ALC-Game & Fish/State Police
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We're going to start here in about one minute.
Speaker 5
2:00
committee members go ahead and have your seat the chair sees a quorum
this meeting is called to order
First up on the agenda today is Arkansas State Police. If you would, Colonel, if y'all would go ahead and make your way to the table. And while they're making their way to the table, let me turn to my co-chair. Senator, do you have any opening comments? I'm good. She's good, okay.
carl appreciate appreciate y'all being here today thank you for uh like i said i know it's late in the afternoon i appreciate you taking time to appear before this committee uh before before we get started let me let me just try to set the stage for what we're you know that what the discussion will be today you know back in at the beginning of the session in 2023 you and I we had
a discussion about the uptick and the number of people that were fleeing from law enforcement here in the state of Arkansas how those numbers were going up and I remember one of the concerns was is that you know with this increase and it seemed like how many people now when they the blue lights come on behind them they took off and they fleed from the officer and I remember in that discussion we talked about how if someone was standing on a Walmart parking lot with an AR-15 and they were
spraying bullets everywhere that that individual would be charged with a felony however in comparison if someone takes a five or six thousand pound of steel rubber and glass and they turn it into a deadly missile and they jeopardized so many lives by busting through intersections, passing on curves or on hills or double yellow lines. Those individuals were being charged with misdemeanors from fleeing from a law enforcement officer. And I remember a statement
that you made. It was that a lot of these individuals, once the law enforcement took them into custody, their biggest concern was not the penalty that they were facing, but it was more how much damage had occurred to their vehicle. And, you know, at that time, fleeing from a law enforcement officer, as you and I discussed in the comparison I just made, it was a misdemeanor. And as serious as that fence is, so with your help, we sponsored legislation
and we were able to make fleeing from a law enforcement officer a Class D felony. So with that backdrop, and I might go ahead and also add that I know in this past session, 2025, we also had an issue with the fact that individuals fleeing from law enforcement officers, realizing, I guess, the penalty now that they would face, and that being a felony, they were exiting, and some of them were exiting the vehicle while that vehicle was still moving, and obviously, for those that may not understand why they were doing that,
that was so that they could put more distance, because that trooper, he's going to have to stay with that vehicle because now you've got an unoccupied, uncontrolled vehicle that has to be secured. And so the trooper's got to stay with that. And the individual that rolls out of that vehicle, the old tuck and roll, as we used to call it, and hits the ground, that just puts more distance between him and the trooper. So to try to combat that, with your help, we sponsored a bill and was able to get it passed, you know, with the help of my colleagues to make, enhance the penalty
if you exit the vehicle while it's still moving. So the reason that we're here today is I know that's been a couple of, I felt like a couple of key pieces of legislation to try to do something to combat the number of people that were fleeing from our officers in this state. And so what I'm looking for today, and I hope you've got these numbers or, you know, that's going to be positive, is did those type of legislations have a positive impact on the number of people that are fleeing?
And I know you had a program and a public service announcement. I really was impressed with that, where you work with the prosecutors. And I believe, I remember hearing your statement, I may not say it exactly the way you did. That would probably be impossible to say things exactly as articulate as you do. But still, I remember the comment was that if you flee from one of our troopers with a prosecutor standing behind you, you said, we're going to put you in the ditch and they're going to put you in jail. I thought that was pretty effective.
And so with that backdrop, that's why you're here today to give us some numbers to kind of help enlighten this committee. If that legislation was useful, that working together on legislation, if it's had a positive impact. So with that, if you could share some of that with us, the number of people now that are fleeing from troopers as compared to before that legislation, and if those numbers are up or down. So if you would, just identify yourselves to the committee, and then you're recognized to start your discussion or answer those questions.
Mike Hager
Unverified
7:55
Thank you, Colonel. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My name is Mike Hager. I'm the Director of Arkansas State Police and
Speaker 21
8:06
Secretary of the Department of Public Safety. Jason Aaron, Lieutenant
Speaker 23
8:11
Colonel over field operations. Phillip Hadron, I'm a major of the Highway
Mike Hager
Unverified
8:16
Patrol Division. Mr. Chairman, if you allow, just to kind of start the conversation, I have an opening statement that I'll read, and it touches on some of the things that you brought up.
