Police Department Report for December 2018

North Liberty Police

Monthly Report

December 2018

Training:

• Officers attended SERT, Canine, bomb squad, and Dive team training this month (40 hours)
• One officer attended free training in Cedar Rapids on dealing with Persons with Disabilities Workshop provided by the US Attorney’s Office. (4 hours)
• All staff completed Sexual Harassment online training (10 hours)
• Two officers attended Survival Mindset Training at the JECC presented by the International Association of Chief of Police. (16 hours).
• Our new Drug Task Force Officer is in field training with the officer that is coming out of task force in January. (80 hours)
• The canine and handler passed a field test with an independent instructor on tracking, drug detection and handler protection for their annual certification test. (2 hours)

Public Relations:

• We hosted another successful Present with Police which provides Christmas gifts to families that reside in North Liberty. The money donated came from the department’s No Shave November event, local residents and a local business. We would like to give a big thank you to Spotix who generously donated $1000 to the event. Thanks to the generosity of the community, nine kids were taken to Walmart to shop for their family members before heading to the Rec Center for a pizza/wrapping party. Officers, Records staff and a few non-department volunteers donated their time for this event.
• Department members donated items to Juan Santiago’s annual Johnson County DVIP toy drive.
• Lt Tyson Landsgard was nominated and received a 2018 Bravo award through the CVB for his public safety coordination of the RUN CRANDIC event.
• A local Boy Scout troop toured the PD and police vehicles. They also did some fingerprinting and learned about identification to earn a scout badge.
• We were requested to have officers work extra duty for a church service event this holiday season at the High School. Two officers worked the event and their time will be reimbursed by the church.
• Officer Rockafellow agreed to represent the PD on the City’s Next Door app. He will provide safety tips and notification to neighborhoods as a way to inform and connect with the public.  His first post provided information on requesting vacation house checks for when residents will be out of town.
• Officers attended several school events for the Holidays at the request of the schools.

Equipment:                                                                                                     

• Purchased a new LIDAR for speed enforcement. This will be reimbursed through the GTSB grant.
• Purchased a Laser Bullet Trajectory Kit through Sirchie for investigating shootings.

Enforcement:

• We worked a couple of traffic enforcement grant projects around the Holidays.
• Officers responded to a stabbing at Little Caesar’s Pizza. Fortunately, the victim survived and we have positively identified the suspects. Arrest warrants have been issued, but they are still at large and have fled the area.
• We continue to encourage people to lock and secure their vehicles. This would include keeping car keys and other valuables out of plain view.

Department Admin:

• Work continues on the PD design with Architects. We are working on final design plans and value engineering items to get back in budget.
• We held Supervisor interviews for a January promotion of a Sergeant. Officer Seymour was selected and will start in January as an evening/late night supervisor.
• Officer of the Year was presented at the City Holiday party. This year, Officer Mitch Seymour was nominated and selected for his extensive criminal investigations with the drug task force and going above and beyond in helping a group attend an Iowa Football Game.
• We opened the bid shifts for January for the union members to submit. Shifts will change in January.
• We accepted a Solon High School Intern for a 60 hour unpaid internship through Workplace Learning Connection.
• We continue to work on getting an officer hired so we can be back up to full staff. We had extended a conditional offer of employment to an individual but, citing family commitments, he declined the offer. We will continue with the next person on our list and begin the background and psychological testing process.
• We are accepting applications for the Citizen Police Academy. This 10 week program will start in January.
• We completed and closed out our 2014 Federal Cops Hiring Grant

Respectfully Submitted by Chief Diane Venenga and Alisha Ruffcorn 1/3/2019