Defining roles to better serve you
As your police chief, I am asked many questions about law enforcement matters in the city of Polson. This column is to share with you information about your department, its duties and responsibilities and at times, to highlight one of our personnel.
Many have asked about the marked police unit with the logo Civilian Police Assistant. On each front fender is the word in red large letters “Unarmed.” This is for the occupants’ protection as they do not carry a firearm.
We constantly, through supervisor and team meetings held no less than once a month, attempt to think of ways to streamline our service to you, our customers.
Brian Kunz was originally hired as our animal control officer. There certainly is continued need for his position in this area. However, there are times during the day when his services as the ACO are not needed. Thus, the question was what to do.
As a staff, we explored various areas that Kunz could be utilized, which would then free our officers up to address other concerns like traffic and community safety and deliver a higher quality of service product to you our citizens.
Kunz is an exceptionally capable person in so many areas. Some of his duties may seem mundane to the ordinary person, but Brian shows enthusiasm in all areas of assignments he has been asked to perform.
We have sent Kunz to Crash Investigators School so he can investigate traffic accidents. He will be sent to additional schools in this field as they present themselves to hone even further skills in this area.
Kunz is an outstanding photographer in his own right with superb equipment. Thus, we asked Brian to attend Crime Investigation School along with Detective Sgt. Alan Booth. This is so that on major crimes against person or property scenes we have two people to respond, thus generally freeing up our patrol officers to respond to other police matters and thus assuring quicker service to you our customers.
Kunz is our statistician, which is a very time consuming task, but more essential so we can identify problem areas in our community, then react to those concerns. Also, he furnishes stats to the state of Montana, which in turn allows us to apply for grants.
Kunz also runs our evidence storage unit. This is probably as important a function as we could ask a member of this department to be in charge of.. We certainly do not want to victimize a victim twice by improperly logging, storing or shipping evidence, say, to the crime lab. He receives, logs and catalogs evidence and once the case is settled, either returns if appropriate to its rightful owner or destroys it if it’s illegal contraband.
Brian does many other time consuming duties that include testing monthly portable breath analyzers and administers tests to those we believe are driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs. He assists on ambulance calls, directs traffic at major events and a myriad of other assignments beyond the duties he was originally hired for.
We believe we have and will continue to work to deliver the best bang for the buck to our citizenry for their taxpayer dollars. By no means are we perfect and for those who are old enough to remember the Avis Rental Car slogan directed at Hertz, “We are second best so we try harder.” As Chief, I disagree with the second best part, but we pledge to always work to deliver the best service possible TO YOU OUR customers. I hope the print media allows me to do these kind of updates periodically so you are kept appraised of YOUR police department’s operations.