February Swearing In Ceremony Boosts Force Total To 74 Sworn Personnel, Still Fourteen Shy Of Goal; More Officers Yet To Come Despite Difficult Hiring Market even as APD runs recruiting campaign
By Larry Freeman
A recent promotion, officer/employee recognition and new police officer swearing in ceremony on February 13th boosted the number of Alameda’s sworn personnel to 74, according to APD. That is a rise of twelve or so compared to the same time last year.
The addition of this round of new officers gives Alameda a current total of 50 officers with another 24 serving in the department’s upper ranks, including the Chief, Nishant Joshi.
Twenty-seven of the 50 were hired by Joshi along with eleven of 15 promotions to sergeant and four of the department’s six lieutenants since he assumed the department’s top post in May of 2021.
That still leaves the department fourteen shy of the top number of 88 The City Council has authorized for hiring, which will provide for another 14 officers to be added in future times.
February’s event saw officers Penitito Faalologo, Kayla Gronley, Jimmy Quach, and Llomira Silva take the police officer’s oath followed by their own, personal moment of pride and a new beginning for them with the pinning of their badges.
The four, called “lateral transfers,”all came to Alameda with prior police experience at other departments, as OPD or The Alameda County Sheriff’s office. Even so, they trained and graduated Alameda’s police academy after about six months.
THE BADGES MAY BE ON, BUT MANY HURDLES LIE AHEAD FOR ALAMEDA’S FOUR NEW, PROBATIONARY OFFICERS
Once pinned, the APD rookies – regardless of any police department years and experience they may have had as “lateral transfers” –undergo several months of Field Training and then undertake one more step towards attaining full proficiency.
They undergo a period of added supervision and training by one of APD’s twelve sergeants after the new officers are assigned their own shift, according to APD Lieutenant Alan Kuboyama who provided much of the data for this article after hours of intensive research on his part.
Even then, training for the ‘newbies’ — and all other sworn officers in the department—is ongoing with emphases on arrest and control tactics, decision making, de-escalation, vehicle operations, critical incident response and another element that APD clearly emphasizes in its swearing in ceremonies, employee wellness.
Still more scrutiny awaits the recent hires as they spend another two years as probationary employees with constant evaluation in play, a process that has a more direct connection to interactions out in the field with the advent of police body cams.
APD’s recent acquisition of software that helps department leadership identify and focus on police/public interactions that involve significant tension, or physical altercations makes that video footage the subject of follow-up conversations.
If officers perform well with a surly or abrasive person, they may be commended. If they do not maintain APD’s expected professional standards of composure, sound judgment and professionalism, that becomes a different matter during their review and conversations with Chief Joshi and other APD leaders.
To learn more about the impact of body cams, social media and more on APD and policing matters, click on Podcast headline below to hear an in depth interview with Chief Joshi on the subject:
STAFFING STORY CONTINUES BELOW PODCAST INSERT
APD STAFFING ISSUES AND GROWTH UNDER JOSHI
The recent swearing in of the four represents one more round in a sustained series of hiring steps under Joshi.
APD, as is the case with other police agencies, faces a series of headwinds with respect to maintaining or increasing its force numbers due to a shrunken pool of qualified candidates in the wake of anti-police sentiments, Pandemic impacts and the hazardous nature of the work.
There is also the customary, ongoing drain of attrition due to retirement and other factors as officer dismissal, health reasons and so forth.
Since Joshi took the helm, APD lost eight sergeants, 21 officers, one recruit and 23 professional staffers, so netting any increase in force numbers has to go above and beyond those subtractions.
Thus far, Joshi has ushered in 32 new sworn officers and 21 professional staffers, so reaching the fourteen more that have been authorized becomes a key step in rising above the toll of the attrition rate. APD anticipates future officer retirements, and must factor for that as well as it seeks to boost force numbers.
The department looks to add three more officers who will hit the streets, if they graduate the academy this May and successfully complete their Field Training Program (FTP), in July.
Three newly hired recruits are slated to being academy in a couple of weeks and are on track to graduate academy in September and complete FTP sometime in February 2025.
APD is also interviewing and conducting extensive background checks on an undisclosed number of recruits who, if accepted, will have to attend Police Academy and graduate, a process that can take well over six months as academies, like civilian schools, have set calendars and police departments must work within their timelines.
ONGOING RECRUITMENT STRATEGY AND OUTREACH
The department is well aware that, to attract quality people to work here, it must, in effect, build its very own brand of special distinction and allure.
It has to do more than just claim and repeat the central, self affirming message that ‘we are a great department/we are the best.’
Its standards and expectations must make real those elite notions through training, camaraderie, performance and frank evaluations of officers who do not hit the mark.
Throughout each and every swearing in ceremony, a resounding theme is that new officers, and those currently employed, have to resolve to continuously meet APD’s high performance standards.
Joshi and other APD brass at the ceremony reminded the newcomers and vets alike of just that in numerous comments they made from the podium.
