It's
been a year now since Matt Hamner became the Chief of BIPD, and local
papers have done a great job highlighting his successes. Much praise is
due to the Chief for his assigning priority to community relations, and
we're particularly pleased that he has reinvigorated the bike patrol
program, worked with the Civil Service Commission to improve the police
hiring process, emphasized youth outreach, and has joined other Kitsap
County police departments by appointing a crisis intervention officer. These advances are all in keeping with ideas and recommendations that ICP has been advocating since its inception.
Two
years ago, ICP assembled a group of citizens to discuss a history of
poor relations between our community and police department, and to
develop ideas for alleviating this problem. It is most gratifying to
see so many of our recommendations
now being realized. We wish to thank the many people who participated
in our "Citizens' Committee" and who contributed so much toward shaping
the positive changes we now are seeing.
ICP's
current focus is to assist Chief Hamner with a few items of unfinished
business. Paramount among these is the creation of a civilian police commission
to compliment police reforms and improved police/community relations.
There is, at the moment, no public forum where community members can
comment on police services or make suggestions for improvement. There is
no forum where our representatives on council can consider and
investigate police policy ideas. ICP thinks this kind of city committee
is essential for the long term success of the BIPD, along with
improvements to the BIPD's complaint processing system. The topic will be taken up by City Council on July 28.
