00:00:13,701	S1:
Welcome to Bismarck Insights with mayor Mike Schmitz, a transparent and engaging conversational dive into meaningful topics impacting local government and Bismarck, North Dakota Bismarck Insights is dedicated to removing barriers between the city of Bismarck and the citizens we serve every day.

00:00:33,467	S2:
Welcome to Bismarck. Insights on Bismarck Mayor Mike Schmitz. And today I have with me our new chief of police, Jason Meyer. It's a little over a month now since you were appointed or hired by the city. So welcome officially. And congratulations. Um, just give us a little bit of information about your biography and what led you to law enforcement. I know some of us know it more detailed than others, but I think it would be good for our citizens to know about that because it shows how important it is and how well qualified you are.

00:01:10,200	S3:
Yeah, absolutely. So I always wanted to be a police officer. That's something I always wanted to do when I was a young kid. And I kind of created, um, my life around being that. So I went to BSc for two years in the criminal justice program, and then I transferred to Minnesota State University Moorhead to finish my bachelor degree in criminal justice. I interned with the West Fargo Police Department, which was very good. I think they let me do some things I shouldn't have been doing looking back on it, but it was it was fun. So I did get lucky, right when I graduated, I got hired with the Bismarck PD and this is where I'm from, born and raised. So this is where I wanted to end up. Even though it's hard to police in your own city? Yeah. As a police officer, because you run into people that, you know, and stuff like that. So yeah, I started as a patrol with the with the police department. Loved it. I did approximately four years on the patrol shift. And then I applied for investigations and I started in investigations. So what I started as a property crimes investigator, so I. All property crimes that needed investigation came to me. I eventually was selected to do personal crimes. So anything personal, um, GSI I, I did investigate a homicide. Um, just various roles that affected people. Yeah. Um, which is a little bit more enhanced. So I love that. I didn't want to leave investigations, but my second time applying to be a sergeant, I became I got selected to be a sergeant. So historically with our police department, the openings are on patrol. As a police sergeant, I wouldn't do anything else and have had that experience as a first line supervisor on patrol. It's a very important position. You're making all the calls out on the street. So I did that for about seven years. As a sergeant, I got promoted to lieutenant. I ran a patrol shift as a lieutenant for a short time, and then one of our police youth Bureau lieutenants got promoted or. Excuse me, retired. So I applied for that position just to give me a different perspective of the police department, because I was always in that field service role, and I really enjoyed that. It gave me some good. Like I said, administrative type experience working with the schools very closely. So I did that for 4 to 5 years somewhere in there. And then I applied for deputy chief in 2017, 2018 time frame and was promoted to deputy chief. Served in the so support service role as deputy chief. So we have two deputy chiefs. We have one that is, uh, field service commander. So they deal with all the stuff that normally happens out in the field, um, patrol investigations, um, the airport, those type of activities. Um, but primarily I was responsible for the budget. So I got a good introduction into the budget, the administrative workings of the police department. Uh, calea our accreditation. Uh, got to get to know that very well. Uh, and then, uh, about three years ago, Deputy Chief Ziegler, who was the field service commander, and I switched over. So I was now field services for three years. Um, and Randy did support services. Deputy Chief Ziegler. So that was I feel like I encompassed a lot of the experiences of the entire police department, and it was very valuable, and I loved every minute of it. And then, of course, I was selected to be chief here a month ago.

00:05:16,667	S2:
And one of your predecessors kind of has. I think some of the same experiences. He came to his hometown and police to Chief Donlon. Yeah. Uh, some similarities to that. Um, Chief Jarvis wasn't originally from here, but, I mean, he spent a lot. He spent a lot of years.

00:05:33,000	S3:
Yeah. He called. He calls this home.

00:05:35,367	S2:
And so, I mean, I think, you know, we're fortunate. We've got this great police department that is probably well trained, our our men and women to ultimately maybe rise to chief if the, if they so choose and, and they fit the bill at the time because I do think that that experience in the community is is valuable.

00:05:53,167	S3:
Yes, absolutely.

