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Socorro police describe facility upgrades and policy rewrites to meet TPCA standards
Summary
Accreditation manager Damaris Gill and Chief Robert C. Rojas said the Socorro Police Department converted an office into a secured records room, upgraded the patrol room into a temporary holding area and rewrote policies to align with 172 TPCA standards; assessors reviewed vehicles, records and patrol operations.
The Socorro Police Department said it converted an existing office into a secured records room and upgraded its patrol room to serve as a temporary holding area during processing as part of the accreditation effort. "Our records have to be secured, so that means that they have to be in a locked secure, room where only our records department has access," said Damaris Gill, the department's accreditation manager. She added that the patrol room changes ensure officers "never lose eyesight" of an arrestee while paperwork is being processed.
Officials also described extensive policy work to meet what they identified as 172 TPCA standards. Chief Robert C. Rojas said the department "dissected the existing policy, we discovered the issues that we had, and we made sure that we made the adjustments." Gill described the audit step as involving two to three assessors who review everything from vehicles and evidence handling to records and patrol operations. Rojas said the department brought in two chiefs from elsewhere in Texas to observe and review the agency's practices during the audit.
