Speaker 1: 0:00

This episode sponsored by Kathy L Wall State Farm Agency. Learn more at KathyLWALLcom. And Stuart Arango Oral Surgery. Learn more at SAOeralsurgeonscom. Welcome to the Bubble Lounge. I'm Martha Jackson and you know how they say it's not a party until the cops show up. Well, today in the Bubble Lounge, the cops have shown up. We have Highland Park Chief of Police Chuck McGinnis and Lieutenant Lance Coppa joining us to talk about safety tips in the neighborhood and how they are working to better serve our community every day. This is a great episode. They share a lot of funny stories and practical tips that everyone needs to know, so make sure you listen, especially to the end, when we share a story about the great dog bull theft. Chief McGinnis and Lieutenant Coppa. Welcome to the show.

Speaker 2: 0:53

Thank you, oh, thank you.

Speaker 1: 0:55

Can you each introduce yourselves and just give a little bit of background of your past and how you got to Highland Park and why did you choose law enforcement?

Speaker 2: 1:04

Sure, I'm Chuck McGinnis. I'm currently the Director of Public Safety for the town of Highland Park, I think going way back. I've always had a desire to serve. My choice was either go to the military my dad persuaded me against that. He was in the military for 40 years, which I'm super proud of, he's super proud of but he wanted me to get an education. So I got my bachelor's degree from the University of Texas at Arlington in criminal justice and I decided to go into public service that route.

Speaker 2: 1:36

I had intentions of being a police officer first, but I actually started as a firefighter paramedic in Duncanville. When I got to Duncanville I met a guy in paramedic school who worked for Highland Park and he said man, you need to come up to Highland Park, you're missing out. And so I came up here in 2003, and I've been here ever since. So a little over 20 years. But here I got to be a police officer, firefighter, paramedic, because we're all cross-trained and it's been a ride. I've done everything you can do in the department pretty much. I've went from being a patrol officer to being an investigator, to being a sergeant, then a lieutenant, a captain. I worked my way all the way up to assistant chief and now director of public safety. I spent seven years on a regional SWAT team so that was really fun. But yeah, that's how that was kind of my journey and how I got here.

Speaker 1: 2:33

Wow, that's quite the background.

Speaker 3: 2:35

My name's Lance Coppa. I appreciate you having us here today. Many of your listeners will probably know me as Officer Lance from the many things that I've been involved with with the schools and volunteer organizations in the community, so this has been a wonderful ride and a fantastic adventure for me personally. Our route to get here, oh my goodness. So I went to like the chief.

Speaker 3: 2:54

I went to UTA, got a degree in criminal justice and my desire to become a police officer that light dimmed when I was a senior and so I worked in private security for a while, worked for a nonprofit dropout prevention program for a while, and then, while I was a security officer working at a museum, there was a terrorist threat.

Speaker 3: 3:14

Scott threatened to place a bomb at this museum and so I followed him and called for PD. They came out, they made the arrest and following up to that arrest, I had to give a witness statement to a detective and the detective was talking to me about my background and he said why don't you just become a police officer? And that's what I originally desired to do, and it is a calling much like nursing or the ministries. You're called to this profession and that's when my lot was lit again, and I'm a date myself. But I started looking through the Sunday paper for who's hiring and, lo and behold, Highland Park had a little small square ad and, my goodness, I made it through the process and it is a tough process to get through, and that was back in 2000. So this is going on year 24 for me.

Speaker 1: 4:06

Wow, you guys both have quite the tenure here at Highland Park.

Speaker 3: 4:10

Yes.

Speaker 1: 4:11

Well, I understand there's been some changes and promotions within the department. Can you tell us about that?

Speaker 2: 4:16

Yeah, thankfully, for the first time in 40 years, our mayor and town council graciously approved.

Speaker 2: 4:23

We had a staffing study done and what it determined was is to provide the service model that the citizens expect from the town of Highland Park for the public safety.