Thank you for the opportunity to be here today and talk about a topic we care a lot about. I know the general public in this body also care about the subjects of pursuits and TVIs, Specifically, Chairman Tosh and Senator Wallace sponsored Act 734 of 2023 and Act 82022 of last year, which enhanced the punishment for fleeing in a vehicle. Unfortunately, pursuit videos from Arkansas State Police are wildly popular and keep YouTubers' channels active. Though most people who watch our pursuit videos focus only on the trooper and the suspect,
they lose sight of all the innocent civilians whose lives are at risk because suspects flee from law enforcement. those innocent civilians are our priority we had their safety in mind when we instructed our troopers on day one to end pursuits as soon as possible we had their safety in mind when we came to you the legislature and asked for laws that would make fleeing from law enforcement a felony we had innocent motors in mind when we worked with our prosecutors to make sure that fleeing suspects were held accountable but as a result of our work with you and the prosecutors and
after a robust campaign using social media and public service announcements we have seen the number of pursuits declined 29 percent from 2023 through 2025. We had 180 fewer pursuits last year than we did in 2023. That means 180 fewer opportunities for innocent civilians, law enforcement officers, or suspects to be injured or killed because of a suspect's selfish choice to flee from troopers. During that same time, we've increased the number of troopers by
120. I'd like to take every opportunity to thank this legislature for their support. We could not have added those troopers without your commitment to public safety. Putting more troopers on the highway has resulted in a decrease in crashes and also in crashes with fatalities. It's also resulted in an increase in hazardous and criminal arrest, drug seizures, and DWI arrest. You might expect that increasing the number of troopers proactively enforcing the law would also mean more pursuits but that has not been the case due to large part to what you just
summed up perfectly again we welcome this opportunity to talk about our pursuits and TV eyes we believe our approach to this problem is effective and that those
Chair
Unverified
10:42
numbers bear that outs and with that I'd be glad to answer any questions that you guys have Any questions
from committee members? Senator Flowers, could we just hit your button please? Thank you, Colonel. You're recognized, Senator. Thank you. Thank you,
Senator Stephanie Flowers
Unverified
11:11
Colonel, for the report. What's the TBI? I'm sorry,
Mike Hager
Unverified
11:16
the TBI is a tactical vehicle intervention tvi tvi yes b is in victory yes ma'am okay thank you yes ma'am thank you
yes pit maneuver it's still hard for me to get used to saying tvi so i'm sure there was some reason to change the name of it but i still refer to him as fit and yes sir you know i can i can tell you carnal as i'm sure every legislator in here can that
as we travel outside the state to different conferences that once people find out that we're from, you know, the legislature here in Arkansas, you know, the conversation before long turns to the fact that they watched the Arkansas State Police on the videos, and I'm sure y'all hear that a lot, and they're impressed. I mean, you know, the comments I hear just, y'all just don't play in Arkansas. You know, it's serious business, and we don't, and I appreciate your statements while ago and let's see if we've got any any other committee
members have a question saying
none oh senator hold on you're recognized
Chair
Unverified
12:30
you're recognized okay thank you thank you I'll ask
Senator Stephanie Flowers
Unverified
12:35
curious do you have a idea or an indication of where more of these tvis are happening in the state
Mike Hager
Unverified
12:47
i i would say overwhelmingly in our population hubs i think troop a in the that covers the little rock area um troop d that covers uh east arkansas and troop l which covers northwest arkansas i believe are our top three troops that we're seeing the
Senator Stephanie Flowers
Unverified
13:09
pursuit numbers in and In terms of prosecutions, has that been more prevalent since we've passed this legislation that you speak of?
Speaker 47
13:19
Yes, ma'am, and that's a continuing process with us working with our prosecutors.