00:05:54,968	S2:
So, you know, let's talk about the department a little bit. Um, obviously you've been with the department for a long time, so just stepping in as chief isn't isn't like the major changes. If you had to come from out of town or having to learn. But I'm sure you're learning a lot in the the first six weeks here or so. But, you know, we got 120 ish sworn officers. Plus we have other people. So you know what? How do you see the department as it currently exists? And maybe let's think about as we go forward, what might what you might envision some opportunities for. I don't know if I'll call it improvement, but for change.

00:06:31,868	S3:
Absolutely. So I feel that we've got a very good police department and I base that off of, um, you know, just experiences and training and other things that I've done. And every time we hire somebody from the outside that's worked with another police department, I sit down with them and I said, hey, if you see something in our department that we could do better. Or fix or your old department did something better. You got to let me know. But the the biggest factor in that is really looking and going to trainings and collaborating with other agencies to see what they do and still the good things that they do. And that's exactly what what I like doing. We do we have 100 and authorized 136 sworn officers. So we're getting pretty big. I started with, uh, when I started in 2001, we had 80 officers. So we've grown quite a bit. We have 30 support staff that are non sworn that help us immensely in our in our duties. So.

00:07:40,667	S2:
So you mentioned 136 authorized in the notes at 120 or so. We have some unfilled positions I'm assuming.

00:07:48,167	S3:
Yeah we do. Unfortunately it's it's been hard the last couple of years, I would say since around Covid time frame to to get some good candidates in the door. The candidates we are hiring are good. We haven't changed our standards or anything like that. We're not going to do that. We will run short if we need to. Um, last year was a very tough year. We we were down about 14 officers and unfortunately most of the time that affects patrol. Okay. Because we got, you know, our support staff, let's say let's say our police youth bureau, our uh, our school resource officers, they're contracted. So we can't really just pull one away to fill in patrol. Same thing with the airport or mandated by the federal government to have airport officers out there. So we can't really just say, oh, one day we're short on patrol and pull from them. So it's it's tough and it mostly affects our patrol staff. But this year we were down to that 4 or 5 openings, which is, I think, pretty healthy. Obviously, we'd love to be full, but we're never going to be completely full and we understand that. So we're working really hard to recruit. We go to job fairs. We're just concluding making a a video or recruiting video that's going to it's it's very flashy. It's going to hopefully attract, uh, the next generation into becoming the police department come into the working for us. So.

00:09:28,601	S2:
So I think you may have mentioned this earlier, but you also as part of your time pre deputy, probably you are part of the Swat team with the Bismarck PD. And that's a specialized group, especially the western North Dakota Swat. So how does that group benefit our police department. And conversely, how do we benefit them?

00:09:52,701	S3:
So it's very important, especially for a city our size, to have a tactical team. You need some expertise. Luckily we don't need them every day. Um, historically in the last ten years, there's been about 4 or 5 incidences a year where you need that special trained officers, some special equipment and mostly protection through, uh, you know, armored vehicles and stuff. Because our city is safe. But we do have bad actors, and we want to keep our officers safe, have the best training and that type of thing. So, yeah, I was very interested in that, that Swat role. Um, it you get to go to some additional training and then you get to bring that back to the police department and train your other guys and gals that are, that are out there, uh, just doing the patrol work, to be honest with you, what I tell people on my wife when I was on the Swat team, it's more dangerous to be a patrol officer than a Swat team member. And the reason for that is, is because when Swat gets called, they know what they're dealing with. They have better training, better tactics. Unfortunately. Patrol, they get called to some and sometimes it turns into something they didn't get called to. And it's unexpected. So but yeah, I you know, we don't need them a lot, which is good, but you definitely need them. The state has set up a regional response in four quadrants of the state. Okay. So you got northeast, northwest, uh, north, north uh or southeast and southwest. So it's broken up between Bismarck, Fargo, Minot, Grand Forks. Sure. So they give grants that help, uh, our teams build up. So if somebody else in another in our region needs help, They call us and we can assist them.

00:11:51,167	S2:
So how many of our officers are part of that?

00:11:54,000	S3:
So our our Swat teams are approximately 32 officers. So it is a regional team between us. Burley County Sheriff's Department, Morton County Sheriff's Department and Mandan PD. So we have 18 officers. Okay. Um, and then the other agencies contribute. Um, you know, it's kind of based off their population on the number that they have. So historically, we've ran the team. All the grants come through us. And, um, it's been good. Everybody gets along. Um.