Speaker 2: 4:32

We were understaffed and we'd been pushing for more staffing for years and years and finally we got it approved. And so, for the first time since 1982, we increased staffing levels. And where we also noticed that we fell short is how to manage three different disciplines and how to correctly function and keep up with all the certifications and all the requirements on the state mandated levels. So we created some new positions to be in charge of each discipline. Those positions are the deputy chief of police, deputy chief of fire, deputy chief of EMS and deputy chief of operations, and their jobs are specifically tuned to those realms, meaning that they are going to be the ones that are keeping track of the training for each discipline. They are the ones that are going to be keeping track of the certification requirements for each discipline and such. And we're not through all this change yet, but we're working towards it and it's already paying off in dividends.

Speaker 1: 5:34

Well, that sounds amazing. Congratulations on getting more staffing. That's a lot to manage and maintain and to have heads of each area, I think is amazing. Now, why are you all cross-trained in all areas?

Speaker 2: 5:46

Honestly, we're cross-training for this to provide the service model that the residents want, and so we tossed around the idea of maybe just switching it to becoming a police department and a fire department. But what the citizens want is they want somebody to be able to show up at their door who can handle any situation at any given time within two minutes, which is what we can offer with our service model, and so that's why we chose collectively not to move away from that service model for the residents. We want to be able to not only provide them with the service that they love, but to be the best at it, to be the best police officer, the best fireman and the best EMS professional in the industry, not just a cross-trained industry.

Speaker 1: 6:27

Well, that really ties in. We talk about this a lot on the podcast. It's one of the main things that we love about this community is that strong sense of community and how we all look out for each other, and I you know. Like they always say, it takes the village.

Speaker 2: 6:39

Yeah, that's exactly right and that's one of the unique things about working in the Harlem Park is I get to. We don't have this in the community I live in, but I get to experience every day, coming to work, the sense of community and the sense of feel that the residents have here and you know, being a good neighbor goes into a lot of public safety and looking out for one another and calling when you see something that looks out of place, you see something that looks abnormal. That goes a lot into public safety and people tend to forget that nowadays and that's something that really helps us do our job.

Speaker 1: 7:11

Right, right. Well, for example, on my block we have a group text and we just keep each other in the loop if anything is going on, and I think that that's really important. Now it's normally there's these two really aggressive guys that are roofers and they start at one and then they work their way down. So the first person usually text us and like heads up maybe not answer your door, because they're like really aggressive about wanting to come on your roof and come check it out, especially after a storm.

Speaker 2: 7:34

Yeah, and I would just suggest in situations like that, even if you've got a group message going between your neighbors, just call us. We'll come out and check the people to make sure that they have their permits, that they need to be able to be going door to door and to see if they're up to something else. Yeah, sure.

Speaker 1: 7:51

Sometimes they are Well. I think being a good neighbor is just so important and we've been so fortunate on my block I'm in UP. It's just been a wonderful community and I loved all my neighbors. But I think just being a good neighbor is very important. You know things like keeping your noise down. If your dog's barking outside, bring them in and all that kind of thing. And my neighbors are really good about saying we're having a party or we're doing construction just heads up. You know there's going to be a lot of extra cars in front of our house and I think just keeping each other kind of in the loop is really important.

Speaker 2: 8:23

Yeah, I think that's a key to it all is if you kind of just communicate with each other and communicate with us, we're more than happy to return the favor and we'll continue the interview after this short break.

Speaker 1: 8:39

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Speaker 1: 9:13

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Speaker 1: 10:03

Visit SAOralSurgeonscom. That's SAOralSurgeonscom, well. So we were talking before the show a lot about safety and I was kind of joking with you that my teenage son just makes fun of me when I say you know, be sure to lock the doors, set the alarm, do this and that, and he's like mom, like we live in such a rough neighborhood. But there's a lot that actually happens in this little community that we just need to be aware of.

