HANSON – Aside from end of the fiscal year concerns, May and June are busy months for the Hanson Police Department, as officials work to wrap up training for the year as part of police reform, which requires Chief Michael Miksch to report to the state by June 30.
Every officer’s training for the year, ensuring standards are met and any issues raised through complaints are addressed, are included in that report.
“A lot of this isn’t a big deal for Hanson,” Miksch told the Select Board in his regular report on Tuesday, June 6. “We’ve been doing the requirements.
Officers are completing the required 40 hours of in-service, including at least eight hours of firearms training – Hanson usually does 12 – and periodic use of force and pursuit policies review.
“The important things,” he said. “We want to make sure nobody gets hurt and we’re doing the right thing and keeping the liability for the town down.”
Miksch said officers are also being trained in laws surrounding human trafficking.
“You wouldn’t think that’s something that really would affect Hanson, but it affects every community,” he said. “You never know when it’s going to creep up, either through business fronts, or – for that matter – when we stumble across some people who might be transitioning through.”
Three officers are going to that training at the end of June, paid for and supplied by a grant through the office of DA Timothy Cruz.
Miksch said his department has received just under 5,000 calls so far this year, which he said, is actually a little low for them.
“I think I have a reason for that,” he said. “It isn’t that people are behaving better, I think it’s the way that we’re documenting some things.”
Of the calls received, there have been 34 arrests – mostly for OUIs or domestic disputes – which are usually challenges every year, he said.
The department has also been working to renew its accreditation over the past nine months. It’s a process that requires Hanson Police to meet 394 specific standards, most of which are already being done.
“It’s just [that] we haven’t put them on paper,” Miksch said. That includes training and records maintenance procedures.
One or two individuals have to be dedicated to the accreditation work, so personnel has been moved around, and the work on rules and regulations is almost complete.
“A lot of the things we do are taught to [officers] in the adacemy .. specialized training or in our own in-house training, but, it wasn’t always on paper and most of our policies are out-dated,” he said. “The high-liabilty ones are kept up to date, but a lot are out-dated.”
Sgt. Peter Calogero has drafted policies to address about 300 of the standards, now they have to get them out to officers and keep them up to date and, over the past year, some standards have already been changed.
It will likely take another two years to first be certified and then accredited.
Miksch is also working with Plymouth County Outreach Hope to place Narcan boxes – one of which is already installed at the Hanson Public Library where staff had requested one – at Town Hall and the senior center and the Fire Department has reached out to offer training.
A substance abuse resource in Plymouth County, PCO Hope is funding the project through a grant. The boxes are similar to ones in place for cardiac emergencies in public buildings.
“They are an extremely helpful resource for us,” Miksch said of PCO Hope. “They assist us when we have overdoses or if we have anybody with some sort of substance abuse.”
PCO Hope aids the department in getting people who need it, treatment hospital placements or outpatient care, as well as resources for families of those refusing hospital care as well as tracking statistics. The department is averaging one outreach a month.
“That translates into about one or two of our residents not making it a year,” he said, but noted that eight out of 12 times such an emergency call is responded to, a person goes for treatment or at least accepts initial help from outreach workers.
He said a warrant request for some of the $8,900 in opiod money the state received and is sending to the town to help fund PCO Hope, now funded through federal grants that are drying up in October.
Miksch also discussed staffing, maintenance and cruiser replacement challenges.