hello I'm Chief William mcmanis you may recall a show called behind the badge which aired on tvsa the sapd is proud to announc that after Hiatus the show is back and better than ever we hope to bring you a monthly inside look at what the sapd is all about what we're doing and what we have planned for the future we will feature content which shows our officers individually and collectively doing what they do best protecting and serving the citizens of this great City in the coming weeks you'll see a new intro and set design we're excited to show you everything possible about who we are and what we do please check us out and let us know how we're doing and what you'd like to see more of feel free to email us any questions or story ideas to behindthe badge at San antonio.gov thanks for watching and enjoy the show welcome to this edition of behind the badge thank you for joining us I'm your host Sergeant Javier Salasar director of Media Services for the San Antonio Police Department as you may know this is our first episode in several years and naturally we wanted to make our return a big one we chose to take on a topic that's near and dear to our hearts recruiting the recruitment of quality applicants has been a major priority for the sapd our recruiters have spent extensive time and effort refining our testing procedures and increasing our Outreach a big part of this Outreach involves targeting certain segments of the population we hope to increase our uh numbers in and uh we do this by holding special events the most recent of these events centered around women in policing one of the organizers of this event officer Ivon Padia will join us today to tell us about how the event went she'll also tell us about why the event was held what it accomplished as well as what the recruiters have planned for the future officer Pia welcome thank you for having me thanks for being here we we wanted to hear a little bit about the event the women and policing event can you tell us when it was held and where we had it Saturday July 27th and it was held at the San Antonio Police Academy oh good deal when uh how did it go in your in your eyes as the as the event organizer and as a recruiter how do you think it went it went a lot better than I thought we were actually anticipating around 150 potential applicants and we had over 300 wow women attend our event so it was a lot more successful than I anticipated um we reached out to the general public and informed them of the event the best that we could and and we had some great numbers what uh what what were they treated to what what did the anybody that attended the event what did they get to see well they were able to hear from three speakers one including myself and we had a sergeant Leslie CIO um we had officer anaisa Diaz and we had officer shaunas Bennett uh they were able to hear different stories um from these three women and their um you know successes on the department the obstacles they were faced with um which is a big challenge for a lot of women who reach out to us in that how do I have a career in law enforcement and balance family and so all of these women have stories behind them they were able to share them and they were able to interact with them good deal so you got you got kind of a segment of of each rank they were able to hear from all ranks all the way up to the top yes we had assistant chief Geraldine Garcia she's our highest ranking female on the department and she was able to go in and speak with them you know herself about the her successes on the department and um what she's been faced with and and how she's you know made it to the top oh good uh so you know they they did I guess get a get a good uh feel for for what these these female officers go through on a daily basis uh professionally and I guess personally they got um they were able to I guess you can you can attest to this that as a female police officer there is life once you once you get out of the badge and and the uniform you are able to to balance a family life there is and that's one of the biggest concerns um you know applicants will call us females will call us interested applicants will call us and the you know most people would think that their general question is what am I going to get paid what are my benefits what are my incentives what are my opportunities on the department when in spite of all that they questioning is how do am I a how can I be a law enforcement officer and go home and be a wife and a mother and those are some general concerns which we understand um I've been in that situation I came on the department as a single parent I had no family in law enforcement there was some hesitation from my family um but you know for me I looked at it as as something different it was something I wanted to do I wanted to uh you know provide for my family as well but give back to my community okay well so so which brings us to our next point I guess um you know women in policing at least there's a perception there that they're going to be treated different by their family and and you say you didn't you didn't really you were able to overcome anything that you saw from your family yes um as as far as being a female in in the police department are you treated do you think you're treated any different by the by the male officers that you work with I am not I am not you're treated very equally and and the same thing happens in the academy when you go through the training so I I love being on this department um it was a great uh change for me and and I I look forward to it are there any plans uh to hold any similar events like women in policing the next event we're looking at hosting in January okay um so we'll be doing this event a couple of times a year and to reach out to women so if they miss the last event they'll definitely have another opportunity if there's a woman out there that's interested in a in a career within the sapd and she wants to to watch start watching now to see when the next women in policing event is what what channels are we going to use to get that out there that to advertise our next event uh well they can always catch any of our events on our website sapd careers.com um under upcoming events uh and we also post all our upcoming events to our Facebook page sapd careers so they can definitely go to our our page if they're on Facebook like our page and stay tuned