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12/13/2021 - Packet City of Tigard Memorandum To: Members of the Public Safety Advisory Board From: Chief McAlpine Re: Professional Standards Sergeant Date: December 8, 2021 For the last year and a half, the demands for police reform, accountability, and transparency have reached a level not seen in decades, if ever. The national narrative continues to evolve to the point that police agencies across the country must better police themselves and be more responsive to community demands. Just over a year ago when we first created the vision for a Professional Standards Sergeant it was in response to this changing climate. We recognized at the time it was long overdue for an agency of our size. Looking back to 2018 when we lost a lieutenant position to budget cuts, the responsibilities of that position were divided among the remaining 3 lieutenants and 2 commanders. The professional standards role however, fell almost entirely on the investigations/inspections lieutenant. This increased span of control and responsibility simply became too much to execute properly and effectively. Over the past eleven months we have piloted a new position in the Services Division of Professional Standards Sergeant. While this is an entirely new position to the department it has quickly become one that has proven its importance and need. When the initial proposal was made, I envisioned the position being responsible for many tasks. They included, but were not limited to; Professional Standards Investigator, Force Response Incident Reviewer, Department Training Coordinator, SRO Unit Supervisor, PSAB Coordinator/Liaison, PowerDMS Administrator, Department Emergency Operations coordinator. Looking back some of these have proven to be a bit ambitious for one person to take on but the areas we have really benefitted from are invaluable. The key is that the work done in this position becomes more important every day, transparency and accountability is the cornerstone of this position. Community expectations are that we are reviewing ourselves and holding ourselves accountable now more than ever. This has made what became the primary responsibility of doing internal investigations more focused than I imagined at the outset. The sergeant in this role has completed to date, 6 internal investigations concerning Tigard PD employees, 2 investigations at the request of outside agencies where there was a concern of possible criminal implications, and he created and delivered an introduction to internal affairs investigations class to Marion County agencies at their request. For the internal investigations alone the sergeant conducted more than 30 interviews as a part of those. Additionally, he has worked with TPOA leadership to standardize the internal investigation process. This helps to make the process of the investigation itself more predicable to those involved, increase communication, create equity and reduce the level of anxiety often associated with these types of investigations. Of particular note is with the addition of this position we have been able to move to a more transparent process internally. Since the span of control is much smaller for this position and resides in the Services Division, it has allowed for more transparent investigations. As most of the complaints the department receives come in about those in the Operations Division,we have reduced the likelihood that a direct supervisor would be investigating one of their team members to almost zero. By doing this it shows a higher level of accountability with our community in an attempt to exceed their expectations. A primary responsibility is reviewing Force Response Reviews and making training recommendations to the appropriate training teams. These practices are important to the community in that we are checking our practices to ensure what we are doing is meeting the expectations of the community. By having this process in place,where one person reviews all of these, it increases our continuity of review and makes identifying potential negative patterns easier. Thus, providing a quicker path to correcting identified areas of needed improvement. In the area of training,we developed a department training calendar to make sure all necessary training was scheduled. Recognizing that delivering training is expensive, the Sergeant is also responsible for working with program leads to attempt to schedule training creating the least financial impact possible. The Sergeant reviews the training plans prior to submittal to the program lieutenant ensuring all training points identified in the reviews have been included in the training plan. This is an area where we were seriously lacking prior to the advent of this position and moving forward it will become more and more valuable as we get better at delivering training regularly. The position also took over the coordination and planning of all new hire training. This typically requires scheduling two weeks, or more, of training and orientation for new employees. As a part of the assignment associated with training, there have been training directives created associated with recent legal changes. These directives only become more important as the political landscape around police accountability continues to evolve. We continue to monitor these changes and train our officers in a timely manner to understand and meet these new legal standards. Having this role in the department is critical to achieving this new requirement. One of the areas that was also of considerable community interest and concern was the SRO program. This program has seen a significant change due to recent contract changes with the district. The sergeant has overseen the implementation of the new contract ensuring TPD is following all the provisions set forth. He has worked with the school district DEI Coordinator, the individual schools, City of Tigard staff and outside agency partners making sure expectations are being met. By design, this position also attends a variety of trainings to become a subject matter expert in multiple areas. To date, the sergeant has attended training on internal investigations, realistic de- escalation, a SRO training conference, as well as other leadership topics. Since the position is still very new some of the trainings that will be necessary to best fill the role have not yet been offered. Having a subject matter expert in training topics and professional standards is best practice and in the best interest of the community and their expectations as well. We recently began a deeper review of STOP data. This review, when complete,will provide insight into what violations we are stopping people for and ensure we are not targeting certain groups in the community. It is likely this project will take several months to complete as it will require the comparison of many months'worth of data. Overall looking back over the past eleven months, reviewing the work that has been assigned and completed, I have a hard time realizing how we even operated without the position. It has certainly increased the professionalism of the department in a variety of areas and is without a doubt a way to create a greater level of transparency and accountability with the community. It is estimated that the annualized cost for this position is about $174,000 including salary and benefits. We are currently covering the cost through salary savings, but this is not sustainable over the long term. Moving forward the recommendation is to convert the vacant transit sergeant position into the Professional Standards Sergeant position using General Fund monies.