Mike Hager
Unverified
13:24
But if you remember in March of last year, all of our elected prosecutors stood with us at our driving track in North Little Rock, And they made the commitment that not only would we pursue these charges, but they would prosecute these charges to the fullest extent. And we believe that that message has resonated. We've had several occasions over the last year where prosecutors have reached out to us
and we're proud of the fact that they had received significant prison sentences based on pursuits that we had made arrests on. So we think that message is getting out there. Unfortunately, it's a common tactic within law enforcement and prosecution for a lot of reasons where cases are sometimes bled down. Some charges are nalpros, and there was an unintended consequence that the message had been received by the criminal element that I may as well run. Because even if I get caught, I'm still going to catch whatever felony charge that literally 90-plus percent of the time is the case, the reason people are fleeing.
They knew they were going to catch that charge anyway, but in addition to that, they need to know there's a consequence for fleeing, and what was happening was that through deals that were being made by the prosecutors with the agreement of law enforcement, a lot of those charges were being pled down to misdemeanors or being noprost altogether as a matter of just kind of wrapping that case up, and unfortunately, that was an unintended consequence and unintended message that went out to the criminal element that I may as well run there's there's really
no reason not to I'm going to face my charges anyway if I get away I get away if I don't get away they're going to do away with this charge anyway so that was a problem that we had to overcome and we met with our prosecutors they stood with us they assured us that they were going to pursue these charges
Senator Stephanie Flowers
Unverified
15:26
aggressively and we trust that they have well I was just thinking when you
said that about pleading it down um just like DWI cases some of that the the penalty is mandatory
you don't get to plead it down and I'm wondering what your opinion is on a possibility of that being placed in law in terms of
Mike Hager
Unverified
15:55
tvis ironically that's kind of what started the conversation with the prosecutors is in the 2025 session we met with the prosecutors association and we made our
intentions known that we were going to seek language that mirror dwi statute to where if you were arrested for felony fleeing that you had to be adjudicated for felony fleeing and that it cannot be pled down and it cannot be noprosted for a variety of reasons prosecutors are very concerned about their discretion and I completely understand that it can be a tactic that's used in in some cases so there was concern on their part about us running that legislation so as a
result uh i don't want to say there was a compromise but we agreed that if they would stand with us and they would ensure the public that they would pursue these charges to try to get this problem under control that we would not pursue that legislation so at some point we're going to go back we'll tally the numbers and we'll look to make sure that there's been an increase and make sure that those numbers bear out that commitment and before we go into the 2027 session And that conversation will be had about whether or not to pursue that legislation.
Senator Stephanie Flowers
Unverified
17:15
And the last thing, Mr. Chair, I would think, Colonel,
that a lot of the persons arrested and are fleeing also have other charges that are being filed against them. Yes, ma'am. So it's like give and take, but I'd like to know if they're ending up pleading to the crime that has a stricter and tougher penalty than the TVI.
I don't know what the—is that a Class
Mike Hager
Unverified
17:54
D felony? It begins at a Class D felony. Depending on the pursuit and the outcome of the pursuit, those charges are enhanced. If there are, for instance, people that are injured, to reference Mr. Chairman's bill that they sponsored last year, someone vacates a moving vehicle that also upgrades the felony charge by one class. So there are a variety of things that could change that from a Class D to make that a higher class felony.
so it just depends um but you know and to your point that's if someone is facing a first degree murder charge and they flee and they're willing to you know plead guilty on first degree murder if we'll remove a fleeing charge i mean that obviously that's a concession that we'd be willing to make. Um, but if someone is facing a narcotics charge or weapons charge, they have
felony warrants, um, which is a lot of what we see in the reason they're fleeing. Um, those are the type charges that we do not want to encourage people to take the chance and run. Um, because that's, that's where we ran into that problem. We have to let them know that there's going to be a consequence for fleeing from law enforcement because the stakes are, are just simply too high. Thank you, Mr.
Speaker 53
19:19
Chair. Thank you, Colonel. Thank you, ma'am.
Senator Hill, if you're recognized for a question.
Senator Ricky Hill
Unverified
19:30
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Over here, Colonel. If you would, would you please shed a little light on the pit maneuver that was done on the wrong car for us? Yes, sir. How's that family doing now? I've been told, I don't know for a fact, that it was a mother, a young child, and a husband that were all in the car. And were any of them seriously hurt? And I know the officer that was in pursuit has been terminated, but I'm looking farther now to the citizens that were involved in that.