Speaker 2: 10:30

Yeah, and I mean for, for example, I think in the last year, we've taken 70 something guns off the street. We've made over 50 felony arrests in 2.2 square miles. That's just Highland Park, and that's that's arrest for crimes against person, that's arrest for drugs, that's arrest for, you know, possession of firearms by felons. We've recovered stolen vehicles from our town, from University Park, from Dallas, and, and University Park does the same. I mean, I think that the, the combined effort from the two agencies and the ability to work together, really makes the park cities what it is.

Speaker 1: 11:08

Right, Well, we just think of it as kind of this sleepy little town within Dallas and not a lot happens, but we've had high speed chases come through the neighborhood and and all the things that you're talking about. And you two actually shared a really interesting story with me of a operation that you took down in Highland Park Village.

Speaker 2: 11:27

So that I'll preempt this by saying this was. This was many, many years ago. This was probably at least 15, maybe more years ago now, and Lance Copa sat next to me and myself. We joke about it, but we, we said that we shut down the Russian mafia for a day, and it's a. It's a funny story because you know, you think, highland Park, what, what could go, what could happen Exactly.

Speaker 2: 11:52

But this was a coordinated effort by this gentleman who actually worked for the mafia to return stolen merchandise with fake receipts and accumulate thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars, that that we were able to catch him, get the merchandise, return it back to the stores and confiscate all that money. And so he had all the money rolled up in a center console. You know maps of everything on his locations, of where he was going to stop, on the way to and from the different state that he was coming from. He was in a rental car that was in somebody else's name. I mean, this is all. At the time I was a very new officer and so there's a lot of exciting stuff that happens here. That's just one instance that comes to mind.

Speaker 1: 12:37

Well, what when? I knew it happened a long time ago, as you mentioned that they had Banana Republic receipts, and it's been quite a while since there's been a Banana Republic in there.

Speaker 2: 12:46

Yeah, yeah, they. I think I don't know when they went out of business. It's a while ago.

Speaker 1: 12:50

Yeah, there's been a lot of changes at the village, that's for sure. Well, so we talked earlier about teens. I happen to have two teens and I think a lot of times the teens in the neighborhood get kind of a bad rap. And you recently spoke to my son's YMSL group, young Men's Service League, and you had a lot of takeaways, lieutenant, that you could pass along to others.

Speaker 3: 13:14

Sure. So I really enjoy coming out and meeting with the YMSL Fantastic nonprofit pairing moms with their sons to do volunteer work and outreach, and they're allowed to pick the organizations and the things that they would like to do. And part of it is engaging with individuals in the community, such as myself law enforcement and so I get invited out every so often and I do have my talking points, and the Teenage Group is a group that we're highly interested in connecting with. It seems and I used the example earlier that we're seen as the hall monitor. You know we're driving around on patrol patrol cars, but you know, in a sense, the and you talked about being a good neighbor that's the place that we come from, because it could be their call to us reporting suspicious activity that put our officers in the place that they need to be and make an apprehension because there is a crime taking place, or even stop a crime from occurring.

Speaker 3: 14:12

The other part of that is the being a good neighbor, and you might have a neighbor that lives alone and doesn't have any family and they can reach out to us and we'll go and check on them. And then you know, the other part of that is individuals at that age are very curious. If they're new drivers, well, how fast can I drive, you know? Or how fast can you go over the speed limit? And but part of that is in connecting with us in uniforms, that they see Lance's Lance, who happens to be a police officer, firefighter, paramedic and we want them to see the personal side of it and then also highly encourage, you know, healthy choices, honesty with the parents. You know being transparent. You know things happen and but know just that our place is to provide the best service to them as well, because they're members of the community. You know whether they live here, work here, pass through, it doesn't matter.

Speaker 1: 15:06

Right, well, there are future.

Speaker 3: 15:09

Absolutely and in some groups, ask a lot of really fantastic questions. I never go one meeting without hearing something brand new. One recent young adult reached out to me and had some other questions, which which we encourage and want them to do. So they can call my office and I'll be happy to chit chat with them, and their parents as well, if they have a follow up question to the presentation.

Speaker 1: 15:32

Well, I love that. I love that you're so accessible, and I think that means the world to them.

