Sand Springs Police Department receives international award for policing plan

The Sand Springs Police Department is pleased to announce that their partnership with the citizens of the Sand Springs in community policing efforts have resulted in an award to the agency. The Sand Springs Police Department received the 2018 IACP/Cisco Leadership in Community Policing Award. Chief Mike Carter accepted the award on behalf of agency and the Citizens of Sand Springs at the International Association of Chiefs of Police Convention on October 9, 2018 in Orlando, Florida. The award was open to departments around the world for communities 20,000 to 50,000 in population.

The IACP and Cisco presented the award to the Sand Springs Chief for their “Policing Plan” which has been produced by the Sand Springs Police Department in cooperation with the citizens of Sand Springs. The 2018 plan is the third edition of the plan, which started after the department reviewed the Department of Justice Report on Ferguson, Missouri in 2015.

Chief Carter stated, “We read the DOJ report on Ferguson after our City Attorney David Weatherford suggested that we may want to look at missteps that had taken place in there, and what we could do to assure our public that we were policing in a positive manner”. He added, “We took a look at not only what we could do to promote procedural justice, officer accountability, transparency, training etc, but also at our past practices and decided to produce an annual plan”. The Department has modified and refined the Plan each year by including input from its citizens. Upon presentation by the Department, the City Council holds a public hearing and adopts the current plan by resolution.

Chief Carter spoke about the future of the program, he stated, “The police work we do is constantly changing, and police departments will need to change as the public’s perception of us and the reality of what we face changes. Preparing the plan helped us map a plan for the future, but also captured many of the great things our department has been doing for years to serve the public. It also reflects what our officers have historically done to bring people together and show that we are a police department for all people”. He added, “This award is not just to the police department, but to the Sand Springs community as a whole; it is their faith in us and the relationship that we have with them that made this possible”. Mayor Mike Burdge stated, “We are happy to see the recognition for our police department and the citizens of Sand Springs. With so many great police departments across the globe, it is an honor for our community to receive such an honor.”

Anyone who is interested in reading the plan or the versions of previous years may do so by going to http://www.sandspringsok.org/491/SSPD-Policing-Plan