What's the status of that, and
Chair
Unverified
20:02
what all can you tell us? So I can tell you that we made
Mike Hager
Unverified
20:07
contact with that family immediately after this incident came to light, and there were no injuries in the vehicle. The family has maintained that they want to stay out of the public light, they've asked for us to to help them with that as much as possible and we've honored that as much as we possibly can as far as the action itself it's unexplainable if you've seen the
video I wouldn't even offer and an excuse for a reason I have no idea all I can tell you is that that was the last enforcement action that that trooper ever took so that's uh it's such an outlier it literally is less than I believe it's 0.01 percent that that's ever even happened I can only recall one other instance in my career that that's happened totally different set of
circumstances is more chaotic situation um but unfortunately it did happen it is absolutely inexcusable uh you know and we've said a lot of times that as long as human beings are doing this job the humans going to show themselves eventually and it happened that day and we've made a mistake that we can't excuse
Chair
Unverified
21:24
but all we can do is respond to it after the fact all right thank you thank you Senator Johnson you're recognized for
a question other one the other one
Senator Mark Johnson
Unverified
21:49
Thank you, mr. Chairman. I appreciate being able to ask questions though. I'm not a member of the committee uh colonel uh last session i sponsored legislation to uh put some clarity and some emphasis in the driver training manual about the dangers to uh construction workers on our highways did that at the request of uh of both the uh the highway police and the uh people in the construction business, including one big one you know in our hometown. I didn't realize how much
problem it had been, but we did get that bill passed and we put it in the manual. So these young people are emphasized to them that not only they, but these workers are in danger when they're speeding in the construction zones and all that. Should we look at some kind of additional language in our training manual and our courses to emphasize to these young people you know please don't try to flee a police officer because you will become a felon is should we look at some
additional way to to emphasize that and as we say teach them the right way when they're young and they'll hopefully stick with it
Mike Hager
Unverified
23:08
their life thank you senator for the question thank you for sponsoring that legislation. I'm certainly all for that. We've been very proactive in our campaign through social media and public safety announcements and things like that about the dangers of fleeing and the consequences of fleeing. So anything that we could do to try to help or be more proactive
to help with that cause, I'm absolutely for it. The people that produce and print and edit our manuals will probably cringe at that idea but that's okay um there's there's always new additions that are being made and and i would certainly not be opposed to that at all great well we'll be talking
Senator Mark Johnson
Unverified
23:50
about that for the 27 session thank you thank you colonel thank you mr chairman seeing no further questions
colonel thank y'all for being here today and it's good to know and i
think it's encouraging to know that uh legislation can make a difference and i appreciate you always He's bringing that to this legislative body so that we can address that. And it's good to know that it's saving lives, and hopefully it looks like it's reduced the number of pursuits, so that's encouraging. So thank you all for being here today, and you all can be excused. Good to see you again.
Senator Ricky Hill
Unverified
24:39
Do you have another question, Senator? Well, yes, sir. I was trying to catch you. I thought Colonel and them were going to do the next part as well. Are they doing the next part? No, they are not. Mine is actually going to be other business. Yeah, we've got someone else to do that. So you want me to do the other business with him now or wait until the end and call them back up? Oh, they're leaving. Yeah, that's the reason I was wanting
Senator Missy Irvin
Unverified
25:05
to do it now. I'm sorry. Could somebody catch the state police to come back to the table? Colonel Hager's still back there.
Senator Ricky Hill
Unverified
25:12
If he's going to hang around, I'll ask it at the end.
I don't know if he's going to hang around or not, but go ahead and ask him now. Okay. Colonel, sorry about that. I didn't see Senator Hill, and I apologize. Colonel,
Speaker 74
25:26
I apologize. I was trying to get to you before you left. That was a rookie mistake for not turning around and running out the door when I was excused. I know you're out of breath
Speaker 38
25:33
now trying to get back. No, I actually have to say we have
Senator Ricky Hill
Unverified
25:36
a class. Yeah, mine is totally different than pit maneuvers and stuff on
this one. I know we've got a lot of members here, and a lot of people don't know the difference. I just kind of want you to explain what the difference between what y'all do as a state police site
and what the foundation does and the benefits from that, because we have a lot of members that do not understand the difference between that. I know y'all have that. And I also know the Game and Fish do the same thing. They have a foundation, too. Would you kind of just give us a quick overview of that, what's the difference, and what's the purpose of
Speaker 27
26:04
the foundation and everything, just so everyone would know?