for any upcoming events are they going to hear the same speakers as the last one or they're going to be no we'll we'll definitely uh change that up and we'll bring in uh additional females uh to come in and give their stories um you know my main focus on this event was to create more of an interaction with the interested applicants and our speakers um because I want you know everybody's got a different story out there and so if someone uh may have the same concerns that I had when I came on the dep Department I want them to be able to come to me and know that you can ask any questions that you have and we can definitely address those okay well now speaking of those questions what were some of the more common questions that you guys were getting and then I guess I guess some of the more interesting questions that youall had uh the the biggest question was the physical fitness um a lot of concerns for that um and and we we ensure them that you know we can definitely help you in getting uh physically in shape we have a PT Readiness program the the second question was how do I balance family life and law enforcement um and lastly how do I convince my family that this is a good career choice there were definitely some concerns in that area as far as the as far as women on the San Antonio Police Department uh how do our average uh numbers of of females within the ranks compare nationally to the well right now we're at n and a half percent of uh the police department is women and Nationwide the average is 12% we don't necessarily have an average uh percentage where we want to be our main concern is just to tell women out there that have an interest in law enforcement that you can definitely do this job it's a great job working for the San Antonio Police Department has provided for me and my family and I've had nothing but great experiences um you know and I I just feel it's important for women to that are out there I I think there's a lot of them out there a lot more that don't reach out to us because of their concerns and we want them to know that we are here to help you we're here to give you all the information you need um you know I'm the only uh female in the recruiting office at this point uh we are looking at recruiting another female but we are there to give you all the information you need and our male recruiters as well they're willing to provide you with any information you need we don't want any hesitation that I can only reach out to a female reach out to the male counterparts that's going to give you an idea of what it's like to be on this department and how your male counterparts are going to react to you sure sure well you know in talking about our numbers then it it would appear that we're somewhat behind the national average um you know we we couldn't even guess as to what to attribute that to but where would we like to see our numbers is is there a Target that we want to be we don't have a Target we we don't necessarily have a Target um we just want to reach out to all the women that we can and say you you can do this I did it as a single parent it it was rough and I had my challenges um but overall the way I looked at it was with determination that uh I'm going to provide for me and my family and at the end of the day I'm going to go home um I I definitely believe that the the training St the the staff at the Academy at the training academy all your training and everything kicks in I've been in situations myself and I know the concern is the dangers of the job but understand that the training that you're provided is extremely extremely it's it's great training we we get over double the T close hours uh than than you know what the TLO what T close requires and so it shouldn't be a concern okay and T close being of course Texas commission on law enforcement officer standards and education that's correct they they are who holds our licenses and they they are who uh who certifies us and as as you're going through police training uh you get training hours towards your te cloth yes exactly exactly and all all that's going to kick in um we never want anybody to come in and think it's a dangerous job I I believe that there are a lot of dangerous jobs out there and you can be in a situation where you don't feel it's a dangerous job and Things Can Happen um but I you know I wear this uniform with pride and anybody else in this department that's here they wear it with with a lot of Pride and I believe in our training okay good so long story short can women handle this job yes absolutely okay absolutely good great well we we certainly have all the faith in the world in you and all of our other female police officers we're we're certainly proud of the work that you guys do uh you know don't go away uh we're going to take a short break here shortly but uh but when we come back we're going to have one of your uh your teammates in in recruiting officer Chris Cordell here and of course we'll talk about not only a little bit more about women and policing but but some of the plans that we have uh moving into the Future Okay uh so it's it's time for a short break but when we do come back we'll take a look at what Sap's recruiters are working on for the coming year uh please come back and join us sure you could settle for an ordinary job or you could choose something more you can embark on a career where you have a chance to make the world a better place where the people that you work with they're as close-knit as family it's a place where you'll earn the respect of the community every single day you could become a San Antonio police officer I'm not going to sugarcoat it it isn't easy and it's not for everyone the training you'll get in the academy will challenge you but it'll also teach you our guiding principles compassion Integrity fairness and respect on the way you'll build friendships and you'll keep them for the rest of your life once you graduate the places you can go with your career in the San Antonio Police Department are Limitless if I had a opportunity to talk to somebody young um out of school uh our department offers so many opportunities if you want to be a swap member you can be a swap member if you want to be a hostage negotiator you can be a hostage negotiator if you want to be a bike patrolman you can be a bike patrolman if you want to be a helicopter pilot like myself you can be a helicopter