Salinas Police Chief updates city council on DOJ review

Salinas Police Chief Adele Frese is updating the city council on the status of Collaborative Reform implementation on Tuesday night.

In March 2016, the Department of Justice’s Community Oriented Policing Services identified specific areas that needed attention and improvement. There were 61 findings with 110 recommended actions identified. According to the DOJ, areas of concern included:

1) Officers do not receive regular training on how to effectively respond to individuals with mental health issues and are not able to maintain their training certification requirements;
2) Officers do not receive adequate training on use of force de-escalation, especially with regards to people with mental health issues;
3) There are notable deficiencies with the department’s internal complaint (and investigation) process that brings into question the department’s ability to hold officers accountable;
4) Police and community relations are significantly frayed, and the police department does not appear to fully appreciate this disconnect.
5) There exists notable deficiencies within internal communications that results in confusion within the ranks and contributes to low morale.

Since then, progress has been made. According to the Salinas Police Department, there have been 41 changes (37%) made. In addition, there were 22 recommendations (22%) listed as “in progress.” Some of those updates include establishing a bilingual Community Police Academy, turning over SPD officer-involved shootings to the District Attorney’s Office and changes to the department’s use of force policies.

“We have focused on de-escalation tactics, so all of our officers are trained in de-escalation and it’s important that when we talk about policy that our department is actually practicing what our policy says,” said Police Chief Adele Frese.

Staffing remains the department’s biggest challenge, with 31 vacant sworn positions.

“These are great plans,” Frese said. “They’re probably the gold standard for most agencies but most agencies have people at a much greater strength than we do. So per capita, or whatever what ever staffing matter we wish to look at, to evaluate the Salinas Police Department, the fact is we are grossly understaffed for policing a city the size of Salinas, especially considering the needs that we have and the service level that we expect.”

It’s a big enough issue that even residents recognize it.

“The Salinas Police Department’s got a really challenging job, I mean, they’re understaffed,” Thomas Polyniak said. “They need more officers, more Hispanic officers to deal with the population.”

Other areas for improvement revolve around community engagement.

The recommendations are optional, the department does not face any repercussions for not following through on them. The chief can also use discretion to see which ones are a good fit for the department and the community.