Speaker 3: 15:37

Yes.

Speaker 1: 15:37

Well, I jokingly always tell my teens they can't get away with anything around here because we all know each other and even if you don't know who's over there on the sidewalk, chances are they know you. And my son's always amazed at how much information I do get and repeat back to him. But again that ties back to that sense of community that we have here. We're all looking out for each other and I love all the tips that you shared with the teens.

Speaker 3: 16:02

Well, thank you, and you know the the tech stream that you were talking about in Highland Park, we don't have. We don't have a formal crime watch. We have a huge informal crime watch, and so we have self appointed block captains who share information that we sent out, and so that's the neighbors keeping in touch with their neighbors, and that really helps us collectively deliver a better service.

Speaker 1: 16:24

Right, right. Do you have a product or business you want to introduce to families in Highland Park? Then we want to work with you. With over 140,000 listeners and more than 200 episodes and a strong Instagram community, the Bubble Lounge podcast is the perfect way to connect with families in the park cities. Visit bubble lounge dot net to learn more. Well, when there is an emergency, who should we call? Because it's my understanding, at least in UP, that if we call 911, it gets rerouted and kind of adds a little bit of extra time.

Speaker 3: 16:57

There's a possibility that a 911 call from a cell phone, not a landline, could get routed to a department outside of Highland Park, or if you're in University Park, university Park and so it's routed to City of Dallas and so that 911 call has to be transferred back. And so my tip for individuals who live in Highland Park and need to get in touch with Highland Park Public Safety, whether it's police, fire, ems you call 911 from your cell phone. If an operator from University Park or the City of Dallas answers, then you just immediately say I need to be transferred to Highland Park. The other part of that is you can put our direct phone line, which goes right into dispatch, into your phone and save it under Highland Park DPS, and that number is 214-521-5000.

Speaker 3: 17:49

And we'd also like to add is that we prefer voice calls, but you can in situations where you're not able to speak and you have an emergency, as you can text to 911. And that text services, university Park has it, city of Dallas has it Farmers Branch, carrollton. So you can text the 911 and if you're in a place where you can't talk and it pops up a screen and dispatch, and the dispatchers will immediately start communicating with you and to give them kind of the props that they have really earned is that the first responders for the first responders are our communication specialists in dispatch and the job that they do is phenomenal. They're multitasking professionals and they handle radio traffic, phone call traffic, getting information added to our calls for service, and they do this seamlessly and it's pretty amazing to watch.

Speaker 1: 18:44

Well, that's good to know, because I think most of us don't know that we can text and how that all works. So I think that's really important information for everyone to know.

Speaker 3: 18:52

Yes, and we had. We did our most recent that I can think of text to 911 was from a young adult who thought her dad's car was getting broken into, and so our communication specialists, via text, communicated back and forth with her and allowed us to have two officers work in a coordinated effort to come up to make sure that the car was clear, and it was.

Speaker 1: 19:15

Oh, very nice. Do you mind repeating the number one more time?

Speaker 3: 19:18

Yes, the number to call for non-emergency this is the direct line into Highland Park DPS is 214-521-5000.

Speaker 1: 19:28

And I'll include it in the show notes so you all have it as well. A lot of us have been kind of conditioned since we were kids to not call the police unless it's an absolute emergency. And it's hard to know what should and shouldn't fall into that emergency category. But tell me what your philosophy is on that.

Speaker 2: 19:46

Well, I would say to first change your mentality and your thinking on that. I think that if you notice something that doesn't appear right, if you notice something that is not normal, then call us.

Speaker 1: 19:57

Say something. Say something like they always say.

Speaker 2: 19:59

That's exactly right. If you see something, say something, give us a call, even if it's on the non-emergency line. Like Lieutenant Copa just gave you the 214-521-5000 number, we can come check it out. And when we get there, if it turns out to be a police matter, ems matter or a fire matter, we're trained to handle all three of those situations. And University Park if you call their number, they will send the appropriate apparatus or the appropriate people to come out there and inspect what's going on.

