NAPO participates in National Officer Safety and Wellness Group Meeting
On Oct. 26, NAPO participated in a meeting of the National Officer Safety and Wellness( OSW) Group, which is comprised of federal, state and local law enforcement associations, research organizations and the Community Oriented Policing Services( COPS) Office, Bureau of Justice Assistance and National Institute of Justice within the Department of Justice. The aim of the OSW Group is to better understand and respond to the range of issues associated with improving officer safety and wellness.
The focus of this meeting was best practices and considerations around establishing, sustaining, and enhancing first responder and department resilience. The meeting began with a panel discussion around lessons learned from the field regarding officer and department resilience following a mass casualty event. Representatives from the Dallas Police Department, the Orlando Police Department and the San Bernardino, California Police Department spoke of the tragic events their departments responded to, how it affected officers and what the departments did, and are continuing to do, to support officers’ mental and emotional recovery.
The meeting then moved on to discuss what law enforcement agencies can do to build first responder and department health and resiliency, including putting a system in place that makes officer wellness and safety a top priority. While the discussion mainly focused on ensuring officers are able to take care of their mental wellness through mass casualty events, as well as the everyday stresses of the job, it also touched on the importance of departments having access to protective gear, including hard body armor, ballistic helmets and long rifles. It was noted in the meeting that the Presidential Administration’ s policy on restricting state and local law enforcement’ s access to this equipment contradicted this important officer safety and wellness issue. NAPO has long argued that access to surplus military equipment is essential to officers’ mental and physical safety and wellness.
Other issues discussed included the importance of strong workers compensation programs, peer mentoring programs, regulating stress and maintaining heart and physical health. The result of this meeting will be a report from the COPS Office outlining best practices, lessons learned and guidelines on promoting officer and department resilience.
NAPO participates in DHS Presidential Transition Briefing
On Oct. 28, NAPO Executive Director Bill Johnson participated in a briefing for law enforcement representatives by the Department of Homeland Security( DHS) about its presidential transition plan. Even before a nominee is elected as the 45th U. S. President, the executive branch begins preparing to ensure a smooth transition between the old administration and the new, making certain that programs state and local law enforcement rely on continue uninterrupted.
DHS’ s presidential transition officer highlighted a few strategic issues the department is focused on, particularly around personnel, including: recruitment, the importance of union relationships,
staffing shortages that can lead to public safety issues and pay equity issues for law enforcement personnel. The transition officer stated that DHS has a focused engagement and action plan for the incoming Secretary to address these high-priority partnerships.
DOJ finally moves on implementing national Blue Alert System
After more than a year has passed since the passage of the Rafael Ramos and Wenjian Liu National Blue Alert Act of 2015, the Department of Justice( DOJ), is finally moving on implementing the National Blue Alert Network. The Act that established this network was named after two slain NAPO members from the NYPD and was signed into law by President Obama on May 19, 2015. NAPO has been pressuring the DOJ to implement the Blue Alert Network and sent a letter to Attorney General Loretta Lynch in August admonishing her for the DOJ’ s inaction.
The National Blue Alert Network is being run out of the Office of Community Oriented Policing Services( COPS), and in a meeting with NAPO, the Deputy National Blue Alert Coordinator gave an update on the status of the implementation of this vital network. The COPS Office has been researching and compiling the current Blue Alert system policies that have been set up in 27 states, and it will release a report shortly about the state of Blue Alert systems across the country.
The National Blue Alert System will be an integrated system of Blue Alert plans throughout the nation into one national system. The lives of law enforcement officers across the country depend on a fully functioning system being up and running as soon as possible. NAPO will continue working with the DOJ and state and local government partners to have Blue Alert systems established in all 50 states so that the National Blue Alert System truly will be national.
DOJ Study: Police should work in pairs
The COPS office released the“ Deadly Calls and Fatal Encounters” report, which analyzes law enforcement Line of Duty Deaths( LODD) when officers responded to dispatched calls from 2010 to 2014. The report looked at dispatch calls for robberies, burglaries, shots fired, officer needs assistance, suspicious persons and vehicles, man with gun, disturbances and domestic disputes. It then broke the data down by manner of death, number of officers on the scene, number of officers dispatched, number of officers not waiting for backup and other pertinent details.
Predictably, the report found that dispatched calls for domestic disputes and disturbances were the deadliest calls for officers, accounting for 22 percent and 18 percent of LODDs, respectively. The report concluded that the more officers that are dispatched in response to a call increased the safety of officers and decreased the potential for a deadly result. While the report expounded on the fact that two or more officers responding to a scene has a life-saving impact, it would not go as far as to call on departments to implement two-officer patrol cars, which NAPO has been advocating for to increase officer safety. d
www. njcopsmagazine. com ■ NOVEMBER 2016 25