Police reflect, look ahead

EDITOR’S NOTE: This is the first installment of a two-part series looking at the Hot Springs Police Department’s accomplishments over the past year, and its future plans.

Community support is essential to the Hot Springs Police Department’s ability to fight crime, the city’s police chief said in a recent interview while looking back at the accomplishments of the past year.

In March 2017, Hot Springs Police Chief Jason Stachey, who was

appointed as chief on May 27,

2016, sat down with The Sentinel-Record to review the department’s accomplishments from that past year and its future plans, and said he wanted to make it an annual tradition.

On Monday, Stachey and police Capts. Walt Everton and Billy Hrvatin once again sat down with the newspaper to review

2017 and discuss goals for 2018. “It’s really important to let the public know what we’re doing and what we’ve accomplished and plan to accomplish in the coming year,” Stachey said. “I think it adds a sense of accountability and transparency to our department.”

Stachey said one of the big accomplishments was “developing a career path for our dispatch personnel that allows for professional growth and development,” noting the dispatchers are essential personnel.

“They’re expected to be here during periods of inclement weather and perform a very important function here at the police department,” he said. “We can’t do our job without them.”

He said previously there was no potential for advancement since the dispatchers don’t have ranks, although one is designated as dispatch supervisor. “An employee comes in making ‘X’ amount and will still be making ‘X’ amount after 30 years,” he said. “We see a lot of turnover because it’s a very stressful position. They are required to multitask.

“We wanted to professionalize the position and allow for opportunities they’ve never had before.”

Stachey said there is now a step system where dispatchers can move up from one step to the next by meeting criteria such as education and training hours with increases in pay for each step. They also developed two lead dispatcher positions in addition to the supervisor.

“Since we implemented this, we have seen a reduction in turnover,” he said.

A major purchase in 2017, although not an expensive one, was an incident command vehicle obtained from the Federal Law Enforcement Support Office, or federal surplus, for $6,750.

“It’s a 38-foot rolling office basically,” Hrvatin said. “It’s built on a Winnebago chassis.” The vehicle is designed for use at critical incidents and major events and is equipped with computers and cameras and linked to the department’s existing camera system.

“It will be linked to all our mobile cameras at events and incidents. Our crisis negotiator will have an office in the back of it,” he said. “Any situation where we would call out our crisis negotiator or have an incident command set up.”

Hrvatin said it would also be used at major events with lots of people like the St. Patrick’s Day parade or events at Oaklawn Park. The vehicle was deployed during the Confederate rally downtown last year although “it wasn’t fully outfitted then as it is now.”

“It allows us to have more assets out there and puts you closer to the scene,” Everton said.

Hrvatin said the vehicle is equipped with an onboard generator and a bathroom so “it’s fully functioning as a standalone. You can set up and be there all day and it will be comfortable to work out of all day.”

He noted he saw a similar vehicle for sale for $175,000. The one they purchased was previously used by the Office of Veteran’s Affairs which drove it around the state, but it still has less than 100,000 miles on it.

Stachey said the handling of the Confederate rally, a potentially large-scale demonstration on National Park Service property, was “a successful operation,” and “a good joint collaboration between our department and other law enforcement agencies in the county and state. Nothing happened. We’re really thankful it was a nonevent.”

The department also updated all its audio and video recording equipment in the Criminal Investigation Division’s interview rooms.

“Every interview we do as detectives has to be recorded, both audio and visual, and the system we had was so outdated,” Everton said. “We have to provide copies of each interview for prosecutors, judges, attorneys and all that and it was taking forever with our slow system and as many interviews as we were doing.”

He noted making a copy of a 45-minute interview would literally take 45 minutes under their old system.

“We were able to update with the L3 system, which is the same system as the in-car and bodycams we were using. It’s all part of our existing network,” Everton said. “We were able to blend it in and combine with very little cost. It’s very efficient and has good quality and sound. It’s easy to pull out a recording and you can make a copy in an instant.”

Stachey said they initiated a new internal leadership development course for officers that was “a really successful program” and received a lot of positive feedback from officers who attended.

“It provided a foundation of leadership principles they can formulate as they come up through the ranks,” he said, noting the program involved one three-hour session per month for six months. He noted they included leaders from the business and judicial community and others “so it wasn’t just law enforcement” to provide the training.

“By the time you become a sergeant, you’ve already formed your own set of ideas and values of what you believe a leader should be, so we’re trying to provide building blocks for new officers to develop their own leadership strategies.”

Stachey said they have continued to develop the department’s social media presence, noting “we’ve gained about

6,000 new followers and are reaching an average of 75,000 people with our postings,” counting Facebook and Twitter.

He said their “Warrant Wednesday” feature has a

95-percent success rate in identifying wanted individuals and making arrests. “We’re really, really proud of that, and it goes back to our concept that we have to have the community’s support. We have to engage the community if we’re going to have any effect on crime.”

Stachey said they participated in two major crime reduction operations in 2017, Operation Thunderstruck and Operation Ice Storm, resulting in the arrests of 72 suspects, and “we plan to continue with similar operations this year.”

The department held two large community events, Bridging the Gap and Boo with a Badge, last year, with around 10,000 people attending combined. They also participated in National Night Out with 11 neighborhoods throughout the city. “That’s the largest we’ve had to date,” Everton said. “That was a big, big number for us.”

Stachey said not only did command staff attend each of the Neighborhood Night Out events but “the officers assigned to that area of the city dropped by so the residents got to meet face to face with the officers serving them.”

The department implemented 40 electronic ticket writers combined with vehicle accident software, so an officer “can take your driver’s license, swipe it and print off an automatic copy. It’s a whole lot more efficient, saves time and makes it easier for both the individual and the officer.”

The department added a fourth K-9 officer, Jonathan Smith, with his partner, Bear. He joins officers Brandon Jones and Keena, Allen Constant and Raven, and Chad Ford and Ork, the department’s bomb detection dog.

“Now we have one for each patrol shift,” Stachey said.