It is now official that the City of Danville has accepted a three year Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) grant from the Federal Department of Justice, and Danville Police Chief Christopher Yates says the first step is going to be hire new police officers to expand the Danville Police Force total to 70 officers. Then, it’ll be train officers to fill the six positions funded by the grant.
AUDIO: We’ll select four veteran officers that will be part of a new crimes unit, and then we’ll have one other additional officer that’s going to be part of the domestic violence initiative as a Domestic Violence Officer that specializes in not only the assistance, investigating, and presenting domestic violence cases; but also in educating the public in what we’re trying to do.
There will also be an officer filling the Community Liaison position, working hard on meeting community needs, and understanding community expectations. As Chief Yates has been saying, this may be a three year grant, but he intends to keep these new positions going. And over the next three years, he’ll be working with the city to make that happen.
AUDIO: I never want to add and then take away. I think the community will see how they are going to benefit from this. And I think this will be something that will be very strong in the eyes of our city leaders to maintain.
The three year COPS grant is for $750,000.
