Welcome to Bismarck Insights with Mayor Mike Schmitz, a transparent and engaging conversational dive into meaningful topics impacting local government in Bismarck, North Dakota. Bismarck Insights is dedicated to removing barriers between the city of Bismarck and the citizens we serve every day. Good morning and welcome to Bismarck Insights. I'm Mayor Mike Schmitz, and today we're gonna focus on community engagement with Officer Cathy Horn. I said that wrong, Katie Horn. I am sorry. I don't get it all the time. It's OK. I can't read it's spelled a little bit differently, so yes, I can't read very well, so that's, that's my fault. Sorry about that, but officer, please give the audience a little bit about your background. I know several people in the community probably have seen you, heard from you, but let's. You know there might be people listening today who don't know how you got to your position and uh working with the Bismarck Police Department. Yeah, I actually am from, uh, right outside of Minneapolis, Minnesota and my now Lieutenant Lieutenant Mike McBurdy called. Um, we actually have the same advisor in college, um, just a few years difference, and they called and asked me to come. To Bismarck, apply and see if I like it, and I haven't haven't left that was in December of 2014, so a little over 10 years. I've been with the department. I think it was like November of 18 I was asked to apply for the community engagement and crime prevention section. Um, somebody, uh, Officer Rentz has, I think like 26 years of experience, was retiring, um, and so they asked me to be a part of it and. I fortunately got the position and I haven't looked back. Well, that's awesome and I know you know I hear about all the things that you help the community engage with and help to prevent and and the activity and it's always wonderful to So let's talk more specifically what is the role of the crime hear that. prevent crime prevention and community engagement section for the department. Yeah, so our main goal is to bridge that gap between our community members and our police department. We want them to see us as, you know, we're doing a job but we're human too. um, we're gonna make mistakes, but we also have, you know, a lighter side to us as patrol officers, um, and that's really what we do on the community engagement side is we try to bridge that gap so that, um, individuals that um see us aren't scared of us they know that um we're friends. We're here to help them with any with anything that they would need help with and then the crime prevention side of it is we just want to help businesses and individuals become less of a chance of being a victim to a crime, whether that's through the education portion, doing like annual trainings with them to doing like security surveys for their residents or their buildings to make sure that they're bringing in things proper light. Um, making sure the doors are, are locked solid, um, just So that's, that's pretty much what we do in our section. things like that. So let's talk about residentials for a little bit or residents personal homes. What can people do to help make sure their residence is secure? What what should they be looking for? Yeah, um, you know, the first things that we, we try to look for is that those exterior doors and the windows, making sure that they that they're that they're locked for one, whether you're there or not, um, you just want to get in that habit of locking the doors and the windows unless you have it open because it's a nice day out, but making sure that you're there a lot of people sometimes on, you know, um, level houses uh first floor housing. They'll leave their windows open and leave. I mean, that's a great chance for a perpetrator to come in and get in and out very quickly. The other thing that a lot of people don't think about is the lighting, you know, I get it, um, you don't want to have your whole, you know, you don't want the lights, you know, glaring into your windows at the same time, if you have somebody who. Looking to commit a crime if they're going to be seen, they don't want to go to that location um and then the bushing, you know, bushes, a lot of people like to have shrubs and beautiful flowers in front of the residents and we just say, you know, make sure that it's not overgrowing, um, it's not um. It's not going up into your windows so that people can use that as concealment because if you call us and you say, hey, there's somebody in the area, you know, he's hiding behind bushes, we're gonna, it's going to be a lot harder for us to find them if you have these big bushes that are not um upkep and trimmed. Um, you know, and again, if it's somebody, even during the daylight a lot of people think that crime only happens at night, it doesn't. We have burglaries, we have break-ins during the day simply just because people forget to lock their doors or have those bushes and they're able to conceal themselves while breaking into the residence. So you talk about lighting. You're talking about exterior lighting, so like in the soffits or just light. In general, like a porch lamp or porch lamp, even if you just have a basic porch lamp, it will help, but floodlights, a lot of people have those motion activated lights. Those are a huge hit because again they're only going to come on when something is moving and you some of those ones you can actually put the um the sensitivity to it. So you know if a fly