00:12:29,701	S2:
Yeah. I think our law enforcement in the region, the teams all it doesn't matter which community there from our county. I think from what I hear, there's a lot of cooperation. It has to be. Yeah. I mean.

00:12:40,801	S3:
So when we, you know, I've been to some incidences, larger scale, um, in North Dakota, I also went to Milwaukee, Wisconsin for the RNC to provide security for Milwaukee PD. Um, yeah, they are crazy. When we tell stories. They're like, your agencies get along that well. And I'm like, yeah, we have to in North Dakota. We can't we can't separate. We gotta collaborate, um, provide information to each other. And that's the biggest thing. And that benefits citizens the most is when you're your law enforcement is is collaborating together.

00:13:19,467	S2:
Pretty much in sync that way? Yes. So let's talk about the department. I mean, I just I know we've just gone through it. Um, it hasn't probably been truly released yet, but we have accreditation that happens to our department. And, uh, let's talk about that. And the CALEA. You referenced it earlier. Yeah.

00:13:38,167	S3:
So you can look at CALEA from an officer perspective like I did back in. I guess I could say back in the day. Right. And then what it looks like to administration and then kind of looking at how does it benefit the citizens. Well, as an officer, you kind of think that you're doing extra work or Kalia is telling you us how to run our department. And once you get into the administration side of it, you understand that it's helping you. It's not making you do certain things. What it's doing is helping you keep current and keep you on your toes and analyze certain statistics, those type of things. So for example.

00:14:25,467	S3:
Let's say there's a new case law. The Supreme Court comes down with something new on on let's say use of force or something like that. Yeah. The CALEA organization will contact all the Clio or, um, recipients and explain to them that, hey, this is this is new, this is coming out. These are the criteria that I came with. And what they want to see us is to put that in our policy.

00:14:52,367	S2:
Yeah.

00:14:53,667	S3:
So we're we're very current on on trends with the, with modern policing. And it really helps us. For example, we got a lot of promotions going on right now. It really helps us ensure that we're fair, equitable. Everybody's kept informed of the processes at the PD. So I've been writing a lot of memos lately. But it's good. It's healthy. It keeps you you know, they used to say it keeps you out of the courtroom for lawsuits. And I didn't really know or believe that. But now I believe it. Yeah, because it really does, both administratively and legal wise that that you're, uh, that you have to keep up on your policies.

00:15:44,868	S2:
Yeah. And so we've just gone through the, in the field, uh, examination, I'll call it. Um, are we able to say anything yet? How what the results are or not.

00:15:57,367	S3:
For our clear process? Yes. Well, here's what I'll say. We've been accredited since 1991. Uh, in the past, you got accredited every three years. They they've changed the process a little bit over time. They, uh, right now, they're doing it every four years. But what they've done is they go through your paperwork every year. Okay. So they used to have an on site where they came and just looked into all your policies, memos, making sure you're doing what you're supposed to be doing or what you say you do in your policy. And now they do it every four years. But it's a little different because every year they're making you show what, what they call proofs. Sure. We're proving what our we're doing, Which is what our policy says. So, yeah, we, um, we got good indications that we're going to be re-accredited. Um, the accreditation manager that came, uh, to do our on site, he was very interesting. He was a deputy chief in the Chicago, Illinois area, and he loves accreditation. So now he works for a police department in Arizona. Been doing accreditation for them and an accreditation manager for 25 years. And I can tell you the report and what it says is very positive. He really he learned a lot from our department. He he really did on one of our intelligence led policing topics. He told us the next day after he learned about it, that he had called his chief that night and said, we need to do this like, this is crazy. The amount of information sharing that's going on within the police department and the surrounding agencies. Um, he goes. Our department needs to do this. And so he relayed that to us the next day. And it obviously feels good when you've got an experienced accreditation assessor telling you that.

00:18:01,267	S2:
And so, I mean, and to the citizens, what this means is, is we're trying to be as a department, as current as possible with what the appropriate rules and laws, regulations, practices are. Um, again, as you mentioned earlier, to try to keep us out of the front page. Yeah, correct. Um, and no, we have that's going to there's still a risk of that. But trying to be careful that you did mention something earlier and I'll just briefly touch on, obviously with your elevation to the chief that created a tiering effect or rolling of effect of, of items that need to happen. And so we need to be hiring a new deputy. And that's going to probably mean a new lieutenant because we it goes through the ranks. Correct?

