BPOC #105 continues forward-Starting with 23 cadets the class is now at 21 with one cadet unable to participate due to a physical injury which occurred during off duty exercise; and a second cadet making a career change decision;
2. Speaking of the Academy, Inspector Ken Baptiste is back from his year+ tour of duty with the Texas Air National Guard as part of Operation Lone Star at the border-We are blessed to have Ken with us again!
3. And, as discussed briefly at the chiefs' conference in September, ODOP continues to work with Chancellor Milliken on a prospective new UTSP Police Academy and Training Center initiative--Sr. Inspectors Bobby Harper and Rey Trevino are doing the heavy lifting on this for us;
4. Inspector Geoff Merritt was able to return to the Academy and teach a class to BPOC #105 as Geoff continues his recovery-It's always a blessing to have Geoff in the classroom!
5. On the replacement Police Inspector position at ODOP downtown (Paul Maslyk's former position): we had 24 applications before closing the job posting with 14 initial interviews and three finalists selected for a second interview; we should have this position filled before Thanksgiving;
6. On the new FTE Police Inspector position at the Academy: We have 15 applications and will be closing the job posting this week in order to begin interviews;
7. On the Administrative Associate position (new FTE) at the Academy: the job posting remains open but is expected to close before Thanksgiving;
8. We have a Board of Regents meeting on 16-17 November;
9. I know I speak for all of us when I say thanks again to Chief Don Verett and his staff at UT Austin PD for the marvelous job they did with our 2022 chiefs' conference-Bravo!
10. The policy on facial hair has been issued and minor changes to policies on outer load bearing vests and sexual assault record-keeping are in the queue; my thanks to A/C Glenn Cole, UT Arlington PD, for the stylistic and formatting changes he recommended to our Code of Conduct policy-We will be adopting those as recommended to update the policy language and narrative;
11. Sr. Inspector Angel Lemmonds successfully completed the Senior Management Institute for Police hosted by the Police Executive Research Forum in Boston, the first ODOP Inspector to ever attend;
12. Inspector Ken Baptiste will be ODOP's next participant in the FBI National Academy program and we applaud him for his interest;
13. We have DAV training scheduled for 11/16 with Sr. Inspector Harper coordinating that effort;
14. The next meeting of the Academy Advisory Board is scheduled for 11/29/22 at the Academy-My thanks to Chief Parks as the Chair and Inspector Ashley Griffin for coordinating the meeting-We will have some rotation on the AAB with Chief Zacharias retiring, Chief (retired) Robert Dahlstrom stepping down and some movement in the public members;
15. For perhaps the first time in UTSP history, we will have two police chief searches underway at the same time-I am working with the senior leadership at both UT Austin and UT Dallas to facilitate both of these searches;
16. My hope is to have the 2021 Use of Force and Pursuit reports finalized and posted shortly as well as the annual 2021 UTSP/ODOP report-Short staffing has simply slowed all of those production efforts;
17. After the first of the new year, A/D Ruben Puente will take a fresh look at moving forward on a new UTSP recruiting video production;
18. My thanks to A/D Puente for a highly successful Internal Affairs training class and special thanks to Sr. Inspector Charlie Dunn, UT Houston PD, for his partnership in making that class happen;
19. High praise to Chief Adan Cruz and Chief Mike Parks for making the transfer of policing responsibilities at the UT Center at Laredo from UTHSC SA PD to UTRGV PD a complete success;
20. Chief Ken Adcox and A/C Jay Tillerson have forwarded their recommendation regarding retirement system changes that began with our discussion at the chiefs' conference--I have asked Faye Godwin, UTS Employee Benefits, to review and then begin to run the numbers; thanks to Ken and Jay;
21. The policy on the Peer Support program should be forthcoming shortly and is being coordinated by Inspector Ashley Griffin;
22. My thanks to COS David Ferrero and Inspector Griffin for changing their schedules and working essentially continuously at the Academy for BPOC #105 to backfill for our staffing shortage there; and thanks to Sr. Inspector Rey Trevino and Inspector Robert DeRohn for stepping up to instruct additional classes for the BPOC-We should all be proud of this Academy Team (Rey, Ashley, Geoff, Ken, Robert and David) making it happen for Class 105;
23. Given the integration of the UT Health Center Tyler with the University of Tyler to create a single institution over a year ago, Chiefs Robert Cromley and Mike Medders continue to work in partnership and with ODOP to finalize the transition from two institution police departments into a single PD-Kudos to both Robert and Mike for their hard work and investment of time for this initiative-ODOP is working closely with the UTT senior leadership to assist;
24. COS David Ferrero continues to work closely with the state grant folks on our UTSP application for ballistic grant funding-At their recommendation we have reduced the request to shields only and deleted the additional costs of cases and wings-This should put us back on the active for consideration list;
25. ODOP sent Sr. Inspector Angel Lemmonds, Inspector Ashley Griffin and Sr. Administrative Associate Lydia Navarro to the recent TCOLE conference in Corpus;
26. Lydia Navarro does incredibly crucial work on behalf of all of us day in and day out here at ODOP but rarely gets the credit that she deserves for her work with TCOLE on a daily basis and supporting every UTSP licensed person throughout the year-Please join me in congratulating Lydia on her promotion to Senior Administrative Associate! Thank you, Lydia!
27. A/D Ruben Puente is managing the racial profiling program with the retirement of Inspector Paul Maslyk;