pilot we offer the training we offer so many opportunities to advance not only that we off also offer uh education if you're a high schooler and and with some limited college and you want to continue your education well guess what we pay for your education my name is Michelle Ramos I am a detective with the San Antonio Police Department I work in the homicide unit so we I am assigned to the murder detail team we investigate murders deal with families it's nothing like TV if a young woman was considering this job with the San Antonio Police Department I'd tell her to go for it there's plenty of job opportunities different units that they can become a part of it's a great job some female detectives where it's easier for us to talk to certain victims uh certain family members some witnesses also you know we have women who won't open up to men as much as they open up to women well I'm a patrolman I work at night it's dog watch so so it's a different world out there when you're working at night uh so while everyone's sleeping you know we're up fighting crimes it's it's not a joke and it's not a game and it isn't easy but the the benefits are so so great the people that I work with I have work with the best individuals I've that I've ever met and also knowing that I'm protecting the city that I'm raising my daughter in helps me feel good my current job I'm a scient to the downtown bike Patrol and we Patrol downtown uh assisting tourists uh helping people out and looking for uh crime situations the best compliment I've received is uh citizens were telling me I wish police in our town were like you guys very helpful very friendly very professional there's uh a lot of opportunity to rise with the ranks and promote yearly there's tests that are given from detective and all the way up to chief of police and there have been people um in the department that have made the uh made the promotions and made the rank all the way up there my name is Willie Dylan I'm with the San Antonio Police Department hostage negotiations team on a day-to-day basis what we do we'll go out if we get a Call of a barricaded suspect a hostage situation uh someone who doesn't want to come out uh we would negotiate with them to come out just to uh either save the life of the hostage or the person on the other end of the phone anytime you can save a life uh even if it's uh uh the person on the wrong side of the fence it's uh it's it's a great reward for you you know and it's a reward for their family it's a reward for their friends uh their spouses so um I really feel good about it when we have a successful uh outcome the transition coming from the military to the San Antonio Police Department was very smooth because it's a structured environment uh it's an environment where you know you know what you have to do you have your rules your regulations just as in sanitarian Police Department we have our general manuals and procedures to follow so the transition for me was uh easy uh it's a family environment same as the military uh you take care of one another as you do in the military so that transition was great my name is Officer Zachary Waters I work with the San Antonio Police Department and I've been on the force about a year I love the fact that I don't sit behind a desk and have to do mundane stuff on a day-to-day basis I get to patrol around the neighborhoods that I work in and live in I get to work with the community people that I live and serve and I get to enjoy the fact that I get to protect and serve and people call upon me when they're in a time of need uh for myself I'm from out of state I'm from California I moved here for the job to join at San Antonio Police Department I think it's something that this career provides me the opportunity to be able to leave this place a little bit better when I signed on and I put this uniform on my name is Sergeant Leslie Coro with the San Antonio Police Department I supervise a group of Patrol men these are the guys that make the calls out on the street the the friendships that I've made on the force I wouldn't even consider them friendships it's it's like family um I've worked closely with so many wonderful people that I I consider them them as my brothers and sisters if you think you have what it takes to become part of the sapd family we'd like to talk to you visit sapd careers.com to print an application or you can call 21207 50 talk with one of our recruiters about one of our upcoming information sessions Today We Gather to recognize the selfless decision of one of the most influential women of of our time the woman who after having one too many drinks chose not to drive home buzzed here today to honor Rachel is the family whose lives she spared hello I'm San Antonio Police Chief William mcmanis did you know that over the past year we've seen a significant increase in vehicle crashes involving pedestrians many of these accidents resulted in serious injury and even death and the worst part is that most of them could have been prevented by simply following the law Texas law states cross the street only in designated crosswalks follow the signals and never cross a highway on foot sapd officers will be out enforcing these laws you may not want to be one of those sighted but you really don't want to be one of those injured or killed walk safe San Antonio welcome back to behind the badge I'm your host Sergeant Javier Salasar sapd recruiters have been hard at work coming up with new and innovative ways of recruiting new police officers we just discussed a recent women in policing recruitment event where the main objective was targeting female recruits and joining us now is another sapd recruiter officer Chris Cordell officer Cordell and officer Padia are going to tell us where the sapd recruitment efforts go from here for 2014 and about some exciting new events in the future welcome to the show officer Cordell thank you it's good to be here good good uh we wanted to talk to you guys about not only the women in policing event but uh similar outreaches that we have uh going on for for other segments of the population and then some some other plans that we have coming up for the future for the next year it's going to be a big year for us as well as the last quarter of this year uh we've got a couple of things in the works uh we also have uh our Public Safety day which Officer Taylor puts together every