Officers will answer questions from residents during inaugural ‘Coffee with a Cop’ get-togethers
Published in the May 11-25, 2016 issue of Morgan Hill Life
By Staff Report
The Morgan Hill Police Department staff
Photo courtesy Officer Jeff Brandon
Emphasizing the need to encourage community engagement, Police Chief David Swing described at an April Rotary Club of Morgan Hill meeting the current state of public safety.
Since taking the position as head of the Morgan Hill Police Department five years ago, Swing has sought to build more involvement with various organizations and build programs encouraging proactive community policing, he said.
Among some of the successful activities and programs he described are those where officers get involved through sports with youths who are risk and the National Night Out program held every year on the first Tuesday in August.
The Morgan Hill Police Officers Association in December held its first “Shop with a Cop” excursion in which more than 120 fourth graders in local schools were recognized for being positive role models to their peers with a shopping spree at Target.
The department’s Citizens Police Academy is a 13-week program where residents gain in-depth understanding of the public safety issues in Morgan Hill. The department also works with the Community Law Enforcement Foundation on various projects including the annual Cops & Robbers Ball which raises funds for equipment not budgeted by the city.
To build on this mission of community engagement, the department will start this year holding regular “Coffee with a Cop” get-togethers in which officers can meet with members of the public and answer questions and address issues, a program similar to the monthly “Coffee with the Mayor” program.
“We’re engaged in the community. That’s who we are. We support our youth and we do our best to make a difference every day,” Swing said. “We’re going to continue to be a professional, proactive police department that works in partnership with the community to serve our residents and ensure safety. And we do that through prevention, such as programs like Neighborhood Watch, through our electronic newsletters, through our social media posts, and through the Youth Task Force that might be able to intervene with kids who are at risk or getting into gang involvement.”
One of the goals for Swing in 2016 in continuing the department’s path of community engagement is to develop a Public Safety Master Plan for both police and fire to see where staffing levels need to be in the future and also look at “best practices” to see if areas of service can be improved.
“This is the first time in 20 years, maybe the first time ever, that we’ve invested resources in developing a master plan for police and fire,” Swing said.
One area of concern Swing expressed to the Rotarians is the rising trend of criminal activity coming from other communities, including Gilroy, Hollister and cities north of Morgan Hill.
“We have seen an increase in the number of folks who come to Morgan Hill to commit crime. No two ways about it,” Swing said. “About 40 percent of the folks we arrested in 2014 were from outside Morgan Hill. In 2015 that number jumped to 51 percent.”
Another concern is the department’s facing recruitment and a retention challenges because of an improving Silicon Valley economy.
“We need make sure that we recruit and retain the best and the brightest because our job is getting more complex every day,” Swing said.
The police chief took time to put a spotlight on the MHPD’s 39 officers’ effectiveness in law enforcement, saying a recent report showed that 51 percent of the cases they work on end in an arrest.
“That’s the highest number in 2015 in Santa Clara County. The next highest is Palo Alto at 45 percent. And we have consistently led this or have been number two for the last three years,” he said.
The department is second in the number of arrests made by officer and third in the number of reports made by officers.
“Again, we’re one of the most productive departments in our county. There’s a city to the north of us that has 100 officers that made fewer arrests than we did last year. It speaks to the proactive culture of our organization,” he said.
The state of Morgan Hill’s public safety creates a sense of “perceived value of resources” for residents, Swing said.
“It’s important to know that 92 percent of our residents feel that our city is heading in the right direction, so we have a very high satisfaction rate among our residents, so they appreciate the high quality of life,” he said.
