New DOJ report shows progress for APD

According to the Department of Justice, APD is moving in the right direction.

The newest DOJ report filed this week shows the department’s highest compliance numbers since the settlement agreement back in 2014.

“I want a sustainable process that will outlast DOJ and I mean that,” APD Chief Harold Medina said. “I want to create a process that is going to be here beyond them.”

Primary compliance is now at 100%, which means all 276 necessary agreement-related policies are now in place.

Secondary compliance is at 99%, that means all of the training to accompany the policies is done. That was the biggest jump in this reporting period.

“That included use of force, supervision, and PAMS, which is essentially our early warning system,” said Deputy Chief Cori Lowe, who oversees the Accountability Bureau. “We completed all of that training which put us up to 99 percent.”

The operational compliance, or putting the training into action, is now at 70%.

“The hardest compliance level is operational compliance,” said Deputy Chief Lowe. “That is putting that training and policy into operational on a day to day basis. That’s proving that we can do things on our own in accordance with policy and training.”

Chief Medina attributes the biggest jump in this reporting period to new leadership at the training academy and in other high-level positions.

“Sometimes people may criticize and say APD is top heavy,” said Chief Medina. “APD’s never been under a settlement agreement and now APD has never moved a settlement agreement forward this quickly and it’s because we have resources at the top.”

These high numbers signal the end of the agreement could be near. APD recently put a two-year timeline on it.

“My goal is that we go into compliance with policies and procedures that stay the same,” said Chief Medina. “That we modify very little because it is creating the department that we want. Hopefully we could build off this momentum and we could continue to move in the right direction and hopefully we can get out of this in the near future.”

If you want more information on this latest report, a district court judge is scheduled to host a public hearing on it in July.