Manatee Sheriff's Office captain takes us for a ride

LAKEWOOD RANCH — Two days a week, Capt. Lorenzo Waiters, of the Manatee County Sheriff’s Office, rolls into Lakewood Ranch in his unmarked black Chevy Tahoe to support his deputies in patrolling the area.

With the click of an all-powerful, universal gate opener, Waiters has access to every Lakewood Ranch community.

On a normal day, Waiters insists, action happens (although sometimes he can still fit in a hair cut at Barbary Shoppe on Lakewood Ranch Main Street).

“There’s never I day where I get zero things to respond to,” said Waiters, who started in the sheriff’s office as a 14-year-old enrolled in its “Explore” program.

His activity, and the activity of his staff, increased in October through mid-November, when the sheriff’s office patrolled Lakewood Ranch more heavily.

Those were not normal days, Waiters said.

From Oct. 16 to Nov. 16, six burglaries occurred in the North 80 sector, which spans from I-75 to Lorraine Road and State Road 70 to University Parkway.

Every Tuesday, Sheriff Brad Steube meets with his management staff, including Waiters, to discuss how to distribute deputies for patrols.

“We decided to flood the Lakewood Ranch area with more manpower (because of the burglaries),” Waiters said.

Before the Sarasota County Sheriff’s Office made arrests related to the cases, Manatee County assigned deputies to work overtime to help patrol Lakewood Ranch.

Two to four deputies roamed Lakewood Ranch every day.

In addition, eight deputies provided undercover surveillance, watching neighborhoods by foot or on bike.
Work in Lakewood Ranch returned to normal Nov. 16, the day the suspects in the burglaries were arrested.

There was one home burglary in Lakewood Ranch Golf and Country Club in January.

The sheriff’s office has continued with its normal Lakewood Ranch patrols, with a sergeant or lieutenant backing up the two deputies, and Waiters, there to help, as needed.

During a Jan. 30 ride-along with Waiters, his patrol offered little action, except for chance to respond to a traffic crash at Lorraine Road and State Road 70, after hearing the call come in from the Florida Highway Patrol on his radio.

Like all sheriff’s office employees who are fitted with a black laptop in the front of their vehicle, Waiters could see which officers were responding to a specific event and where the incident occurred.

But not like everyone else, using his captain authority, Waiters assigned himself to cover the crash because the two deputies roving Lakewood Ranch were farther away.

From 11:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m., Waiters crept his Chevy — all captains drive unmarked vehicles — from street to street and shopping center to shopping center in Lakewood Ranch, beginning with Royal Birkdale Circle and then, Pebble Beach Way, in the Lakewood Ranch Golf and Country Club.

He drives with the windows down “because above all, my personality is that I love people,” and he doesn’t act like a cop.

Waiters is a natural talker. He’s the president of the Florida Association of hostage negotiators, and has possessed the skill of negotiating since training at the sheriff’s office 25 years ago.

When a man and woman pull up next to him, chide him for the undercover vehicle and ask if he’s armed (he is), Waiters plays along.

Each home he passes, Waiters wishes he could knock on the front door and recommend to the homeowner how to better protect his property.

There’s the one home, with the bushy shrubbery that blocks the view of a front window.

“A burglar can hide behind trees and bushes,” Waiters said. “Someone on the street should always have full view of the windows.”

Trees should be no taller than 7 feet, Waiters said. Hedges should be no more than 3-feet high.

Homes should have motion sensors at all four corners of the property.

Alarm signs that people stick in the dirt outside the front of a home actually deter criminals, Waiters says.

The sheriff’s office provides free home security inspections, at the request of the homeowner.

“These are easy things to do that cost little money,” Waiters said. “I don’t want you to feel like you’re a prisoner in your home, but you should feel secure.”

When he drives through the Publix-anchored shopping centers at Lakewood Ranch Boulevard and State Road 70 and Market Street, he makes similar observations about shoppers, thinking aloud that it would be intelligent to conceal a purse or wallet when unloading groceries into the car.

Waiters did not respond to any incidents during a three-hour stretch of patrolling, but interacted with a community he knows well.

“It’s good to see the people on a friendly basis,” Waiters said. “It tells them they have my support.”

Burglary arrests
The Sarasota County Sheriff’s Office, which assisted the Manatee County Sheriff’s Office in solving a batch of burglaries east of Interstate 75 from October through November, arrested a couple who both departments believe were responsible for many of those burglaries.

Steven Pitts and Mayra Jimenez were arrested Nov. 16, in Sarasota.

They were responsible, the sheriff offices allege, for multiple burglaries at pricey residences — ones in which burglars smashed through the rear sliding glass door of homes to get inside.

“We did not charge them with any of ours (in Manatee) because we didn’t have the evidence, but we know they were doing them,” said Dave Bristow, public information officer for the Manatee County Sheriff’s Office. “The burglaries have stopped drastically after those arrests.”

A day in the life: Capt. Lorenzo Waiters
Jan. 30:
8 a.m. — Attends meeting at the sheriff’s office operations center

11 a.m. — Responds to traffic crash at Lorraine Road and State Road 70

11:30 a.m. — Patrols Lakewood Ranch

3 p.m. — Attends procedural meeting at District 3 office (his homebase) in Ellenton

4 p.m. — Completes paper work

4:30 p.m. — Prepares to go home, if possible

*Note- Waiters is on-call 24/7. On most days, he fits in a workout during his lunch break.

Contact Josh Siegel at [email protected].