year we have that coming up the last quarter he's letting us know that it's going to be around the end of October maybe early o early November so keep a look out on Facebook and our website for that one we've also got a couple of changes coming up in our hiring process which we can cover when we get to that point good deal well let's let's touch on that that next event what exactly is that event what what can people expect to see that come to that uh well I'll get into how we did the last event we're going to change it up a little bit just to make it a little bit more convenient for the participants there but what we did was we brought 27 law enforcement agencies into um San Antonio College we set up all these law enforcement agencies and kind of a round robin session and let anybody who was interested in law enforcement come in and visit any agency they had an interest in we tried to put the information out in all the cities and make it a little bit easier kind of a One-Stop shop um each agency's qualifications are a little bit different um most of our applicants don't understand it they think we all kind of fall under one umbrella when we don't um each department has the right to set whatever their regulations are as far as hiring is concerned so what we try to do is bring all these agencies in and say somebody's interested in Dallas they go talk to the Dallas recruiter they may not be eligible for whatever reason Dallas can push them onto somebody else we'd rather have have them in law enforcement somewhere than law enforcement not in law enforcement at all okay good so the the that event did it I guess it turned out well for you guys the last one it did it did we just wanted to make it a little bit more user friendly for everybody there um we're this is only our second event so we're just trying to streamline the process and make it much more effective sure these events are like anything else in law enforcement or anything else for that matter you kind of learn as you go along and and each one is is big bigger and better so we're hoping the next one's going to be bigger and better Obviously good deal trying we're trying well we're looking forward to hearing from that and then there was something else that you'd mentioned that there's going to be another another change coming that we can talk about I guess on the on the physical yeah we're we're redoing um I shouldn't say redoing we're kind of revamping tailoring our physical fitness portion of the hiring process a little bit more to the job relatedness um currently right now as it stands the way that our physical fitness test is is performed it's separated by age and gender and those are the requirements you're going to have to do um and uh each applicant is required to do a mile and a half run a certain amount of sit-ups in one minute and a certain amount of push-ups um we're switching over to a timed obstacle course um it's going to be one time uh for the age and regardless of age and gender oh good okay so it's it's certainly an interesting change um I guess why the emphasis on physical fitness for for police recruits why is that such a big deal um we see it as far as the application process is concerned and we also see it once our Cadets are in the academy um right now it takes about four to six months to process get through our application process they may have to wait another month or two before the academy class starts so they could potentially have to wait any fromwhere from 8 to 10 months from the time they turn in their application to the day they start the academy um that's a long time to kind of get stagnant as far as phys physical fitness is concerned during our application process as the application uh is the physical fitness standard St now we lose lose 40 to 50% of our applicants on that PT test um for the remaining 60 50 to 60% that do pass once they get in the academy we've had classes where we've lost up to 18 people out of a 55 person class um and out of those people 95% of them were all due to PT okay so so I I'm an interested applicant I I did my thing I I got in shape I took the the physical test to get in I'm waiting for my applicant my application to be processed can I stop working out definitely not definitely not after you pass the PT test you need to work out that much harder to get in shape for the Academy the the uh PT test for the application process is just a small snapshot of what to expect in the academy okay so it is as whereas your requirement our requirements to get in for your application process are here academy uh shape is going to be up here somewhere maybe a little higher maybe a little higher okay so you should definitely kick it up a notch if if that's what it means a doubt how many how many classes are we anticipating for 2014 as far as the budget's concerned and we know right now we're going to have three classes in 2014 we're going to have one in January one in May and one in September as it stands right now more than likely we have enough applications to fill our January class uh so anybody who turns in their application by the end of this month is more than likely going to be process for our May class or possibly our August class okay and then how many how many Cadets can we expect in each class roughly I would say anywhere from 25 to 35 depending on the number of applications the amount of time we have to process them now now if someone were interested in the sapd in applying or just getting more information to to think about applying where would they go I would say the first thing uh that they need to do is as officer Pia mentioned earlier is visit our website um being prepared uh as far as what to expect and what's going to be expected of you is I would say one of the biggest things we've run into a lot of people come in they have no idea what to expect they they anticipate I'm going to download the application bring in and drop it off um that that's very misconstrued when it comes to application they need to come in dressed in business attire they're going to meet with the detective that day go over the application line by line and we have very specific for example we have very specific instructions on how the application needs to be filled out for example it needs to be filled out in Black Ink it needs to be in your own handwriting we won't accept it if it's typed we get these applications comeing in