goes by, it's not going to go off. It has to look for something a little bit bigger than a. Dog, you know, and granted you can do a small dog to a German shepherd, but if that light's coming on, it might also get you to wake up and say, Hey, something's not right. I need to call 911. And it causes a startle effect, I suppose, to that potential perpetrator. Absolutely, because again they don't want to be seen. So if they are if they're trying to commit a crime and then all of a sudden they have this bright light on them, they're gonna, they're going to more than likely think twice. OK, what um. Think how to ask the question. So let's back up. How many officers are in the, the section? So we currently have um 22 spots for just officers and then we have a sergeant and a lieutenant. Um, unfortunately with the passing of, uh, my, my favorite partner Officer Fuller, um, I'm kind of in the one woman show Um, we did it we did hire a new officer, but he is finishing right now. out his role in the section that he's in right now and then hopefully being able to transition over in the summer. So two officers that are kind of on the beat, so to speak or or out in the public regularly and then the higher ranking officers to to guide OK and so as far as the as part of the. Additional prevention or engagement, what activities do you partake in? Who are we talking to? Kids, adults? It's everybody. um, we can go into schools um right now I think the youngest that I even go to is a mom group, so they have infants to toddlers, and I talk to the moms about safety and then I can even try to try to instill those um easy to learn tips to those little toddlers, you know, the infants aren't gonna get it, but, um, and I've had, I've talked to somebody as high as 106 years old about safety, um, so it's, it's really we are so. Are we can individualize anything to anybody so if they if we have somebody that wants to talk about a presentation for safety for their business, it could be completely different. It's just like patrol not every day is the same it's completely different. So again we could do a safety talk for seniors and then right after go to a safety talk for kids in elementary school we're gonna tweak it to their age and what their knowledge is about the um topic. So as the department had brought this in place and we're active for a number of years now, a couple decades at least, what do you feel has been the benefit not only to the law enforcement team but to our community? Do we, do we feel like we have great engagement and and not being afraid of law enforcement in our city? I, I truly do believe that, you know, coming from Minnesota, I've seen some of the things that have happened in other states, and I truly do believe. Um, I know I told you this probably at our picnic years ago is our department, I truly believe is the best department in the state, um, in the nation, you know, and it's, it I mean, we, our patrol usually deals with the 5% and it's the, truly says that. you know, it's the worst day of their life, um, the people that come to our events. Some of them have said I've been scared of officers my whole life, but coming to these events, seeing that we're we're smiling, we're happy, we're human, um has kind of helped again break down those barriers to and allowed them to come and ask us questions that they usually wouldn't ask um we have a we have a great support system here from our community. Um, I think we can always do better. I always want, I want to get to that 100% of everybody, everybody loving the officers, but I do understand, um, some people have had bad, um, encounters with police officers, whether that's our department or a different department. Um, and that's where we come in is to show them that hey, whether or not our officer made a mistake or maybe they made a mistake, you know, hopefully we can get past that and you know, kind of become unified. Yeah, and there's always gonna be that 12, 3%, 5% that you know there's an event happens and and they got a bad experience and it, it's good that we're being proactive and trying to encourage that, you know, we're, we're here to help. It's really what we're here for. It's all about public safety. So there are some things that. You know, what happened was uh not just probably you but all officers when a kid is riding a bike or doing something positive, what do we do? Are we do we give them some rewards? Absolutely we give them ice cream tickets and that was a fun thing that actually we started with AAA. They had a, they had the event and they were with multiple different states and then a couple of years ago they actually stated that they weren't they weren't able to financially keep it up with inflation. And so we again we were like well this is such a huge thing we just like our stickers that we give out these ice cream tickets kids actually ask their parents, can I get a helmet? Can I get a bigger helmet? Can I get a, you know, a proper sized bike so that they can get this ice cream ticket. Um, so it's a big thing and so I was able to come up with our own, you know, um, our own program at the police department, um, and it's still I actually just gave my first one a couple days ago to a little boy, um, you know, and he's, he's writing, but he followed all the rules. It wasn't even just that he was wearing a helmet, followed all the rules he was scared of me at first just because he's never really. Had encounters with