Garden Grove approves contract with company that designs policy, training materials for police
The Garden Grove Police Department is moving forward with plans to digitize its policy manual and training, after the City Council unanimously approved a $59,400 contract with Lexipol, LLC at their Tuesday meeting.
Lexipol provides information and technology to public safety agencies, like police, fire and corrections departments, through digital policy handbooks and instruction models. While a Garden Grove police official said Lexipol’s services would streamline policy updates, some residents criticized the company for having a reputation of meeting bare-minimum legal requirements instead of higher standards.
According to the vendor contract with Garden Grove’s police force, the scope of services include a legally defensible policy manual written by public safety attorneys and experts in compliance with federal and state laws, court decisions and best practices. Lexipol staff would be responsible for providing timely updates to policies and Garden Grove police staff would be able to accept, reject or customize each update.
The manual is planned to be available on web and mobile platforms along with 2-minute, scenario-based training exercises that could be pushed out daily. The training is designed to help officers learn and apply policies to the real world and test understanding through questions at the end of the exercises. The department would also be able to track completion of training.
Lexipol markets itself as a way to decrease a city’s liability in police misconduct lawsuits.
In the proposal overview, Lexipol describes itself as “America’s leading source of state-specific policy and training solutions that reduce risk, lower litigation costs and improve personnel safety in public safety agencies.”
Lt. Carl Whitney of the Garden Grove Police Department said Tuesday the department “utilizes a policy and procedures manual that is updated by the department’s professional standards division as needed. The design and maintenance of the manual has become cumbersome and burdensome throughout the years because of the limited staffing available.”
He said when Gov. Gavin Newsom signed Assembly Bill 392, a legislation requiring law enforcement to use deadly force only when “necessary” instead of when “reasonable,” went into effect in January it took several months and resources to update the department’s written policy, get city approval and send the new information to officers.
Whitney also said every Orange County agency uses Lexipol except for three including Garden Grove. He listed the police departments at Cal State Fullerton, UC Irvine and Coast Community College among the agencies who use the company.
Council members Kim B. Nguyen, Diedre Thu-Ha Nguyen and Stephanie Klopfenstein were part of an ad hoc committee reviewing public safety.
Kim B. Nguyen said the committee identified a gap in the police department’s upkeep of policies.
“As an ad hoc committee we all agreed that this would be a positive and important tool providing strong policy content, reducing staffing time, tracking and improving documentation and so forth. Not only improving transparency but checks and balances,” Klopfenstein said.
Months after George Floyd died and ignited large demonstrations of civil unrest calling for the defunding and abolition of police, residents are keeping an eye on Minneapolis as well as the city’s respective local government’s response.
About 15 people submitted written public comments opposing the contract and said they are concerned about police brutality.
A resolution, unanimously passed by the City Council, applauded officers for how they handled several local protests earlier this summer that were part of the international movement against police brutality in the United States.
During public comment, one speaker said, “I urge the council to consider Lexipol’s reputation before authorizing any agreement or contract with the company. Lexipol has been known to drop policies that barely meet the legal minimum standard for police officers and policies from Lexipol are known to also authorize the use of force for police officers more generously relying on broader and more vague language to bypass liability.
Various police departments have also been sued due to faulty policies from Lexipol that were found to violate constitutional standards and laws. Furthermore, it is concerning that we may be allowing people outside of our communities to decide how our police will operate. I hope that if we do indeed use policies from Lexipol that the city will also allow more local community voices to be part of the conversation.”
The company, created in 2003 and representing public safety agencies across the U.S., has O.C. roots. One of Lexipol’s founders, Bruce Praet, started out as a Laguna Beach police officer in 1973 at 17 years old.
His law enforcement career, summarized in a 1992 Los Angeles Times profile, lasted a decade with stints in Garden Grove and Orange. He beat misconduct lawsuits twice and was defended by Michael Stone, a former sergeant in the Orange police force and lawyer who later represented one of Rodney King’s assailants.
Praet became a police union lawyer, an assistant city attorney for Orange and went on to start a Santa Ana located firm focused on defending cops in civil matters such as shootings, dog bites and pursuits. He co-wrote a law enforcement manual in 1998 using Fulleron’s police department as a model, according to Lexipol’s website. He now serves on the company’s board and conducts presentations to federal, state and local law enforcement.
A Mother Jones report pointed out that in a webinar with police officers last year, Praet hinted that he had personally worked with legislators to water down AB 392.
“The big question is — and I know everyone has been hearing in the media — ‘Oh my god, the legislature now says we can only use force when necessary.’ Is that true? Simple answer, no. What is the new standard? The new standard is the exact same thing we’ve had for the last 50 years,” Praet said in the webinar.
When explaining how AB 392 would be implemented through Lexipol’s policy updates, he later said, “Those of you who have been with Lexipol for years know that all of our policies are peppered with a reasonableness standard. We kept that in the legislation. Yes, would it be nice if you consider other resources and techniques? Of course, it would. But it’s only if reasonable and feasible.”
Garden Grove police officials expect to sit down with Lexipol legal professionals to review the company’s standards and the department’s own local policies to create a new manual customized to the city. The review process could take several months.
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