LETTER: PWPD mission is to serve the quest for safety and peace with ‘democratic values applied equally to all’

To the citizens of Port Washington:

Our officers and staff at the Port Washington Police Department have been angry, shocked and embarrassed since the death of George Floyd at the hands of a Minneapolis police officer. Our thoughts and prayers go out to Mr. Floyd’s family and friends.

Our mission at the Port Washington Police Department is to enhance the quality of life in our city by working in partnership with the community to protect and serve the community’s quest for a peaceful and safe existence with democratic values applied equally to all citizens.

To achieve this mission, we commit to these specific values: human life above anything else; community opinion and response; courtesy, compassion and respect; problem solving; teamwork; and integrity.

This department has been and will continue to be focused on building and sustaining strong relationships with our community. Through our School Resource Officer Program, we have worked with the schools to build relationships with the students, staff and parents. Annually we hold an open house where we welcome the chance to show our community members their police department and have them meet with many of our officers. Our annual bike rodeo attracts over 200 kids and gives our officers a chance to work one on one with our community’s youth.

The State of Wisconsin is widely recognized as a national leader in terms of police training and recertification guidelines. The Port Washington Police Department is no exception. While there is always room for improvement, this department is an accredited agency through the Wisconsin Law Enforcement Accreditation Group. Being accredited helps us evaluate and improve our overall performance and professionalism through 234 published standards covering all aspects of law enforcement administration and operations. We were last reaccredited in 2019 with positive comments from the assessors regarding the amount of training our officers receive.

Many issues brought to light with the death of George Floyd are addressed through Wisconsin state law, our department policies and our training. For transparency, the Port Washington Police Department has had body cameras in use since 2012. Furthermore, our police officers are trained in the academy, at annual in-services and through Crisis Intervention Team Training to de-escalate situations when possible, with the use of force as a last resort and specifically covered by state law and department policies. Use of force incidents at any level occur on average less than half a dozen times per year. Many such incidents are avoided through de-escalation by our officers, but if needed, the use of an electronic control device or pepper spray has reduced the risk of injury to the person being controlled as well as our officers. Our officers train multiple times per year through in-house and in-service training on the reasonable use of force necessary to accomplish lawful objectives. We have many instructors on staff for this as well as defense and arrest tactics.

The officers and staff at the Port Washington Police Department work hard to maintain trust and transparency with our community. Our officers want you to know that we do not take that trust for granted and will work hard to maintain it. As part of that trust and moving forward, we have scheduled our officers for implicit bias training.

We thank you for your support and welcome constructive dialogue.