police, but after that he did not want, he didn't want me to leave, you know, that's like a huge success story, yes, and it's, it's great it's great to see those little kids that might be again they're fearful of us because we're not just wearing a suit and tie and you know or a dress, but we're wearing, you know, a uniform, but we're also wearing our vests and it can be it can be scary. Um, but so being able to again start it young with those interactions with the little kids I think is a great opportunity for us to hopefully start changing the mind of some of individuals that again might have had a um a negative interaction with us. Are there other things we do within the community, other events that we host or that the police department is hosting or a part of that helps us engage? Let's talk about those a little. So we have our community picnic that we have every year. That's a huge hit. We've actually um partnered with our canine um and Bismarck as well as Mandan, um, and they do a little demonstration on on how our dogs, uh, work and how well trained they are and how well they listen. Um, but we do anything from again those for the community, but we do our blood drive in September with Vitalent. Um, a lot of our programs we like to partner with other people because again it's not just, it's not just Bismarck PD putting on. Um, we've got organizations that help with donations or sponsorships, um, or just partnering. So the other big one that we do is we partner with Mandan, um, first responders and we and Brave the shave, and we do a Brave the Shave event, um, so we're trying to get those programs up up and running a little bit more, get more attendance to those, but those are just a few things that we do, um, you know, we, there is one I think. Couple of summers ago we had a trucker going through um and they ordered the wrong um ice cream and they transferred the wrong ice cream and so his his uh boss said hey you just got to dump it and he um he doesn't believe in that so he called our police department he donated all of that so that we actually went out and gave icy and ice cream out to just random people um anywhere. Again from little kids, um, we gave some to individuals that were um they were dealing with some hard times. They didn't have a roof over their head and just giving them that ice cream, um, some of them I've recognized when I was on patrol and um they still remember me but they hadn't seen me in a while and you know giving them some ice cream again, it just bridges that gap between them so they know that you know it doesn't matter if you have a home or not it doesn't matter. Um, if you've got an addiction or not, we're here to help you and we wanna make sure that they're safe just as much as, you know, anyone else, um, that helps break down the barriers remember that, you know, our law enforcement individuals are human beings too. They're just like the rest of us, and we all have, we all have very positive days and some struggles some days, right? So another thing we do within the city and you've participated in this is the uh citizen police academy. Um, you're part of organizing that. Let's talk about what that is. So it's a 12 week course, um, kind of like our, our, uh, city academy that we put on, um, but what it does is it really dives in deep about our department. You, if you are a participant, you get to see the ins and ins and outs of the police department, um, every single day for up to 3 hours, um, you get to, I should say every single week, every single day 3 hours, but once a week, um, for 3. Hours um we have one section of the department come and they just dissect what they do um they don't just say oh I'm a detective and I did I go out afterwards no they they show them what they do, um, and it's a great opportunity for anybody whether or not it's somebody who's getting into law enforcement or thinking about going into law enforcement. Um, you know, to, we've had, I think a couple of years ago we had a 70 year old that just wanted to participate. He, he had grown up here the whole time and he wanted to see kind of the change of the Bismarck Police department. Um, some of the fun things that individuals get to do is they get to do a ride along too that really opens up the eyes of the participant to see like if they're looking into it. Um, looking into law enforcement, can I do this job? Is this something I can do? Um, we're a lot different than some of the other departments. Our call volume is very, very high. Sometimes that's, um, that's an indicator whether or not somebody wants to do it, um, but the other fun thing that I think is that the participants, if they would like to, um, are allowed to go through a firearms training and so they actually get to go through a small simulation of shooting the firearms that we carry. Um, so again, it gives people the opportunity to see how our officers are in day in and day out, but if they've got interest in a specific section, um, they get that really in-depth, um, information about that section. That's, that's awesome, and I think it is a great way. It's no different than the Citizens Academy that the city runs, um, although this is more intense, um, but it, it's important, I think that we can have that opportunity for engagement. The more people get through it, the, the more they understand what what our law enforcement officers have to go through on a day to day basis potentially, but also just