Longboat PD attributes increase in traffic warnings, tickets to more policing

Interim Chief of Police Frank Rubinio reports the Longboat Key Police Department now has a full complement of patrol officers. He said that having the right number of fully trained officers has helped the department boost its patrolling. 

"That's been a big reason you've seen the impact on this," Rubino said. "We were down almost five (officers), which, on a 15-man patrol, that's quite a bit." 

In addition to an increase in citations and patrolling, Rubino said having a stronger presence of officers on the island has helped decrease incidents like car burglaries. 

"We used to get trends where (burglars) would come in here and just wipe us out," Rubino said. "Now that they see as many officers out there on the street patrolling, stopping, we're not seeing that." 

According to Rubino, almost no vehicle burglaries occurred in the last year and a half. 

Courtesy image

Rubino added increased training has been one of the biggest positives in the department in the past year. 

In 2024, the department reported its officers completed over 2,000 hours of in-house service training. 

This includes training like high visibility enforcement training for pedestrian and bicyclist safety. This training prepared officers to conduct additional directed patrols throughout Longboat Key focused on enforcing pedestrian traffic regulations and maintaining safe crossings. 

From 2023 to 2024, the department increased the number of field training officers from one to 11, which gives the department more personnel to train new hires in the field. 

Additionally, the department went from one trained marine patrol officer in 2023 to now having five. 

Photo by Carter Weinhofer

Rubino hopes the number continues to grow so the department can reduce response times for marine calls. If more on-duty officers are trained for marine patrol, it increases the likelihood a trained officer is near one of the department's vessels. 

However, the department is still waiting for one of its three lifts on the island to be repaired. The dock for the department's lift on the north end of the island was destroyed in the hurricanes, which needs to be replaced and is in the design phase. 

The department also increased the number of personnel certified to train personnel in areas like taser training, elder abuse scam recognition and speed measurement. 

The town's fiscal year quarters begin with the adoption of the new budget in October. Quarter 1 is from October through December. When talking about the first quarter in FY25, then, that means October through December of 2024. 

The largest increase from the first quarter of 2024 to the first quarter of 2025 is the number of accidents without injuries. 

Rubino said this was because Q1 in 2025 was when residents were returning to the island after Hurricanes Helene and Milton. 

"The first quarter of 2025 is when the hurricanes hit, and a lot of our vendors, a lot of the construction workers were backing into mailboxes, they were hitting other cars," Rubino said. "We took a lot of reports during the first quarter of FY25."