Troy police improve safety
Department to train in emergency vehicle driving
TROY — The 137-member city police department will head to Colonie in April to train in emergency vehicle driving to improve safety performance and avoid fatal accidents, officials said.
The City Council Thursday night unanimously approved an agreement with Colonie to use the town’s emergency vehicle training area as the site for the city police department’s Emergency Vehicle Operations Course training session. It will be the first time since 2016 that the department will add an in-person driving component to its intensive review of policies and procedures officers take part in annually.
When the department leadership was formulating its in-house training courses this past fall for 2024 they were aware of issues with driving of police vehicles such as the fatal accident in February 2023 on Hoosick Street, when Sabeeh Alalkawi, a pizza delivery driver, died in a collision with a city police SUV, Assistant Chief Steven Barker said Thursday.
“Our EVOC training curriculum includes classroom-based lectures and practical vehicle operation exercises. Troy Police Department has had difficulty in the past identifying and utilizing locations that are appropriate and/or designed for emergency vehicle operation training. The Town of Colonie Police Department has designed and constructed an ideal location for EVOC training and has offered the same for use by the Troy Police Department,” the legislative memo given to the council stated.
“It’s a good agreement. It’s important for our officers, sergeants and command staff to do in vehicle training,” Mayor Carmella Mantello said.
“We can’t have enough training in these cases. We need to do a better job and avoid future tragedies,” said Council President Sue Steele, a Democrat.
The Times Union recently ran a
multipart series on fatal police crashes in the state. The articles included stories on how crashes can be reduced and haven’t been and state law regarding police liability in the collisions.
The state Attorney General’s Office of Special Investigations examines all crashes involving police vehicles in which a civilian dies. The investigation into the death of Alalkawi has not been completed. A State Police reconstruction of the accident estimated that the Troy police vehicle driven by Officer Justin Byrne was traveling at 88 mph.
After the driving training is completed this spring, the department will evaluate how often it should be offered and review best practices among the state’s police agencies. Mantello said the city will determine after the review how regularly the training should be scheduled.
The city police department is relatively young with 59 of its patrol officers having joined the force since 2016. The officers receive 40 to 80 hours of emergency vehicle driving training when they attend the Zone 5 Police Academy in Schenectady, Barker said. The department has relied on this to bolster the reviews of policies
at semi-annual training and at roll call updates.
The training emphasizes decision-making in the driving of police vehicles in responding to routine calls as well as emergency calls, Barker said. Officers also receive refresher instruction on department policies concerning operating police vehicles. The driving portion on the Colonie course will add another level, he said.
Troy doesn’t have its own course within the city.the Colonie course off Onderdonk Road is a large paved area that is flat and without obstruction, Barker said. This will permit the department to set up a layout for officers to drive on.