the door all the time and we have to turn people away so just taking the time to read everything going through each tab on the website clicking on every hyperlink will put you one step ahead of the ball game um you know throughout the duration of the process okay can you give us that website one more time it's sapd careers.com okay and then on on Facebook there's also a Facebook there's also Facebook um officer aguo PR primarily manages uh Facebook he's another one of our recruiters so he's on there answering questions all the time he's posting upcoming events our information sessions that happen every Wednesday at our office um we have those at 1:00 every Wednesday at our office we also have one a month that's held on a Saturday that Officer Taylor takes care of too so any events any small little things we have coming up or we're going to be out someplace officer arway will put it on there and take care of it okay so now I'm here hearing then that that you guys also hold events that would actually help me get in shape and show me what I need to be doing to to get ready for the Academy without a doubt uh once again Officer Taylor takes care of our PT Readiness program and basically that program is a fitness program to get all our inner potential applicants and applicants who have already applied um in shape um we don't tailor this program necessarily to the application process we highly recommend everybody come in uh and apply once they're already in shape and prepared to uh pass the original fitness test our idea is to kind of tailor your Fitness towards uh the academy life okay so how many steps are there in total in our application process there are nine steps from the point of turning in the application to the point of going to Chiefs review okay they're nine steps um the first step would be once again submitting the application once you submit the application it's accepted um we're going to go ahead and set you up for the written test as well as the physical fitness test um each portion of the process you have to pass to proceed onto the next one um so once you pass the written test you pass the physical test you're going to be sent on to a background investigator at this Point you'll be assigned an individual background investigator and they will take approximately a month to a month and a half from start to finish processing your background at this point uh some of the things that may extend the time is you're going to be required to get more documentation some them may not be complete they may be waiting on references so when they do fill out these applications on the personal history statement make sure that everything's kind of in order all it's going to do is speed up your process and make things move a little bit easier for the investigator once the investigator gets your background wrapped up they're going to send you to an assessment board um a lot of people aren't really familiar with the assess board so basically what that is is a panel of three officers say ourselves um and the applicant um we're going to put the applicant through a set of law enforcement uh related scenarios and ask them how do how how would they respond to these scenarios how would they handle them and the first question we get out of that one is when we explain it is well I've never been in law enforcement how can I pass this you know um we have to be honest with you we have just as many people who have never been in law enforcement um coming straight out of college or as soon as they're eligible 20 years and 6 months pass this as we do have people in law enforcement uh sometimes people people in law enforcement tend to overthink it you can still come up with a well-rounded response non law enforcement related uh a good solution to the problem okay good so once they pass the assessment board we get them through that and then we send them on to polygraph uh polygraph is one of those things that people ask us what are we what am I going to get asked they don't let us get into it very much you know and and the questions are tailored to each individual person we don't just use a a blanket statement um so once they get through polygraph after they get through assessment board and polygraph it's kind of downhill from that point it's just a bunch of for lack of better terms technicalities they're going to go through your standard medical physical and they're going to go through a psychological evaluation as long as the doctors sign off on uh whatever things you may have questions about or uh anything that they have concerns about it's good with us we have people come in with all all different types of things if anybody has any questions about medical issues or psychological issues that they have concerns with they can get a hold of us and we can put them into contact with the doctors they're more than happy to speak with any of our applicants okay and where can they call they can call gonzaba Medical Group um and their address is 1303 Mulla and their telephone number is 21092 22672 as far as Psychological Services they'll have to get in contact with us and we'll have to put them in direct contact with our our uh psychologist okay and to reach to reach sapd recruiting what number would I call 21207 50 or they can catch us on our website uh they can email us send it to our general email box and one of us will get in contact with them the next day okay and that email is uh recruiting sanantonio.gov recruiting sanantonio.gov well it's all interesting stuff uh you know I can't wait to see what 2014 holds for us and of course we're going to devote more time on on future episodes of behind the badge to our recruiting efforts uh I know that that one of the things that we're trying to do is increase our ranks of of uh retired and former military we like we we want to increase our our numbers of veterans I so I know we're going to be doing some military Outreach um and some similar events for that that target audience so we'll certainly come back to future episodes of behind the badge and and touch on our military Outreach I mean as you can see sapd recruiters are passionate about what they do for more information on any of the topics we discussed today head to our website San antonio.gov sapd or follow us on Twitter or Facebook at facebook.com/ sanantonio PD tune in next month for our next edition of behind the badge we'll see you then