2018 St. Anthony PD Annual Report

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2018 Annual Report • Police Department • St. Anthony Village, Minnesota 25 | P a g e and encourage young people with diverse backgrounds to be future St. Anthony Police Officers. Second, our Community Engagement Team adopted a “soft” uniform option for wear during some assignments. This came about after some discussion with community members regarding whether officers had to be in a patrol uniform at all times or during every contact with the public. As a result, officers assigned to our team have the option of an alternate uniform consisting of a navy blue polo shirt and khaki pants. This offers something of a more approachable and casual look, while still offering a “uniform” and professional appearance. Third, we launched a fourth social media platform with Snapchat. This is our fourth social media account, potentially allowing us to reach a larger and more varied group within our communities. While we have work to do to make our social media messaging as effective and accessible as possible, we’re striving to be accessible and bring information to the public in the most direct way. Lastly, we continue to proactively address the street racing issues along County Rd 88 in St. Anthony and Hwy 280 in Lauderdale. While this is not a new effort for us, it is a high priority. We again partnered with the Minnesota State Patrol to increase our patrol visibility in those areas, enforce traffic safety related laws and ordinances, and educate drivers and onlookers involved in these activities. This is a result of citizen complaints received in St. Anthony and Lauderdale. We understand that this activity is dangerous and has other effects on a community, such as increased noise and traffic. We’ll continue to focus on this concern as a part of our traffic safety focused patrol and enforcement strategy. Other activities through the year included department coordinated events, such as our annual Cops vs. Kids basketball games, Summer Survival Youth Program, Coffee With A Cop, and MN Night to Unite. Those programs continue to develop and evolve. They’ve been successful because of strong support and partnerships with community stakeholders. Local businesses, community action groups, neighborhood groups and civic groups provide input and resources for programs to offer the greatest benefit to the community. The police department is grateful for these valued partnerships and we look forward to strengthening them, and developing others. The following section highlights a few of the activities that St. Anthony Police Officers engaged in through 2018. Most are carried out by officers while out on their patrol tours. Many are self- initiated spontaneously by officers or inspired by community members, some are planned annual events, and others were events that our officers were invited by the community to be a part of. Of course, this is not a complete or exhaustive listing of activities, but merely a sampling of such activities in 2018.