Just a reminder that the Speedway Police Department is undergoing an assessment by CALEA (Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies, Inc) to achieve accreditation, indicating that the Department meets the high standards and criteria and excellence in public safety.
How Can You Help and Why Your Support Is Important
Public support is an important part of the CALEA assessment. You can help by:
Attending the meeting on Monday 12/11 at 5:30 at the Town Hall meeting room and offer comments;
Attending the meeting and listen to comments
Calling to offer your comments on 12/11 between 3-5 PM at 317-246-4326
Writing your comments to the Commission: Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement, Inc. (CALEA®), 13575 Heathcote Boulevard, Suite 320, Gainesville, Virginia, 20155.
On Saturday, February 13, 2016, the Speedway Lions Club hosted the annual State of the Town Address, held in the Media Center at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
In addition to summaries of the various Town of Speedway departments, including Parks, Streets, Infrastucture, Schools, and Fire Department, Speedway Town Council President David Lindsey spoke about the effort and commitment of the Speedway Police Department to the safety of the town, highest standards of policing practices, as well as the continued strengthening of partnership with residents.
I personally believe that the key to the quality of life begins by keeping our residents safe. Our emergency services have consistently risen to the challenge of protecting our residents, businesses, and investments in our community.
Our police department was recognized by the Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies as an accredited police department. This recognition places our police department among the select police departments in the United States that have best police practices. Of the over 17,000 police departments in the United States, only 581 are CALEA accredited and our police department is one of those departments.
We see other instances around the country where there is strife between the community and police; but in Speedway, our police department is part of our community, and as a group professionals charged with a challenging and often dangerous job, they have willingly accepted the challenge to adopt the highest standards of law enforcement.
Speaking of engaging citizens and police, the department’s Volunteers in Policing services has done just that. The V.I.P. program utilizes graduates of our outstanding Citizens Academy to assist in special public safety assignments including special event security and traffic control. Would all of the graduates, instructors, and volunteers of our Citizens Academy please stand and be recognized at this time. Thank you.
In 2015, this partnership between the community and our police department extended to our high school as well. The outstanding leadership in Speedway schools and the Speedway Police Department created the first Student Academy to foster strong relationships between the next generation of leaders in our community and our leaders in law enforcement.
We accomplished all of this while serving as the lead law enforcement agency for three international sporting events and 62 special events in the community. Make no mistake, our emergency service professionals face challenges each day. To assist in the challenging environment that they must operate in, we have invested in the infrastructure that allows our team to stay informed. We have improved cameras at intersections and in our parks, adopted a policy that will allow the police department to replace the oldest squad cars in the fleet and we’ve partnered with other agencies to utilize data and mapping technology to be more proactive. We believe that by fostering strong partnerships in the community and taking decisive action to deter and arrest criminals, we will continue to protect the investments that we have made in this community.
Our Code Enforcement Division took on the challenge of developing recommended updates to the Town’s Municipal Code. This is no small task when you consider that the code in some instances was nearly 90 years old. These policy changes added a much needed review of the necessity of many of these antiquated laws while also recommending policies that make our neighborhoods stronger and safer. I greatly appreciate Joe Kramer’s efforts to help us not only enforce the Municipal Code, but also to find ways to strengthen it. Thank you Joe.
Click here to watch the entire video of the Speedway Town of the Town Address (the portion the address related to public safety starts at 45:46):
In addition, the 2015 Year in Review video is shown at the end of the State of the Town Address or you can view it separately below. The video contains clips of so many of the great events, construction, and development in Speedway. Among them is our 2015 National Night Out event, as well as the graduation for the latest Citizens Academy Class!
On Wednesday, February 17, 2016, Chiefs from within and around Marion County (including Speedway PD) met with IMPD to discuss crime & data analysis and how to better communicate with each other.
IMPD Chief Troy Riggs said:
“It was our pleasure today to have some of the surrounding Chiefs of Indianapolis come here and talk about working together in partnership to try to deal with some of the issues we’re facing, not just in Indianapolis but throughout Central Indiana. I’m really excited about the men and women that represent the departments around us; good, hardworking motivated individuals, they’re going to bring alot of talent to helping us in Indianapolis and as we work at trying to really focus on crime, we want to make sure that all of our Chiefs understand what’s going on, so we just don’t simply displace crime. In working together, we improve the quality of life for all the residents of Central Indiana. So we’re very grateful to the Chiefs for being here today and we look forward to working with them in the future.”
IMPD Assistant Chief Bryan Roach said:
We believe that crime doesn’t have any borders and that all of us are probably dealing with the same issues and even some of the same individuals. So this was an opportunity to communicate where we as a police department, IMPD, is going and to enlist their help and to open up doors of communication so that we can be more effective for the community in general.”
Please join the Speedway Police Department, Speedway Neighborhood Watch, and Citizens Academy Alumni for an evening of food, information, fun, and community spirit! Help strengthen police-community relationships by meeting with SPD officers, watching police demos, and learning about various anticrime initiatives.
We’ll also have music, kids’ activities, information booths from public safety-related organizations, civic groups, town departments, and much more!
National Night Out is an annual community-building campaign that promotes police-community partnerships and neighborhood camaraderie to make our neighborhoods safer, better places to live. Together, we are making that happen.
National Night Out enhances the relationship between neighbors and law enforcement while bringing back a true sense of community and provides a great opportunity to bring police and neighbors together under positive circumstances.
See attached flyer for more information (click to enlarge).
