The Tulsa Police Department isn’t focused on recruits who only want to hop fences, drive fast, shoot guns and catch bad guys.
The agency covets rookie officers who are equally excited about reading books to kids.
“If you’re one or the other, then you’re not adequate to be a Tulsa police officer,” said Capt. Matt McCord, assistant director of training. “We want you to be both of those things. This isn’t policing in the ’80s.”
McCord explained the department’s revamped training philosophy Tuesday afternoon during a meeting of the Mayor’s Police and Community Coalition. McCord said about three years ago the agency scrapped the “boot camp-style” academy in favor of a “professional” program.
On day one, cadets hear a talk about how they must be willing to serve the community — both by engaging with the public, like in a pickup basketball game and pursuing criminals.
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The instructors, instead of a militaristic approach, conduct themselves in a professional manner the recruits should emulate in public. Tulsans aren’t looking for military-style policing in their local law enforcement, McCord said.
“The concept of that — there was really no malice intended in it — but what it can lead to, especially in our society, is officers more interested in being warriors,” McCord said.
Maj. Ryan Perkins, training director, took over the academy in June 2015 along with McCord.
The pair set about rewriting situational training exercises to be progressive. Until recently, McCord said, each role-player scenario had someone who was trying to kill the recruit.
Now the scenarios better reflect reality, he said. There’s an emphasis on de-escalation techniques and non- or less-than-lethal options in much more common situations.
For example, a role-playing actor will be a belligerent or rude person who swears at officers — not someone who whips out a gun when the officer looks down to write the person’s name in a notebook.
“It made them skittish and made them believe everybody everywhere was trying to kill them,” McCord said.
Each rookie also becomes certified in Crisis Intervention Training, he said.
McCord said officers still undergo “plenty of survival training” and are no less prepared to defend themselves. But empathy and cultural competency are paramount skills for recruits.
For example, he said, there is a class taught to recruits about the 1921 race massacre. Cadets also attend classes on LGBTQ and Muslim culture.
Toby Jenkins, executive director of Oklahomans for Equality, teaches the LGBTQ course and was at the MPACC meeting Tuesday.
Jenkins conveyed how impressed he is with the intelligence and training of the cadets. He said he teaches through real examples in which Tulsa police didn’t handle LGBTQ encounters well.
“We give this as a problem to solve so the cadets will say, ‘Here’s how this should have gone,’” Jenkins said.
The Police Department is installing a fresh cultural competency program, which includes implicit bias training. It uses an Intercultural Development Inventory to measure how aware a person is of other cultures.
McCord said the implicit bias training, rolled out in a process through 2019, will be mandatory for every officer.
“The goal of the program is to make officers better communicators with different cultures and resolve conflicts,” he said.
