An increase in criminal behavior? A spike in mental health crises? Or is it simply that a steady increase in population equals an increase in risk?
In the wake of two Boise Police shootings in less than a week, it’s fair to say that more than a few people are on edge.
“It’s always concerning, especially when you have officer-involved shootings that come in such close proximity,” said BPD Chief Chris Dennison. “It’s the last thing any of us want to do.”
And to someone who says “I feel a little less safe,” Dennison would say, “The driver of those incidents wasn’t necessarily the police officers themselves, but the suspects engaging in behavior that was dangerous to the officers or surrounding community that led to this action.”
On another equally critical front – a trend of more serious injury traffic accidents – 27 year veteran Boise Police Corporal Kyle Wills says his traffic safety team is paying greater attention on aggressive and distracted drivers. In fact, they just got a huge boost of funding to increase patrols through the upcoming holiday season.
Chief Dennison and Corporal Wills visit with Morning Edition host George Prentice to talk about the city’s hottest topics and more.
Read the full transcript below.
PRENTICE: Chief. Good morning.
DENNISON: Good morning.
PRENTICE: I have to ask you about the fact that we have had two officer involved shooting incidents in less than a week in the city. I know that you and your department and your colleagues look at these very specifically and individually. So I'm not going to ask about the the details because we'll report them as you give them to us. But can you appreciate someone in the community when they think, oh my gosh, this is way too many, and I might even feel a little less safe.
DENNISON: Yeah, I think look, any any time there's an officer involved shooting it is it adds a strain not only to the community but to the police department itself. Um, you know, having myself been involved in an officer involved shooting, I've had an incident command where where officers have been involved in shootings and killed people. It's an extreme stress. So it's not just the community that's feeling. It's the members of BPD, which are also members of the community. We send men and women to situations that are they're rapidly evolving. We only have limited control of the we have control of what we're doing. A lot of times we're having to respond to what other people are doing and trying to do so in a way that is as safe as possible for our officers, for the community, and for the person we're dealing with. So you're right. We look at every officer involved shooting. We look at them specifically. We look at what are our policies, what are our training, what are the tactics, and are the things that we could do differently in the future that could mitigate the use of deadly force? It's the it's the last thing any of us want to do.
PRENTICE: But when they come so close to one another, can you appreciate the fact that, you know, it shakes us a little bit too much?
DENNISON: Oh, absolutely. Um, you know, it's always it's always concerning, especially when you have an officer involved shooting that comes with officer involved shootings that come in such close proximity.
PRENTICE: Yeah. And both of them involved knives.
DENNISON: Correct.
DENNISON: Is that a trend? Is that something that we're seeing more of?
DENNISON: I don't I don't know if I could speak to the trends with knives that I don't, I wouldn't have enough information to, to give you that. But again, any time we have any incident, we're always looking at okay, what can we do. What can we do differently in the future to try to avoid these? And again, appreciating the fact that we we put men and women in dangerous situations.
PRENTICE: When you say what we can do differently, does that mean a tweaking of training? Obviously there's a debrief. You deconstruct an incident. Is that what you mean?
DENNISON: Yeah, that's exactly what I mean is we look at what what are we training. What are. And we look at best practices across the country. We can look at best practices in other parts of the world, and what tools that we could potentially equip our officers with to mitigate these situations that may not, that we may not currently have. So these are things we have to look at. And we and we constantly want to be at the cutting edge because again, the goal of every incident that we go to is not to take a life. It is to save lives. It's to take people into custody that need to be taken into custody, to put them before a judge, potentially in front of a jury.
PRENTICE: Right. But there's always that moment and you know that moment.
DENNISON: Yes.
PRENTICE: Right. And help me out with that. Is that training? I mean, in that moment, you know, shouldn't that be based on what you have been trained to do?
DENNISON: Well, the if you're talking about the officer's response at the time, that where it goes from.
PRENTICE: When they fire their weapon.
DENNISON: When they fire their weapon, there is training. And sometimes that is the absolute only decision the officers have to make is to protect themselves and protect others. It is to pull the trigger. It is again, it's not something we want to do. It's it's something we are trained to do. But we are also trained, um, to mitigate situations and de-escalate. And we continue to evolve that training. We continue to push the bounds on what we can do with what we can do to save lives.
PRENTICE: And for someone who says, I feel a little less safe, you would say what?
DENNISON: I would say that you have a police department in Boise that is continually evaluating what we're doing is on is pushing the bounds on training and what tools we can equip our officers with, and that these incidents are even though they occurred in close proximity. Um, the driver of these incidents wasn't necessarily the police officers themselves, but the suspects engaging in behavior. Um, that it it's it's the suspects failing to comply with comply with commands or making action, engaging in behavior that was dangerous to the officers or surrounding community members that led to this action.
PRENTICE: I want to ask you a little bit about a new addition to your equipment. Just this week, the Boise City Council approved a BATT, which is a ballistic armored tactical transport. An armored vehicle, right?