the respect of it and and the and we get respect for them too. So the, what's the, what do you feel the success is for or measuring, how do we measure the success for crime prevention and the engagement section for the police department? What, what are your tools for measuring that success or? I I think it's all um. You know, all the, all the times that we deal with people, you know, when I first started some of our events were smaller, um, and now we're looking at, you know, the 500s to 1,000s, um, people are coming to our events in that in those numbers, um, I, I, that's how I look at my success is our program successful, um, are people showing up but not just that I mean on a daily basis we have people stopping in at the PD dropping off, um, you know, um. I don't wanna say gifts, but food, you know, they'll, they'll go out and they'll just be like, hey, I was thinking about you guys. I, I got you, you know, a box of cookies, um, and it really truly shows that we, we are doing something and it's not just our section. Um, you know, again we talked about partnership, but it's all of our sections here at the PD, um, you know, they most of the time it's like, hey, I had a really good encounter with this officer, and I just wanted to thank him, but I also wanted to thank Bismarck Police Department. I wanna thank our receptionist, um, our records, ladies, for being able to get information out to a certain individual that may have been involved in an accident and they needed it for court or something like that. Um, I think that really shows just how how good our department is and how much we are, um. We are truly involved in our in our um city just because we get thanked all the time, you know, some people even notice some of our officers off duty and um they'll come up to them and just thank them, you know, in a quiet manner we don't need a big banner we definitely don't need, um, you know, we don't get into this job for the 25% off or 10% off our meal because we're law enforcement, um, anything like that, but it is a very nice gesture, but you know just those thank yous go a long way, um. And, and I'm glad you brought it up and that you're getting these people coming in and it's your focus and your role of creating the engagement, but what are you hearing from your co-workers, the other law enforcement officers, and what is their They come back with stories. I gotta believe how well they were treated or the respect they're seeing what are some of those stories? I think most of them you just kind of they're just they're on a traffic stop and somebody thanks them, you know, just for keeping them safe even though you give somebody a ticket they still thank you at the end of it because um for the most, I should say I in my opinion, all of our officers, you know, hold themselves at a higher standard and they they're trying to do their best like we've talked about. Um, and then they, um, you know, they'll get thanked after a traffic stop and you kind of wonder, well, why would I get thanked? It's all because of the way that they're that they're approaching that individual, um, you know, and then of course when we get food we've got a couple, we've got a couple of people in town that just routinely bring us food, um, the second we send out an email, the officers come. Down and they're just like I just can't believe this person took their time out of their day to do this you know and they're very appreciative that way um a lot of us as officers we don't like to show our emotions um I'm a little bit different with my field but um a lot of our officers, you know, they're just they're very appreciative for what the community does for them and I think that kind of gives them. Um, that little, you know, pep in their step to continue and knowing, uh, to continue their job, but also knowing that what they're doing is meaningful and it's appreciated by our community. Yep, that's great. So our community is growing. as we look forward and maybe you haven't, don't wanna do that, don't like to look forward, but we have to look forward, what do you see are some of the opportunities and challenges uh for prevention and obviously increasing engagement in our community. Um, I'm always looking forward, um, I'm always looking for that next best thing that we could do to, um, become a better department, um, and first off I think. I I my 5 year plan hopefully would be that we can actually add more officers to our section. I know there's a lot of officers that are on patrol that are phenomenal with the community. Um, they're trying to, you know, they want to be on patrol, but they also want to engage with the community, so hoping that, um, either we can add more officers to our section, um, because with our city growing we're gonna need more officers to help because, um, at, at some point we are gonna get burned out if we've only got two of them, um. But being able to connect more with the community I think is is is gonna be a huge thing coming up with those new ideas, new programs, and then the programs that are successful that we have is just making them bigger and better, um, you know, with our community picnic first it was kind of more national night out. But then it, um, just with the way that National Night Out was a registered organization we kind of pulled away and then we do our community picnic. um, first year it was a couple 100 that showed up last year we had about 700 and then we added