December POST Newsletter

Published: Mon, 01/09/2017 - 9:40am

As 2016 winds down, here is the last edition of this newsletter for the year. I hope this wraps up all of the unanswered questions that have been piling up.

This year, POST staff realized that the needs assessment each training region is required to complete every three years has become overly burdensome. Our original intent was to make sure that the training needs in each region were identified so that POST could work with the regions to provide specific and necessary training. Instead, the needs assessments were becoming more of an impediment than a tool. If your training region prefers, POST will contract with a private company to conduct the needs assessment for your training region. This expense will be funded by administrative costs and will not be taken from LE training funds. This is one task we can take away from the training regions while still ending up with a comprehensive and thorough needs assessment. Having a standardized assessment report will also help us to determine training needs statewide and may help us determine how to best deliver those training needs.

LPO training continues to be a hot topic across the state. I continue to have meetings with various stakeholders as we try and determine the best steps forward. I hope I can update this information soon.

The Traffic Safety Resource Prosecutor Program is a grant-funded initiative by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, and managed by the Colorado Department of Transportation. This program was created to provide local law enforcement and prosecutors with a veteran prosecutor, specializing in traffic safety issues with an emphasis on impaired driving, who supports their efforts through training, education, legal research and technical assistance. Personalized training is available upon request. Training can range from a few minutes in briefing to full-day training. In-service, multi-agency, multidisciplinary training is available depending on your needs. Much of the training can count toward SFST or DRE operator or instructor continuing education.

To request access to a recorded course for your department or for more information about training classes, please contact the Training Coordinator Mallory Rutherford: Mallory@cdac.state.co.us.

Visit www.cdacweb.com/training/trainingcalendar.aspx to register for classes listed below:

February 22 & 23: Impaired Driving 2017- Trinidad, CO
May 16: Impaired Driving Update & Refresher- Fort Collins, CO
May 22: DUI Marijuana- Colorado Springs, CO (2 sessions, am and pm)
May 23: Report Writing & Courtroom Testimony for DUI Cases (2 sessions, am and pm)

The training period for Rule 28 is quickly drawing to a close and will end December 31, 2016. I believe there will be fewer agencies on the out-of-compliance list this year. I attribute that to agencies entering training hours for their officers much earlier in the year than in past years. I think the days are gone when an agency can wait until the final months of the year and then make a rush of entering all officers' training hours in the last few months. By entering training hours earlier in the year, many issues were discovered and were able to be dealt with while there was still time for correction. One of the major stumbling blocks POST staff is still encountering is that many reserve officers are not getting in the required training hours. Some agencies have separated reserve officers from their agencies rather than to have the entire agency be non-compliant. Other agencies have taken the opportunity to update and critically review their agency rosters. Rule 28 includes certified full-time, part-time and reserve police officers. Thank you all for working so diligently to get your officers to training, and then to properly enter the number of training hours to accurately reflect that training.

I am pleased to announce that POST staff has completed the creation of a 2-hour online training course on anti-bias policing. Multiple stakeholders were included in the process, to include staff from three universities, the Anti-Defamation League, Reach Beyond Bias.com and the Mount Pleasant Diversity Group from Michigan. Two POST staff members spent over 300 hours creating this course. This course was created specifically to fill the two-hour requirement of anti-bias policing training of House Bill 15-1287, or C.R.S. 24-31-315. This course (and others) is available on the POST website through the portal.

POST staff will now begin to create the next online training courses which will speak directly to marijuana and its ever-changing environment in Colorado. The first course will be an instructional video on how police officers will be able to query the changes to the caregiver and to the patient registries through CBI. The second course will provide training for officers on the changes to marijuana laws that will take effect on January 1, 2017. I will notify you once each course is created and available, but hopefully they will be ready within the first few months of 2017.

All POST staff wishes you and your agencies a happy and safe holiday season. We thank you for letting us serve the training needs of Colorado law enforcement and we look forward to working with you in 2017.

Cory Amend

Lori Jencks – Administrative Assistant
Ariel Kiskiras – Administrative Assistant

Upcoming Important Dates

December 31, 2016 – 2016 training period ends for Rule 28
January, 2017 – POST Preliminary non-compliance report distributed
January 31, 2017 – Second region grant quarterly report due to POST