Sunnyvale Public Safety Statement
On Minneapolis Incidents and George Floyd
Sunnyvale's Dept. of Public Safety (DPS)
Includes Police, Fire and Emergency Medical Treatment
Link to this post (for sharing)
See also a later post on "8CantWait" and "Carotid holds"
- Michael Goldman
Sunnyvale City Council, Seat 7
writing solely on my own behalf
---------------------- letter to the Sunnyvale City Council -------------------------
Description: Hello City Council Members,
First off, I would like to thank the city of Sunnyvale and the department of public safety for their great work. I have lived in several cities in the Bay Area over the past 8 years, and Sunnyvale PD has by far been the most responsive and professional for the 3+ years I have lived here. I have always found them responsive to issues when I have called both emergency and non-emergency hotlines. I also appreciate that the Sunnyvale PD vocally opposed the behavior of the law enforcement involved in the murder of George Floyd.
I was doing research online, and I found that in 2016 the city of Sunnyvale took the step to give every officer a police body camera. This is a great first step. However, I could not find anything about the requirements of officers to turn this on, and in what circumstances they're required to use their cameras. I also could not find anything on the types of trainings our officers are given on de-escalating situations, and/or training that ensures that they confront their own biases when interacting with the community. I appreciate that the city already makes the effort to report crime and post it to their website, but I think it is also equally important to share the policies about how our officers are trained with the community. It's important to make sure incidents like what happened to George Floyd do not happen to our neighbors, and more importantly, to ensure that every member of our community feels safe living here.
I'd like to call on you, the city council, to make sure that in your roles you are doing as much as possible to ensure that every member of our community feels safe. Transparency is one important step to ensuring that happens.
Thank you,
(Name withheld)
--------------- beginning of Chief Phan Ngo's reply ----------------------
Reply from Chief Ngo
***
Sunnyvale is a fully integrated public safety department providing Fire/Police/EMS services to our community.
The men and women of the Sunnyvale Department of Public Safety strive to serve and protect our diverse community with respect, empathy, and compassion. We unequivocally condemn the actions of the former Minneapolis police officers. We stand with all who are seeking justice for George Floyd.
The department holds its members accountable. Transparency, accountability, and equal treatment are the values that guide our actions. To this extent, we have proactively implemented policies that are consistent with 21st Century Policing principles.
- In 2016, the department implemented the Body-Worn Camera program where all officers are equipped with cameras that that are always on to record interactions with the public.
- In 2017, the department worked with an outside consultant to revise and modernize our Internal Affairs process. Internal Affairs is a process where law enforcement agencies investigate misconduct by their own department members.
- All our sworn officers have completed “Bias Based Policing” training. The purpose of this training is for officers to understand that people have personal biases, but that officers must remain fair and impartial in their discretion and decisions.
- All sworn officers have completed POST training (Peace Officers Standards and Training) on how to interact with people who are in mental crisis. In addition, our department has also provided an enhanced 40-hour CIT (Crisis Intervention Training) to our officers - with the goal of having all officers complete this training. What is unique with our department’s model is that we assign CIT trained officers to individuals in crisis who we frequently come in contact with and provide them with wrap-around referral services. This practice has been in existence in our department for over 10 years.
- All use of force by our officers are documented and reviewed by a Deputy Chief. It is expected that every member of the department utilizes de-escalation techniques whenever possible, and only use force as necessary.
- In 2019, the department formed a Use of Force working group. The goal of this working group is to review the departments use of force policy. The working group is led by a Deputy Chief and has three objectives; (1) review the current use of force policy and evaluate if changes are needed, (2) evaluate our use of force training program, (3) evaluate the use of force practices by our officers.
We hold ourselves to the highest standards and continuously look for ways to improve. We are transparent. Our department policy manual is available on the City of Sunnyvale website for the public to view.
We recognize that these training programs are only effective if our officers continue to reflect the values of our department, which is why we work hard to build a culture of empathy, compassion, respect, dignity, and the sanctity of life. We constantly strive to incorporate these values in everything we do.
If you have further questions regarding our policies or programs, please contact Captain Dan Pistor at (408) 730-7158 or by email at dpistor@sunnyvale.ca.gov.
Thank you for your support and we will continue to work hard to earn your trust.
Sincerely,
Chief Phan S. Ngo
Sunnyvale Department of Public Safety
----------------------------------------- end of Chief Phan Ngo's reply ---------------------------