our canines, we added our vehicles. So just being able to maybe add just a little bit, um, a little bit more to our events, I think it's just gonna continue to have our department grow in more of a positive interaction with um with individuals and make them want to come. Come to us and come to our events um regarding crime prevention I think it's just it's a revolving door we've got we've got new things coming out, new safety equipment, new technology. Technology is our our big thing so people utilizing those new, new things that are coming out I think it's just gonna make them um safer. Sure, and one of those things I think um we're in the process of from a safety standpoint or maybe it's, it maybe isn't prevention, but it might be helping to secure and apprehend the person who perpetrated the crime, but do we not have or we're in the process of creating the ability for videos that come off of someone else's camera that can be uploaded to the department somehow or is that or is that still in the works? It's it's still in the works. You know, we've, we've had so much, so many success stories with people with like their ring cameras or um you know uh oh gosh, I can't think of what it's called Nextdoor app where people are communicating with each other. It's kind of like the old neighborhood Crimewatch program. Um, you know, unfortunately that wasn't necessarily successful enough for us to keep it going here in Bismarck, but that doesn't mean that the community members, the neighbors aren't communicating with each other, um, and we've actually been able to successfully, um, find the perpetrator for crimes because of ring doorbells. Um, there's all these little tiny communities that work together and you can just upload the photos, um, so we actually have our own government ring um. Account and so people are able to share that with us which is phenomenal again we've had so many successes with it um I don't know if we'll ever get we will ever get to it where we'll have kind of account for the city where people can just send it in but I think as long as our officers stay in tune with what's what's the new hot, you know, hot technology out there, what's the new app out there, I think we'd be able to just continue with that communication with the community so that we can potentially stop um stop perpetrators from getting away. That's, that's great. So the last question sort of, um, as a police officer you get to see the community through a lens that many of us do not. um, can you share with the audience, you know, about your job and the community what what service to the community brings for you is joyful. Oh, my whole job is joyful. um, you know, if anyone's ever, if anyone has ever talked to us, uh, Clint and I always used to say we're the fun police. Um, our jobs are so much fun even on days where we're going, going, going, um, we loved every minute of it because, you know, um, patrol, you know, sometimes we have people that They were calling us names, they spit on us, they yelled at didn't like us. us sometimes that can get get to even as I'm, I like to say that I'm a very joyful, happy person, but some days I'd get off work and I'm like. Am I, um, is what I'm doing really making a difference? Um, in this section, you get to see the difference, you get to see the smiles on the kids' face, you get to be thanked by, by individuals just coming in to do a safety presentation. Um, like I said, as I've dealt with kids all the way from 3 years old all the way to 106, um, it's been a really good opportunity for me. Um, I love, I love the community and like I said before, um, I truly do believe that, uh, this the Bismarck Police Department is the best department in our state. Um, and then you know, North Dakota is just the best state, um, and so I truly am honored to be in this section. I hope that it never does go away. I just hope that we continue to grow, um, and that we become more of a unified community, not, um, not very there's no barrier between law enforcement and our community members. Well, I think it's important if we think we want to have a safe community we have to be able to be engaged, um, and have the engagement go both directions. So I, I would hope that we don't ever lose this, this section of our police department and it probably in reality needs to grow, uh, or at least, uh, cross over so that you know sometimes when someone's on patrol, maybe one day they get to be. For one day a week or one day of their. You know, month or whatever they get to do some of that work but it probably would help them too so and it will help our community as we as we'd like to grow and and we know we'll grow and I too do believe we have a very, very good law enforcement division police department in the community. In fact, I would say we probably have the best in the state, but I'm also biased, so, um, I, you know, our, our department has been run. Very well for a number of years and we've been very fortunate to have good leadership and so um thank you Katie for your time today. It's been a pleasure and citizens, you know Katie's there to help us out so be feel free to reach out to her thank you so much. Thank you for watching Bismarck Insights with Mayor Mike Schmitz. If you have specific topics or questions you'd like addressed in future episodes, email Ms Schmitz at BismarckndD.gov. Or call the City of Bismarck at 701-355-1300. 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