DENNISON: Yes, sir.
PRENTICE: And when I looked at the invoice, I see it includes a hydraulic ram package and a gas needle Ram package. This is rather intimidating. $333,000. Not the dollar amount the vehicle itself, but my guess is that's the idea is that it should be intimidating. But but give me a real world example of where you would use this on our streets.
DENNISON: Yeah. So to give you an example, um, several months ago, I was on a scene where we had a suspect who was barricaded deep inside his house. It was for domestic violence. It was an aggravated assault. He had been involved in a firearm and we used we used the vehicle, the ram, on the vehicle to breach the front door. He was nonresponsive to us. We obviously couldn't walk away. He was he was a violent threat to the community and to his family members. So we used that ram to breach the door. And that's a safe way for us to open up a door.
PRENTICE: But that would intimidate, I think, most humans. Right, right.
DENNISON: Well, in that instance, the idea is we want to we when you have somebody barricaded inside a residence, you want to start removing some of those barriers because you want to gain compliance. And if somebody feels where they're safe and protected deep in house, but we can use a Ram safely. And the Ram is it's it's basically you drive up and you're slowly pushing the door in. It's not like you're slamming into it. Um, but the idea is you remove that barrier so it hopefully will open up communication. Well, in this instance. And we and again used it very successfully on scenes where once that was done, communication was established. We were able to get the suspect out peacefully, resolve the situation. However, in this instance where the other benefit of the vehicle was when it was done, when the door was breached, the suspect ended up firing rounds out at officers and during the course of that event fired over 450 rounds at um out of his house at police officers. That armored vehicle was used to extract officers who were in the yard and get them to cover, to extricate them safely from that scene from that area, and then use that vehicle to help establish ...
PRENTICE: Did you get that guy out, or did did that end with the ...
DENNISON: That gentleman ended up taking his life.
PRENTICE: He took his life.
DENNISON: He did.
PRENTICE: I've never asked this question before. I mean, it's a considerable vehicle. Can you get it to the scene of an incident pretty darn quickly?
DENNISON: Yeah. I mean.
PRENTICE: I mean, something like that probably doesn't travel at 60 miles an hour.
DENNISON: I don't know if you're going to do 60 miles an hour. Boise isn't isn't ... isn't on the
PRENTICE: Connector. Yeah.
DENNISON: It's not it's not an expansive city. Boise is about, I believe, 85 square miles. So substantially smaller. So moving this vehicle around the city as needed.
PRENTICE: Do you keep it in a central. I'm not asking you where you keep it. Do you keep it in a centralized area because of that?
DENNISON: The vehicle will be kept in an area that we can we can deploy out of rapidly. So we can deploy the vehicle if needed and get get it to the scene quickly.
PRENTICE: Thank you. Corporal Kyle Wills. How long have you been on the force?
WILLS: So I've been with Boise Police Department, uh, coming up on 23 years. 27 years total in law enforcement in Idaho.
PRENTICE: Oh my goodness. So before BPD, where were you?
WILLS: I was with the Twin Falls Police Department for a few years, and I started with the Glenns Ferry Police Department, where I grew up.
PRENTICE: What do you tell a stranger what you do? How do you spend your days?
WILLS: So I'm assigned to our motorcycle and traffic unit. So my day is spent trying to change driving behavior. And that's done through several different ways. Education is one way we try to change driving behavior. Enforcement is a piece of that. And then of course, working with the local Ada County Highway District and discussing and trying to strategize and come up with ways to even change some engineering to make our roads more safe.
PRENTICE: Most of us immediately think of impaired driving and the destruction that can cause. But what else? I mean, what are you looking at lately as far as trends? Aggressive driving? What's what's going on out there?
WILLS: So we do we see you know our our focus is certainly on any driving behavior that would be dangerous whether that's to other members of the public, you know pedestrians, other occupants of vehicles or occupants in the vehicle itself. That's that's driving dangerously. And and it includes various things. I would say I work daytimes during the weekdays, so my focus is really on aggressive driving, distracted driving, and then, you know, getting folks to buckle up and put that seatbelt on so that they can be safe.
PRENTICE: Can I ask you about distracted driving? Can you can you catch people in the moment, or is it a matter of realizing they were distracted after something happens?
WILLS: So it's a little bit mix of both, I would say. Our enforcement effort with distracted driving is all proactive. So, you know, Idaho created a hands free law a couple of years back. And so that's really helped us in addressing distracted driving as it relates to cell phone use.
PRENTICE: Can I pause you and tell you that I'm sure you hear this all the time. I see so many folks with their face in their cell phone, sometimes at the stoplight, but sometimes on the connector, etc.. More and more is am I nuts? I mean, I'm just seeing more and more of this.
WILLS: No, that's that's what we're seeing out on the road as well. That that distraction and and ironically enough, it's not just cell phones. You know, I mean, people are there's so much going on in vehicles anymore, that people are just distracted in multiple ways. Yeah. Whether it's eating or getting ready for work or on that cell phone or, you know, trying to use a computer, we've even seen that going down the road. And we just proactive, that proactive.
