted to have that for the Super Bowl last year, but I’m glad they’re going to be able to do it. I can tell you, I would not bet against them this year. I think they’re going to be tough to beat.

The thing about last year, because if they were limited in their training and everything with COVID protocols, all this other stuff, they didn’t really even like … I know Brady didn’t. He didn’t even know a lot of these guys. I mean, it took a while, and then they finally clicked and you could tell, and I predicted before the Super Bowl … When we had the one in Miami, I said, “The Chiefs. Chiefs are going to beat the 49ers.” I didn’t even broker dissent. I said, “Trust me, it will happen.” They did, and then this time I was very resolute about the Bucs, and it wasn’t because I’m a Homer, which I am, but it was … It was, I honestly thought they were playing so much better than anybody else at the time than I thought that they would do.

Now I didn’t think it would be such a big margin, but they played great defensively and deserved a lot of credit for doing that. So I think it’s going to be exciting and if you look at what’s happened in the Tampa Bay area, with the sports, this is really a golden era to be living in Florida, but particularly to be living in the Tampa Bay area, when you look at what the Lighting have done, obviously the Bucs, and last year with the Rays making such a good run that people should really appreciate it. But I think it’s going to be great, and I think we’re going to have a really good season. I also just want to say I was able to see some of the Florida State game, and they played … They played well, and my hat’s off to them. It was a very tough loss. I know a lot of the fans were very excited to be there, and it was exciting for folks. But I just think it’s good to have all this.

Remember, last year we were fighting just to have a football season. I would go meet with these players and there was … because the big 10 canceled the season, and then the Pac-10, Pac-12 canceled the season. So then it was like, okay, well, if the ACC or the SCC goes, and we’re not going to have a season, and we let it be known our ACC and SCC teams, they needed to play and give these kids an opportunity to play. So we were able to do that, and I think that made a huge difference. Here’s the thing. I think we’ve learned now these athletes, a lot of them even with fully vaccinated teams are getting positive tests, but they’re not getting seriously ill.

So I think it’s going to be a really good season. I know they’re going to continue to have to probably do some of these protocols in the NFL, but that should not deter them from doing very, very well. I hope that there’ll be some rationality brought up on this. I mean, if somebody has had COVID and is vaccinated, all these different things, I would hate to see them put out just for getting some type of asymptomatic, positive test. So hopefully, they’ll have some rationality to that, and we’ll be full strength every single day throughout the season. So the best of luck on Thursday to the Buccaneers. Okay, guys. I got to go open another monoclonal site. We’ll see you soon. Thank you.

Speaker 8: (31:16)
Great job. Really great.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis Lakeland Press Conference Transcript

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