The basic message: high standards are not a goal, but a baseline expectation of this department.
Joshi expressly seeks to build APD’s reputation within the police community –and Alameda’s often very critical local community– as a top quality organization whose ethos is grounded in police professionalism and community service, especially as police and police agencies in general have taken many a deserved reputational hit in the wake of all to frequent outrageous, unnecessary and sometimes homicidal police abuse incidents and claims.
In the past year, for example, The City Of Alameda/APD, in addition to Instagram and Facebook, has run a recruitment/hiring blurb on “X” headed by an image that reads, in part, “We hire for character and train for skill.”
APD’s gradual force-build relies upon lateral transfers, police academy graduates and recruits to attend academy
But panache is only one element involved with growing a force. Just as with most any career or job, attracting and retaining quality talent involves the brass tacks of greenbacks.
Alameda offers a hefty $75.000 ‘signing bonus’ with $25,000 coming after academy graduation and another $50,000 at the end of the probationary period of two years.
By contrast, Berkeley seeks to raise its “incentive” from $12,000 to $25,000 while San Leandro offers $20,000 and a proposal to approve one in Oakland died in The City Council in 2021.
Alameda made headlines around the area and state as offering what appears to be the top amount in California
Substantially higher salary ranges in Alameda compared many local agencies are also an allure. Alameda’s base range lists at $113,651.20 – $138,195.20 per year, compared with just above $105,000 offered for new starts in Oakland, about $111,000 in Berkeley and about $91,000 in San Leandro.
APD makes no pretenses about its assertive campaign to attract quality talent –in the private sector such is sometimes referred to as “poaching” – to create a quality force with an allure to aspirants and a high esprit de corps for those serving.
“We have committed to elevating the quality of our brand through the delivery of our services to improve our reputation within the industry so we can recruit existing police officers who are working in other agencies,” said Kuboyama.
APD has a wide outreach to get the word out, with its campaign employing “print magazines, digital magazines, terrestrial radio, career fairs, and spoken presentations at colleges,” said Kuboyama.
One particular outreach used Eventbrite to post three “Pre Employment Testing And Training” events. Its graphic, in the shape of a horizontal cell phone screen, contained the phrase “Come Join APD Because You’re The Best,” a persuasion technique combining flattery and prestige.
COMMENDATIONS FOR HIGH END PERFORMANCE, PROMOTIONS AND RECOGNITION
Two officers in particular, officers Robert Hansen and Saif Ali, each received kudos for dedicated performance that involved them taking on key crime tackling tasks as a voluntary, extra step above and beyond their assigned, required duties.
Hansen took on the writing of search warrants on his own personal weekend time to assist in an ongoing investigation into the killing of OPD officer Tuan Lee. Two suspects were arrested in conjunction with the case and APD declined to release further details about Hansen’s efforts, citing the ongoing nature of the investigation and pre trial status of the suspects.
Officer Saif Ali of APD’s Community Resources Unit undertook the task to see if cases brought to The Investigation Division showed any links between shoplifting crimes at different locations in Alameda and elsewhere.
His work paid off and he identified a group that hit a beauty store in town bore a strong resemblance to one that hit a clothing store. In one instance the suspects left an Alameda retail business with felony level grand theft of $22,000 in merchandise. Dots began to connect and Ali discovered that the alleged thieves teamed up in other locales as Brentwood and San Ramon.
Arrest warrants for the group’s members have been issued due to his initiative, according to Lieutenant Jeffry Emmett who issued Ali an Employee of ‘the Month award at the ceremony for his deeds.
Shoplifting, which is categorized on APD’s crime graphics page as “Larceny theft” is still a problem plaguing Alameda as statistic comparing January 1 through Feb 27 2023 to January 1 through February 27 2024 show an increase from 31 such reported retail incidents at the South Shore Shopping Center to 36.
The Southshore Walgreen’s continues to be a frequent target with APD showing 11 calls for service last year compared to 12 this year. These numbers do not include incidents when the store’s personnel do not ask APD to arrive and investigate.
Those wishing to visit APD’s crime graphics interactive map page may do so by clicking HERE. Users may select specific date ranges and types of crimes and see where and when in Alameda they took place, along with minimal added information about the event.
The others receiving hires, promotions and commendations at the ceremony were:
Brandon Hansen and Jason Horvath, promoted to sergeant.
Joseph Barraza, hired as Public Safety Dispatcher
Employee of the Month, Staff member and secretary to Chief Joshi, Maria Sanchez.
Also in attendance were Mayor Ashcraft, Council Persons Tracy Jensen and Trish Spencer, City Manager Jennifer Ott, about a dozen APD officers not directly involved with the presentation, and friends and family of those honored.
The ceremony was set to be hosted at the Alameda Elk’s Club next door, but someone forgot to unlock the doors and APD had to scramble to move the event to City Council Chambers and get things done prior to the beginning of the Council meeting that night.