During the summer of 2020, Police Chief Matthew Murray directed the senior management team and various experts throughout the Yakima Police Department (YPD) to review all of YPD’s force-related policies and to compare them to the Police Executive Research Forum’s 30 guiding principles.pdf (policeforum.org).
The product of that work was an extensive reform of YPD policies, an enormous improvement in transparency, new requirements on reporting and evaluating use of force, and a commitment to new training for officers and other police employees. All of this was presented to Yakima’s City Council on September 15, 2020. One specific commitment was to provide high quality, culturally relevant de-escalation training for all YPD employees.
On January 8th, Officer Ty Campbell, proprietor of Call Box Training, came to Yakima and, after meeting with local stakeholders, he trained half of the agency. The training was well received by both community and police officers in attendance. Officer Campbell is returning to train the other half of the department this Friday.
On Thursday January 21st, at 3:00 pm, in the police training room on 3rd Street across from the City of Yakima Richard A. Zais Jr. Law and Justice Center, 200 S. 3rd Street, Officer Campbell and several local community stakeholders will be available to the media to answer questions and discuss de-escalation and YPD.
“You are encouraged to attend this media availability as we will be available for interviews,” said Chief Murray.