Omaha police have come across a management problem recently with officers dealing with crowd control. It has been reported by Tristan Bonn the city auditor in the public safety auditor report that Omaha police officers are overly aggressive, officers are receiving complaints that they were acting rudely, threatening public with arrest, and generally overreacting to inoffensive behavior. These complaints make up about 5% of the 200 internal investigations since the auditor's office opened in 2001. Bonn has received most of the reports directly from the public but states that she can't say how many. Some of the officers were complained about repeatedly said Bonn. Bonn has recommended that the department address the complaints by reviewing training and by reassigning staff. Bonn also stated that the internal affairs unit has responded well to her suggestions on other issues and that the overall police department is engaging the community better.
Police Chief Thomas Warren stated that crowd control can be challenging considering the number of people to officers and that officers have to be assertive to establish control. Chief Warren said that he feels that the department is doing things properly, but plans to continue re-evaluating operations and determine if changes will be made. .
At this current time the Omaha Police Department is experiencing a large personnel turnover and is losing a lot of veteran officers. This means that there are more uninitiated officers on the police force dealing with the boisterous job of a police officer. I think the city Auditor is correct in suggesting that more training or revised training is needed to deal with the complaints from the public. Providing adversity training for new officers and teaching management staff proper planning techniques would be worthwhile because, controlling large amounts of people can be troublesome if there is no training or a proper plan in place to handle these situations.
