Partnering With Other Agencies to Improve Your Department’s Effectiveness
Here’s how the Northern Virginia Community College (NOVA) Police Department works with other local law enforcement agencies to keep its officers well trained and enthusiastic about their jobs.
NOVA police officers worked with other local agencies to protect President Barack Obama during his inauguration this January.
In return for assisting other departments’ training, we have been invited to send our officers to local training, familiarize ourselves with equipment we don’t have, and use assets we do not possess. For instance, officers from local municipal jurisdictions have come onto our campuses with license plate readers to monitor our parking lots. Local K-9 officers are also available to conduct random patrols of our campuses upon our request. Random narcotics K-9 patrols can have a significant effect on curbing drug use on campus while avoiding the costs associated with acquiring, training and maintaining these assets. Through our training at the academy, we also developed a relationship with the U.S. Park Police, which has committed to providing us with civil disturbance training on our campuses.
As NOVA officers have become better acquainted with and respected by local officers, we have been asked to share our training materials and dates. Officers from local jurisdictions have requested and received copies of our active shooter tactical training materials, our firearms training curriculum and our defensive tactics lesson plans, to cite a few examples. Local officers observe and par
ticipate in our training, enhancing interoperability and improving the training of all officers. They return to their host agencies singing our praises.
A final, poignant example of the support we have enjoyed from local jurisdictions was seen in the aftermath of the death of our beloved assistant police chief, Jerry Tolson. We had discussed the formation of an honor guard for several years but had never implemented it. In the final two weeks before our assistant chief’s passing, we committed to creating an honor guard to honor him. In the space of these two short weeks, Prince William County Police helped us buy our equipment and trained us to perform honors at his funeral. This support buoyed the spirit of the department in our most trying time and established an unbreakable bond between us.
Joint Operations Maintain Officer Interest
Training is essential for departmental professionalism, but nothing can beat the excitement and satisfaction of joint operations. One of the problems of college police departments, especially in community colleges without dormitories, is that our officers do not get the opportunity to work the diversity of calls as our counterparts in municipal and county jurisdictions. In the absence of these calls, maintaining familiarity with certain response procedures and officer safety skills can be a challenge. The lack of diverse calls can also have a corrosive impact upon a college police department. Officers who do not get a chance to work varied calls may lose interest in their profession and become complacent in maintaining the full range of their professional skills.
Opportunities to work with local departments are available for the asking. NOVA approached local jurisdictions and requested permission to attend roll call training. We also established a ride-along program. Now, NOVA officers periodically ride with local officers on their patrols in the vicinity of our campuses. This program exposes our officers to calls not usually encountered on our campuses, assists local jurisdictions who are strapped for manpower, forges bonds between these officers and assists in combating crimes of concern to both jurisdictions.
Even when not interacting directly with our local brothers and sisters, there are many opportunities to assist each other. NOVA officers at the Alexandria campus carry Alexandria City Police Department (APD) MDTs in our cruisers. We see APD units dispatched to calls, and we often back them up on selected calls near campus. On occasion, we will handle calls like accident information exchanges, freeing up their units for more serious calls. There have been many occasions when we have detained persons of interest or provided back-up on dangerous calls. As noted above, our close interaction with local departments reaps benefits in equipment, camaraderie, professionalism and excitement.
One of the most fulfilling experiences we’ve had was the opportunity to work the recent inauguration of President Barack Obama. Few community college police departments get to perform such a role. You can only imagine the pride our officers experienced standing shoulder to shoulder with much larger federal, state and local agencies. Across the county, offering to augment local forces providing security at the inaugurations of governors and mayors may provide similar opportunities.
Of course, inaugurations don’t happen often, but there are other opportunities to work within a joint environment. NOVA has students from more than 170 nations among our 75,000+ student body. Our diverse student population makes NOVA a potential valuable contributor to the local Joint Terrorism Task Force and could afford a chance to obtain unique professional experience in an exciting inter-agency environment. I can think of no better way to instill excitement and pride in a college police department. This excitement and pride are powerful recruitment inducements to the most highly qualified and motivated job candidates. In the longer term, the quality of our department has improved.
Partnerships Pay Dividends and Cost Nothing
College police departments, like all other police departments, face challenges of maintaining their professionalism and effectiveness in fiscally constrained environments. The development of close collaboration with neighboring departments offers opportunities to enhance professionalism, morale, officer retention and job satisfaction. These benefits come without cost; they only require innovative thinking and the courage to follow up on exciting initiatives. Of course, it will require command personnel to convince college administrators to recognize the importance of investing in the long-term growth of its officers, but isn’t that why they’re paying us the big bucks?
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Lt. John M. Weinstein is the commander for Safety District 3 for the Northern Virginia Community College Police Department.
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About the Author
Lt. John Weinstein, Contributor
Dr. and Lt. John Weinstein retired as a senior police commander at one of the country’s largest institutions of higher education where, in addition to other responsibilities, he directed officer and college-wide active incident response training and community outreach. He is a popular national and international speaker and is widely published on many institutional and municipal law enforcement matters. Weinstein also consults with Dusseau-Solutions on active incident and all-hazard topics involving schools, churches, businesses and other public venues.
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