Florida’s Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) has followed through on his promise to respect law enforcement and announced $5,000 bonuses to Cape Coral officers.
DeSantis had previously pledged to give bonuses to newly recruited law enforcement officers or cops who wanted to transfer to Florida from other states.
The governor announced on Saturday that he has started awarding the bonuses to Florida’s latest recruits.
“We understand the vital, vital role that law enforcement plays in a situation like this [hurricane response], of course, because if you look at the people that were helping rescue folks, you had police officers, sheriff’s deputies, you had state agencies, the Coast Guard,” DeSantis said.
“But you also just have daily life — even apart from a spectacular disaster like we’ve just suffered — you want to have safe streets. You want to have safe communities. That used to be something in this country that we universally expected and had in most places.
“You have some places in this country that are operated almost like third world countries with the crime just totally out of control.
“When that happens, the whole society starts to fray,” he warned.
“Morale is very low, and we’ve seen the morale — really since the Floyd riots — has been probably the lowest we’ve seen in a long time.
“And so we saw an opportunity in Florida to say, you know, we want to reward people who are going into this profession.
“We want to value people that are going into this profession.:
“So if you’re coming from one of those states or one of those other cities where you’re not being treated well and you come to take a job in any of our departments you qualify for a $5,000 bonus and not just for people coming from out of state.
“If you have new people within Florida who have not been in law enforcement and they make the decision to go into law enforcement, they are also eligible for the bonuses that we were able to enact.
“And so, you know, there’s some places where law enforcement’s targeted,” he said.
“We’re doing the $5,000 dollar bonus here, which is going out in a much better direction.
“I think people appreciate it. So we have folks here today that are gonna be rewarded with these $5,000 bonus checks.
“And so they all came on board Cape Coral PD sometime this year.
“Some of them only a couple months ago, they got a baptism by fire having to go through Hurricane Ian.
“These are gonna be the first, so the legislature passed the law in the session. I signed it. It took effect July 1.”
Was happy to hand deliver $5,000 bonuses this week to six newly recruited officers who came down from states like New York and Maryland. These new Cape Coral Police Officers stepped up and served their community through the Hurricane Ian response. pic.twitter.com/ABhkqqx5je
— Ron DeSantis (@GovRonDeSantis) October 15, 2022