Speaker 1: 20:28

And this really ties in with the new vision that you have for the department.

Speaker 2: 20:31

Yeah, and so what the expectation is is we're trying to professionalize each discipline. I work with some spectacular men and women in our department who are just the bravest individuals, the smartest individuals and the most capable individuals that I've ever been around, and so it kind of makes my job easy. But what we're trying to do is really professionalize each discipline on where we want to go, and we really want to be the best and provide the best service to the residents and the people that come through our town, and so to do that, we have to have the proper training, we have to have the proper mentality, we have to have the proper mindset on coming to work and doing our job every day and providing service and having a servant's heart to be able to give the people what they expect and what they love. And that's really where we're going as an organization is to be not only capable but professional and competent at each three of our disciplines and moving forward from here.

Speaker 1: 21:28

Well, I just. You all are doing an amazing job, both Highland Park and University Park. I mean to have a less than two minute response time. We were joking earlier. When we have false alarms, we really can't even turn them off before you guys show up at our front door.

Speaker 2: 21:41

Yeah, and I think that that's something to remember. So when we say we have a two minute response time, that's because we have officers on patrol that are trained in each discipline and that two minutes is going to be a squad car more than likely shown up at your door, even if it's a fire EMS call, and so I think that it's important to remember that if you see a Highland Park squad car running lights and sirens through town, it may not necessarily be a police matter. It may be somebody who is having some type of health situation or structure fire investigation or something like that that that particular officer is responding to.

Speaker 1: 22:16

Hey friends, if you love this episode or you're a fan of the Bubble Lounge podcast, follow us on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Just tap the follow button at the top of the screen if you're a fan of the Bubble Lounge. And, even better, send me a text message with the word bubble to 469-757-2500. Once you've just opened your messages, type in my number, 469-757-2500, with the message bubble. Once you send me a text, I will add you to our list and send you a text message whenever a new episode is published. So follow us on Apple Podcasts and make sure to send me a text so you'll never miss an episode. Well, let's talk about safety in the schools. I saw that the high school had its own police car, which I had never noticed before, and I know that you all have amped up your presence at all the schools and really appreciate that. By the way, I think it makes us all feel so much better. But tell us how you're working together with HPISD.

Speaker 2: 23:11

Yeah, so, if you didn't know, hpisd has their own police force now, for a few years actually, and you know, unfortunately, through the years we've learned a lot of lessons from active shooter events that happened throughout the country recently Uvaldi and it really made us come together as, instead of individual agencies.

Speaker 2: 23:32

We work a lot now and before we worked a lot, but we really focused on school safety and to do that we partner with HPISD, pd, university Park PD, smu, pd and Dallas, and so if there is an active shooter event, what we've worked hard to do is to bridge the gap of communication barriers between departments, and recently, within the last three years, we've incorporated a radio system to be able to allow us to do that. So now every department can communicate on one channel, which before that was not a thing. And so, and if, when you go back and you look at the Uvaldi incident and things like that, the major breakdown was communications Not being able to communicate with departments, not knowing who's in charge, and so we've really solidified that, we've really maintained those relationships with the other departments in a fashion that we know what the response is going to look like, we know how to set up, we know how to talk to each other and we know where the incident needs to move to.

Speaker 1: 24:44

And this is all part of the ongoing training that you all do.

Speaker 2: 24:47

Yeah, and so all of our officers, along with University Park officers, hpisd officers, smu officers, we're all trained in active shooter and that's part of the certification now with any police officer in the country, as there's a standard and so everybody is playing on the same sheet of music and that's what. That's what makes this a better coordinated effort to be able to handle an event.

Speaker 1: 25:11

Well, I love that. Thank you so much for all that you're doing with the schools, because I think that makes us all feel so much better as parents.

Speaker 2: 25:16

Absolutely.

Speaker 1: 25:17

Well, let's end with safety tips. I was saying earlier that we I think a lot of us have kind of a false sense of security around here. We don't always lock our doors, we leave valuables in our cars, and can you just share some of your final words of advice to stay safe in the neighborhood?

