After much controversy, the residents of one Broward County town will have a new police department.
There was a public feud between the Broward Sheriff‘s Office and the mayor of Pembroke Park, located in east central Broward County, when the mayor announced they wouldn’t sign up for any more BSO protection even though their own department then wasn’t ready to go.
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WATCH HERENow, he said, that's all that’s changed and the new officers will be on patrol later Friday night.
“We have special agents from FDLE (Florida Department of Law Enforcement). We have retired sergeants," said Leonard Loiacono, the new Pembroke Park Police Sergeant.
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Loiacono can’t wait until midnight — the moment that he and the 20 other officers recently hired will officially take over from the Broward Sheriff’s Office.
Pembroke Park having its own officers will mean faster response times and officers who actually know the neighborhood and what to look out for, Loiacono said.
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“We are going to improve the quality of life for them because our response time and services will be within hopefully within minutes,” he told NBC 6.
“We are going to feel more safe,” said resident Jorge Murena.
BSO showed up when he called authorities, but he and his wife want an officer who knows their street.
"We receive a lot of people that don’t live around this area here," Murena said. "People are complaining that people are going into sheds and we need it here."
But getting to this point hasn’t been easy. Pembroke Park has been getting its police services from BSO for four decades.
“Tonight at midnight after 42 years, the radios will transfer from the Broward Sheriff’s Office to the Pembroke Park Police Department,” said Pembroke Park Mayor Geoffrey Jacobs.
Jacobs firmly believed that having their own police department was the way to go both in terms of protection and money.
“It was clear to me that continuing with the Broward County Sheriff’s Office was not going to happen. We started at that point assembling and organizing and our new department, building the budget, and making it come to fruition,” Jacobs said.
BSO publicly called Jacobs's actions irrational and irresponsible earlier this month when he chose not to move forward without BSO protection while having no guarantee that his department would be ready when the BSO contract expires at midnight Friday.
Jacobs said the last roadblock disappeared when they worked out their communication issue.
“The one holdback that we had was getting our radios connected with Broward County. They were able to achieve that on Tuesday and all our radios are now active,” Jacobs said.
The mayor said his officers have been sworn in and all of the mandates from FDLE have been met. This all kicks in at midnight when the officers at Pembroke Park will be on the road on their own.
