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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2020 06 09 Letter RE: Police Department StatusCITY OF WINTER SPRINGS, FLORIDA SHAWN BOYLE City Manager June 9, 2020 1126 East State Road 434 Winter Springs, FL 32708 Re: Police Department Status 1126 EAST STATE ROAD 434 WINTER SPRINGS, FLORIDA 32708-2799 Telephone (407) 327-1800 www.winterspringsfi.org Honorable Mayor and Commission: The City of Winter Springs takes the protection of our citizens' rights very seriously. The recent events that occurred in Minneapolis remind us that compassion and training is a journey, not a destination. We can only achieve the desired results of protecting and serving the public through continual evaluation and improvement of our processes. As such, we feel it is important to discuss the operation of our police department, the department's core values, and the steadfast commitment to the community that our officers and personnel have held for over the last sixty years. This our home and we are proud to serve the residents and businesses of Winter Springs. Throughout the years, our department has renewed its focus as a customer service based agency. This evolution includes establishing internal accountability, fostering community ties, meeting with residents and business owners, and expanding our reach through service programs. Without a professional and dedicated community policing agency, a community cannot thrive. Conversely, without the support of the community, police departments fail. To become a member of this team, we require certain personality traits. We regularly search for these traits in applicants and, in an absence of these traits, we have released probationary officers from full-time retention. We have maintained a high level of expectation for the "right fit" even through times of high turnover and a lack of qualified candidates. Our pre -employment process is second -to -none. Recruiting, processing, and candidate screenings are detailed and involve several department and leadership levels of approval. This will not change, as it is critical to have the best of the best at our agency and to ensure our officers know how to communicate, deescalate situations, and utilize strong conflict resolution strategies. Recently we have received questions from citizens and special interest groups alike demanding a "call to action" on the part of community leaders to address topics focused on police department reforms and methodologies used to do the work of the people we serve. The core competencies of successful law enforcement leaders demand that we not only monitor our own operations but also to find ways to improve customer service and adjust or review current policies. Policy Manuals and Standard Operation Procedures are living documents by nature and should never be unattended for long. Policy review and comprehensive reporting are part of our daily and regular function and is required to maintain our accreditation. We have been accredited since 2003 and are an excelsior agency with the Commission for Florida Law Enforcement Accreditation (CFA). An agency does not achieve and maintain this status without solid policies, reviews, and training for its personnel. Some facts and numbers for consideration from the period of June 2010 until June 2020: • All officers and City personnel are required to attend diversity and harassment classes • All officers are required to attend regular Discriminatory Profiling & Professional Traffic Stops training All officers are required to attend regular Domestic Violence training • All officers are required to attend regular Human Trafficking Investigative training • All officers are required to attend regular Juvenile Sexual Offender Investigative training • All officers are required to attend regular Physiological Response Dynamics training • Annually, officers are required to complete in-service training for the use of force (updates on changes to laws and refreshers for statutory regulations) • 211,049- represents the approximate number of police reports taken where we have documented citizen contacts, including traffic stops and physical arrest situations • 5,754 — Represents the number of arrests the police department has made during that time • 198 — Represents the total number of times officers have been forced to respond to resistance from citizens during those encounters. Only two of these are deadly force applications which were reviewed and found to comply with policy and state law. One was in 2011 involving a motor vehicle attempting to strike officers while fleeing from a felony scene and the other from 2016 where a suspect in a case involving inappropriate acts on a child armed himself with a knife and advanced on officers there to question him. There have been no suspect deaths while in our custody. • 0.094% - represents the percentage of our total citizen encounters resulting in any application of any defensive action at all. This is a direct result of proper selection, training, and development of our sworn police officers. Our members are purposeful, compassionate, professional, respectful, and polished caretakers of our community who know what to do and do it right. City leadership and the Winter Springs Police Department remain committed to our mission of working alongside our community for the common good. Respectfully, •t J Shawn yle Chris Deisler Ci anager Chief of Police