Acting Police Chief, Kevin Hamilton, briefed council on Tuesday night with updates to the Fullerton Police Departments law enforcement methods. Employees throughout the entire department are being trained via a five point program. Every member of the police department dealing with the public has been trained using POST (Peace Officer Standards and Training) Telecourses on homelessness and mental illness. Additionally, field officers have taken an eight hour crisis intervention course administered from D-Prep, LLC. These officers have been required to test both before and after the course in order to assess performance.
Officers have also been working with the training department on the policy regarding use of force and the proper use of Tasers. Since 2009, 14 officers have attended a two-day course at Golden West College covering homelessness and mental illness. Seven more officers have enrolled for the Spring of 2012. Hamilton acknowledged that training 7 out of 144 officers within the department doesn’t seem like much, but that the class is in high demand from other law enforcement agencies, and is highly recommended by the Training Department.
Fullerton PD has revised the methods for accepting citizen complaints. Previously if a person wished to file a complaint against an officer, they would first have to submit the complaint to an office supervisor. That office supervisor would then send it to the offending officer’s superior in order to have the actions corrected. Hamilton announced that the method allowed for complaints to fall through the cracks, and the new policy states that complaints must be sent directly to the involved officer's division commander, and from there watch commander and the internal-affairs bureau, with each step in the process being logged.
Digital audio recorders (DARs) are now required to be on while officers are responding to an incident and should remain on until finished. An amendment will also be added to the policy to have DAR audits conducted randomly. Policy changes are set to be implemented in early 2012.
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