For the first time in decades, the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office has a new district, thanks to more people making the area their home. Law enforcement said the addition of District V will decrease their response times.
Even though Master Sergeant Jeff Massaro has been doing his job for years, this is still in a sense, his first day.
“So far this morning, everything went, very smooth,” Massaro said.
He’s a supervisor in the newest Hillsborough County Sheriff’s district. Master Sergeant Massaro said the boundary changes will make a big difference to people living in the community.
“When we’re engaged in the community, when the community feels like they’re they have a voice with us, that has a positive impact across every aspect,” he said.
District V includes most of Brandon. It’s 69 square miles, the smallest one, but a lot of people live here.
“The population’s very concentrated so with that small area in which a deputy has to cover they should be able to shave minutes and seconds off their response time,” Major Kyle Robinson said.
Now, supervisors should oversee 10-12 deputies, instead of 15-16 like they did before Monday’s launch. Now workloads can be spread out more evenly.
“Detectives assigned to auto burglary, detectives assigned to auto theft, burglary of a residence, burglary of business, by creating this new division and district, those detectives should have a smaller caseload,” Major Robinson said.
Master Sergeant Massaro said, he hopes this will be an opportunity to bond with the community he serves.
“Let them have a name with a face for our agency so that when something does come up and they need us they feel like they can call us, like they’re calling a friend for help, that’s the ultimate goal,” he said.
This re-division has been in the works since 2015.