PRENTICE: What does that mean. Like what. So like messaging.
WILLS: Proactive would be it could be messaging. It could be education but proactive would be enforcement as well. So like reactive would be responding to a crash. You know that's maybe occurred because someone was was distracted. Proactive would be us out doing something proactively to try to curb or reduce that distraction.
PRENTICE: I want to talk a little bit about this grant that was just approved. And it includes some specific enforcement, extra enforcement, if you will. And I'm seeing a lot of holiday dates on here, beginning with this Thanksgiving holiday, Christmas, New Year, Spring Break, July 4th, etc.. And is that based on you just need more folks out there because there's more of us out on the road.
WILLS: Yeah, it's kind of a mix of all of that. So what this allows us to do. So this is funding through the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration that's passed down through Idaho's Office of Highway Safety. And what this funding really allows us to do is work outside of our normal or regular hours to give those increased patrols for safety, specifically around, like you mentioned, those those times that we're seeing more drivers on the roadway, more cars on the roadway.
PRENTICE: So what are you going to do? What are you going to do? So for instance, over Thanksgiving, what what more are you going to do.
WILLS: So we're going to increase the number of officers that we have out working traffic enforcement. So that'll really allow us to put more officers on the street than we normally would because it's again, overtime is what that funding is specifically designated for. So it's outside the officers who are already working. But we can increase our bodies and put more folks out there on the street just to make sure that our roads are safe and our motorists are safe.
PRENTICE: You know as well as anyone of the numbers of men, women and kids on foot, on a bike, on a skateboard that have been hit and hurt and or killed. We've got a problem. How do we how do we how do we fix this? I'm sorry. That's that's not a fair question, but is it about changing our overall behavior? What's going on?
WILLS: So I think it's I think that's a good question actually. How we fix it is we've got to get everybody in the community engaged in traffic safety. And and that includes the police department, but it includes the members of our community, whether that's pedestrians or motorists or bicyclists, everybody. And we kind of refer to it as Boise kind. Everybody just kind of needs to think of other people when we're on that road. Be engaged in the act of driving your vehicle. Focus on the road. Be aware of who else is around you. Be aware of those pedestrians and vice versa. You know, pedestrians walking down the sidewalk don't just step out in the street. Wait until it's clear and safe to do so. So all of those things, it really takes all of us. And I think that gets accomplished through education, you know, letting people know what is happening in our city.
PRENTICE: Do we have to be different about this? Right. Because it's going in the wrong direction?
WILLS: We do we we want this to trend opposite, right? We want this to trend to zero. That's our ultimate goal, is to drive our fatalities and serious injury crashes in the city of Boise and across the state of Idaho to zero. And so, yes, we have to think differently than we have.
PRENTICE: Is it more dangerous with less daylight?
WILLS: You know it definitely. The dark definitely makes things harder for drivers to see kids walking, driving a little bit harder, walking home. Absolutely. Yes. We've got kids out heading to school in the mornings where it's darker, you know, and, and and so yes, it is harder to see and that takes even more attention than normal. But it really boils down to being an engaged driver and focusing on the act of driving. Don't let those distractions change what you're doing on the roadway.
PRENTICE: Thank you. Chief, I've got maybe one last question for you.
DENNISON: Sounds good.
PRENTICE: The point of this entire conversation has been public safety. What's your goal? Are we safe enough?
DENNISON: So I would you know, I think if we're looking at the fact that we still have traffic fatalities, we still have serious injury collisions. Um, homicide still exists. Violent crime still exists. Do I think Boise overall is a safe community? Absolutely. Unequivocally. I think this is a great community, something that everybody here should be very proud of. But we can always do better. You know, to Kyle's point that, you know, we we want to drive those collisions down. We, you know, we don't want people. I have I drive these roads. My family is driving these roads. Um, all of our officers have family and friends that are on these roads just like the rest of the community. So, yeah, we we want to do we want to do better as a community? We also want to continue to do better as a police department, which is why we're constantly evaluating what we're doing and if there's something we can do different to enhance the safety of everybody. And this this doesn't just talking about traffic, this is talking about people in mental health crisis. This is people talking about suspects engaged in criminal activity. And we're trying to take them into custody. It's how can we continually improve to make sure one Boise continues to be a very safe place to live? Um, and maybe even make it even safer.
PRENTICE: One last question. How are you doing with staffing?
DENNISON: So we are looking good with staffing. Um, we're anticipating hitting our full staffing numbers probably around July will be pretty close to being fully to our authorized staff. Um, and then we'll continue to work and looking at what are they going to be the needs of the police department as the city continues to grow? Um, where do we need, you know, when do we need to hire a new police officers and expand the expand the size of the agency to meet the needs of a growing city?
PRENTICE: Corporal. Chief, thanks so very much.
Find reporter George Prentice @georgepren
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