00:18:43,701	S3:
Yeah. So we did have the void with with me being promoted was a deputy chief. So we just announced that this week. We went through a pretty intensive process for that. So we do have a deputy chief in place effective Sunday. Uh, we did have a lieutenant retire also. Yeah.

00:19:04,501	S2:
So we met. I failed to mention that.

00:19:06,100	S3:
So we have two lieutenant positions open at this time. We're going through that process right now. I gotta tell you, I wasn't expecting this because I've never seen this in the past. We have 18 sergeants that can apply for lieutenant. We have 15 of our 18 sergeants applied.

00:19:25,567	S2:
Well, that that probably speaks volumes to the appreciation to the to the force.

00:19:32,200	S3:
Yeah, I think that's very healthy. It's going to be healthy competition. Um, it's going to, you know, obviously we I would love to promote more than two. But we got to we got two openings and and I just want to get the best people in there for, uh, the citizens of Bismarck and the Bismarck Police Department. Yeah. And that also opens the void then with two sergeants. So I have just initiated the sergeant process, just getting gauging interest. So they let me know if they want to participate in that process. And that process is going to start two weeks after the lieutenant process is finalized. So I'm already getting a lot large input of of officers that want to become a sergeant too. And that's healthy also.

00:20:25,167	S2:
Yeah, I think it is. I think it's great when we have, um, positions open up and we have more than 1 or 2 people that are going to apply for it. That just means a that I think our rank and file is, if we want to look at it that way, or the other individuals View our our team as worth investing in further. Yes, absolutely. And they want to support it. So let's talk about you know, you've been in the in the position of law enforcement one level or another for a number of years now. What have you seen going on in our city from a crime standpoint? What's what's changed? What's gotten worse, what maybe has gotten better? I mean, obviously more population were had more crime, unfortunately.

00:21:07,367	S3:
But yeah, I did some statistical analysis on crime. Obviously we have different kinds of crime than we have in the past. We've been able to from what the stats look like, like we've been able to cap it. Um, obviously, and this is no different from around the country. There are some more violent crime than they there used to be in the past. But I think if you look at the Bismarck area, it's it's been stable for the last ten years and that's a Uh contributed from uh, to from our officers doing a great job and I think they do a great job. And I will argue based on statistics that are out there for everyone to see, that we're the most active police department serving our citizens in the state. Um, so, yeah, I, um, you know, like I said before, you got some people that commit criminal acts and we're going to investigate those and to the best of our ability, but we want to also have a situation where we're not too, too aggressive. Sure.

00:22:21,267	S2:
So, so from the from the public's perspective, and this is probably where I hear get calls or emails on more than, than a lot of other things is traffic.

00:22:32,801	S3:
Absolutely.

00:22:33,601	S2:
And I we know there are areas in our community where traffic is going too fast. Or not obeying. Stop signs and stoplights and so forth. And Lord knows, we probably have all occasionally not been appropriate on a stop sign or stoplight. Hate to admit it, but I probably am guilty at times and have to acknowledge that. But what are we trying to do to? I think speed is the biggest concern for our citizens. I hear from because of safety. Yeah. What what are we doing? I mean, I, I know we've had conversations in the past and sometimes you target areas, but there's also all these off road vehicles and what kind of chaos they might cause.

00:23:16,100	S3:
So yeah. So as you mentioned and it's surprising, but the biggest complaint we have is traffic. Um, citizens want their area that they live in safe. They got kids, they got kids walking across the street and they want their area safe. We typically have, you know, 8 to 10 officers on an average day out there patrolling. So unfortunately we cannot cover every area. We just cannot. And but we try our best if we get complaints. We have a known area. We have a traffic division that can focus efforts on there on that area. We just can't do it everywhere all the time. And I think people get frustrated with that. But we're trying our best. I know we work with the city engineering department to make maybe traffic slow down from an engineering perspective versus a law enforcement perspective.

00:24:17,267	S2:
To traffic calming.

00:24:19,000	S3:
Traffic calming.

