Police oversight panel reports fewer complaints; city highlights training, co‑response teams

Barbara Anderson, senior assistant to the city administrator, and Police Chief Kelly Gordon presented the second annual report on the Fire & Police Commission's community oversight of law enforcement, asking the City Council on March 18 to receive the report and the commission's 2025 work plan.

The report covered the commission's first year of operations under a new ordinance, changes in complaint forms and processes, training and ride‑alongs for commissioners, and early data on complaints and investigations. Anderson said the commission had completed orientation, held community meetings and updated the tow rotation list; she described continued work to align commission policies and procedures with its newly assigned duties.

Chief Gordon summarized 2024 casework and training for the police department and framed the complaint numbers in the context of overall workload. "We had 53,715 calls for service," Gordon said. "...99.98% of the calls that officers were on, it did not result in a complaint." Gordon reported 8 internal (administrative) complaints in 2024 and 8 community complaints, down from 6 internal and 20 community complaints in 2023. She said final dispositions included five unfounded findings, zero exonerations, two not‑sustained and three sustained findings, with two corrective counselings and one termination among sustained cases and six investigations still open.

The chief emphasized the department's training investments and how training is being linked to accountability. She noted the department logged "7,641 hours of POST‑certified training," roughly 960 hours for crisis negotiator training and over 3,200 hours for the SWAT team. Gordon said the city moved its training officer under "community accountability" so training adjustments can follow complaint trends: "...we can better align our training needs with that of what we're seeing all the way around."

Council members asked how complaint counts related to total workload and how dispatch priorities affect response times. Gordon said dispatch receives many incoming calls (over 30,000) that do not result in an officer response, and that the 53,715 figure represents calls for service where an officer was dispatched. She said the department tracks priority‑level response times and follows up with callers when delays occur.

Council members and the commission discussed co‑response teams that pair clinicians and officers for mental‑health and high‑acuity calls. Gordon said the city now fields two co‑response teams (two clinicians and two officers) and that "last month, they handled over a hundred calls for service"; over the prior six months that figure ranged between roughly 50 and 100 calls per month depending on staffing and training. Council members and the chief described the teams as doing both immediate call response and follow‑up work intended to reduce future 911 use.

Commission operations were a recurring topic. Anderson and council members discussed limits on what the commission can publicly disclose because of confidentiality rules and the Police Officer Bill of Rights, and they described work planned for 2025 to deepen the commission's understanding of disclosable complaint information and to increase community engagement outside formal meetings.

Council members praised the department's professionalism and the commission's outreach while pressing for further transparency about disclosable complaint information and oversight procedures. The item was informational; Council took no independent action on the report at the meeting.

Clarifying details: 2024 totals and dispositions reported by Chief Gordon: 53,715 calls for service; 8 administrative complaints; 8 community complaints; dispositions—5 unfounded, 0 exonerated, 2 not sustained, 3 sustained; 6 complaints ongoing; training totals—7,641 POST hours, ~960 CNRT hours, >3,200 SWAT hours; two co‑response teams (two clinicians + two officers) handling 50–100 calls/month recently. The independent police monitor contracted with the city is Hassan Aden of Aden Group LLC.

Ending: Councilmembers asked the commission and staff to continue outreach and to explore ways the commission can receive and discuss disclosable complaint information. Chief Gordon and Anderson said they would continue implementation and training alignment with the commission's work plan.