Department of Police
Reference: Presentation by Chief Southard regarding the Brighton Police Reserve Unit
To: Mayor Gregory Mills and Members of City Council
Through: Marv Falconburg, Acting City Manager
Prepared By: Paul Southard, Chief of Police
Date Prepared: January 29, 2020
PURPOSE
To discuss the recent stand down of the Brighton Police Reserve Unit.
STRATEGIC FOCUS AREA
Safe, Active and Engaged Community
BACKGROUND
In 1968 Brighton Municipal Code 2-24 created the Brighton Police Department Reserve Unit. The unit was established to provide additional officers to protect the city. At the time, reserve officers outnumbered the small compliment of full-time officers. Over time the unit has varied in size. Its membership was at 9 officers by the end of 2019.
Reserve units used to be rather commonplace in Colorado as many smaller cities and sheriff's offices supplemented their patrol force with the volunteers. Over time the Colorado Peace Officer Standards and Training Board (POST), began upgrading training requirements for Peace Officer certification. Initially academy training was nearly non-existent. This progressed as training academies and POST gradually lengthened programs to the current level of nearly 4-6 months. In addition to academy training, POST requires a minimum of 24 hours of continuing training each year. Of this 24 hours 12 hours has to be skills related, i.e., firearms, driving and use of force/ arrest control.
In 2019 the reserve officers struggled to comply with this requirement. Many were still working toward completing this task near year end. Staff time was diverted from other tasks in order to facilitate completion of this training. Failure to complete the training would result in the loss of POST training grant funds for the department.
The training deficiency was the impetus for a discussion about the reserve unit and its current state. Command staff members submitted their recommendation for moving forward with disb...
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