00:24:20,067	S2:
So we implementation of whatever it might be. There's strategies.

00:24:23,701	S3:
So we recently applied for a grant and got it for a speed trailer. And what that is is that it it's a traffic calming device is what it is. We'll put it on an area. We know people are speeding. It captures speeds and it gives us statistical data on how much people are going over the speed limit, how many people are speeding on that road, and then we'll share that data with the engineering and and those folks like that. Obviously, it's one of those things where if you put it out there, people that routinely travel that area, they know it's there, so they naturally slow down.

00:25:01,200	S2:
So the data calming.

00:25:03,267	S3:
Yeah, that that is why it's more of a calming device. I mean, we don't use it to issue tickets digitally or anything like that, but so we use that to as a benefit to the citizens to maybe promote awareness that there's an issue in that area or really analyze, is this a big problem or not? And I know engineering has a way to do it where it's it's not specifically seen out there. So we can do analysis on. Is this truly a problem? Because again, we can't be there 24 over seven. So we use that data and use our resources to the best of our ability.

00:25:45,167	S2:
And as you mentioned, there's only a certain number of individuals out on patrol at any one time during the the day. And if there's an incident that occurs that requires immediate attention, that's going to pull those people off of traffic patrol to assist, probably.

00:26:01,901	S3:
Yeah, absolutely.

00:26:02,801	S2:
And I know that happens to accidents. I mean.

00:26:05,667	S3:
So speaking of accidents, I was talking about this the other day with a new officer. I said, wait till the very first day where it's icy.

00:26:16,000	S2:
Yep.

00:26:16,567	S3:
We will do over 100 accidents. We can't do them all. I mean, but there are reported over 100 accidents. Um, yeah. So that's that's interesting. It's. We would be pulled to just doing traffic accidents at that point. So it'd be hard to do other things. But you know, we manage. There are times we go call to call the call where the officers are most of the day, just going to calls and solving problems. But there are those days to where they're, you know, it's calm out there, not much going on. And that's when they, you know, can do speed enforcement and things like that.

00:26:53,167	S2:
And my point to that is that citizens understand we are aware of, of these situations and are trying to attack them as best we can, but do know that there are calls that happen that will just take the attention away.

00:27:05,501	S3:
Absolutely.

00:27:06,167	S2:
So, well, we'll go into budgeting has been going on. You you fell into it. I guess you were working at it already or a part of it. So becoming chief as we're getting ready for 2026 was not brand new to what you're going on, but what what have you. And the other deputy and prior chief done, uh, as we got ready for 2026 budgeting season because we'd like to find a way to be more efficient knowing we have a hard time recruiting, and b probably had a limited resources for staffing.

00:27:40,467	S3:
So I'm I'm a big efficiency guy. I've been like that for many, many years because I find sometimes we have processes that we just did it just because we've always done it that way. And sometimes, you know, there are things that we used to do that made sense at the time but don't anymore. So yeah, I'm big on efficiencies. How can we, uh, have officers still doing the level activity but doing less report writing, uh, using AI to help us in report writing, which would save, you know, even if you save 15 minutes a report, um, over the course of a year, with all the officers doing reports, that shaves off a lot of time. Yeah. Uh, so we have invested in that. Luckily, um, with the city and the Budget Committee and and everybody understanding that we can save time here by helping with report writing. I know the hospital industry is doing it to save time and we're no different. So definitely we're looking at processes to be more efficient, looking at technology to be more efficient. And we're going to continue to do that okay.

00:28:55,701	S2:
And you know, we we we didn't even get to everything here. And but I appreciate it. And I'm sure we'll have an opportunity in the future to share information with our community. But chief, thank you for accepting the offer. Um, I'm I'm thrilled that you're in the position, and I feel like we're in extraordinarily good hands at the department and in the city and the region. So thank you for joining me.

00:29:18,801	S3:
Thank you. And that's my goal, to keep the citizens safe.

00:29:22,167	S2:
All right. Perfect. Thanks, chief.

00:29:23,801	S3:
Thanks.

00:29:36,267	S1:
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 em Schmitz at Bismarck Govt.

00:29:49,868	S1:
Or call the City of Bismarck at (701) 355-1300.

00:29:54,267	S1:
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