Speaker 2: 25:32

Well, I'm really gonna let Lance because his is his specialty and his passion talking about crime prevention, but I will. I will just say the majority of our crimes are property crimes in Highland Park and the majority of our crimes come from unlocked doors on cars and unlocked doors and on houses and open garage doors.

Speaker 1: 25:50

Crimes of opportunities. Crimes of opportunity.

Speaker 2: 25:52

Just lock your cars, lock your doors, close your garage doors, especially when you're not home.

Speaker 1: 25:57

Sounds easy enough to me. So, lance, what about you? Share your tips?

Speaker 3: 26:01

Well, as the chief mentioned, I crime prevention is in my wheelhouse and I'm very passionate about it and write and distribute the Blue Zone news with the assistance of another colleague. Her name is Holly and and over, and this is I'm going into my 24th year in law enforcement, and so the tips I provide even are tips that we could have been using 40 years ago and so, and households that are very active and busy, with kids coming and going, often those doors probably get left on lock. If they're just throwing the football, if they have a bunch of friends over and they're just sitting on the patio, the front yard maybe eliminates saying any number of things. But a good idea is just a routine that you have to adjust behaviors to keep your, your physical property safe, making sure all your doors are locked. Key fobs need to be inside the inside the house, not left inside of a car.

Speaker 3: 26:56

Do not store valuables inside your car in plain view, because those are crimes of opportunity and you know, for those that do carry handguns is just really have. Don't leave them in there, because we have several cars to get broken into. That's one of the things they're looking for and there is a type of organization when they're coming in looking for opportunities, and that would be you have a driver who drops off three people and they walk blocks and they're just pulling on door handles and so being aware of scams, because we can be victimized through tech, text messages, phone calls, utility worker imposters, so that general type of awareness and so when I say like behavior adjustment, it would be those things to come into a routine, to keep anything locked and not storing valuables inside your car. And then you know the other part of that too is when you see something that just does not look normal is call us because it could be. Your phone call not only allows us to make an apprehension but recover stolen property, return that to the victim right.

Speaker 1: 28:00

Well, I think it's so easy to appear to be an imposter, especially for utility company. All you have to do is put a fluorescent vest on and, like you said, if it doesn't feel right, just give you guys a call yes.

Speaker 3: 28:11

And then another example too I like to share and I used to work off duty to grocery store is this distraction theft targeting females? Handbag left in the shopping cart and so if the handbag is left open, somebody will distract the victim suspect to then removes just the wallet. So the handbag remains in the shopping cart, so everything appears to be normal until they get to the front checkout. And then it's that point, they find out that oh, there's already been charges on the credit card, so it's best to keep that handbag. She cured over your shoulder and my father-in-law used to say purse, but he goes, you purse your lips, you carry a handbag.

Speaker 1: 28:51

I still call it a purse. Well, I think these are excellent tips and I really appreciate you sharing them, because you really never know when your designer dog bull might be stolen oh my goodness.

Speaker 3: 29:01

Okay, so years, years ago, I responded to a call of a theft and it was of a custom dot water dog bull and and it was, they had a picture of it. It's really attractive and they happen to have cameras situated where the dog dish was placed, so we had good video of the suspect vehicle and the suspect. And, having not ever responded to a call like that, and though it was important to try to get the property back, because I wrote a very, very detailed narrative I think it was three paragraphs along and it was very colorful but anyway I was proud to say that it made skull duggery the week following week well, I'm sure those are the kind of calls you'd rather have, even though they're a little bit entertaining yes, and you know, unfortunately for the victim in this case we never did recover the dog bull.

Speaker 3: 29:48

But anyway, those types of tests do happen absolutely well.

Speaker 1: 29:52

Gentlemen, thank you so much for being here today and taking the time out of your day. I really appreciate it. You shared so much great information that I think is going to help so many in the community thank you very welcome that's been another episode of the bubble lounge. I'm Martha Jackson and we'll catch you next time.