Senator Ricky Hill
Unverified
26:07
Sure. It'll be high level at best. And is there any lobbying involved with the foundation side of
Mike Hager
Unverified
26:12
it? As far as I'm aware, no, sir. No, sir. Not that I can think of.
I hope I'm not saying that wrong. But the State Police Foundation is a group of supporters of the state police. And it's largely made up of businesses and business owners and just members of our state that are supportive of the mission of the state police. um they raise funds that do a number of things um one is a scholarship program for troopers kids and they have a uh is it hearts for heroes i'm going to be in so much trouble from elizabeth
anderson for not being able to just spit this out um the hearts for heroes program is uh is something they do where if we have a trooper that's affected by like a natural disaster they've lost their home in a fire, a tornado, something like that, the foundation will come in immediately and give that trooper and his family relief. If we have a trooper whose family member's in the hospital, the foundation will frequently put their family in a hotel. They'll pay for their expenses while they're in town. There's also a, did I mention the scholarship program for the true? Okay.
And in addition to that, some of the more notable items are things they've done for us in the way of, uh, training in, in our facilities. Um, I think a lot of you, um, joined us last year at the reception at our driving track. Um, that facility was almost 100% solely the product of the state police foundation. And as we tell people all the time is this body knows all too well, we're, we're all competing for tax dollars and we're all competing for, uh, funds and there's
only so much to go around and we are extremely blessed that the foundation has stepped up and some things that we were not able to do within our budget the state police foundation has stepped up and they've provided that need for us so cannot say enough things enough positive words about the foundation they have been an absolute blessing and a godsend to the state police okay thank you sir and the reason I wanted
Senator Ricky Hill
Unverified
28:21
just so that all members know that there's lot of things that go on behind the scenes that you have a lot of great people working for y'all
they do a lot of very good things and i don't think they get enough credit for that in order i think y'all get enough credit for that and i just want to make sure that all the members of this committee know that you have people working behind the scenes that do a great job supporting y'all yeah so thank you for
Speaker 47
28:43
that brief brief summary on that sir and since you give me the opportunity i do have to as my son would say give a shout out
Mike Hager
Unverified
28:50
to elizabeth anderson our executive director and where's she from i'm sorry our president um elizabeth is from magnolia originally Where's
Speaker 27
28:55
she from now? Lone Oak County. There you go. Your district, I know that.
Mike Hager
Unverified
28:59
And I think, yeah, that's about it. I know she's in Lone Oak County. But anyway, then our executive director is Emily Hamilton. And then also Sidney is a member of the foundation, or an employee of the foundation. And I cannot say enough good things about the work they do for us. They are truly a godsend. Thank you for the opportunity to talk
about it. Colonel, thank you. Sorry, I didn't see Senator Hill apologize for that, but I see no further questions, so y'all can be excused, and thank you for being here today.
Committee, the next item on today's agenda is we're going to have a discussion from the Commission on Law Enforcement Standards and Training, and Director Chris Chapman, if you would make your way to the table. Director, thank you for being here today. If you would, just state your
Speaker 84
30:09
name for the committee. Yes, sir. Chris Chapman, Director for Law
Enforcement Standards and Training for the State of Arkansas. Appreciate your attendance here today, And I think what we'd like to discuss today or discussion today, if you would, just kind of walk us through and help us to understand, you know, I know one of the concerns over the years has been that a law enforcement officer that may be employed with one agency gets in some type of trouble with that agency, a disciplinary action or whatever the case may be.
and they resign or they leave that agency and they go to another one. And I know that was always a real concern in law enforcement that there was no check and balance as to be able to make that agency that was seeking to employ that individual aware of the fact of some possibly misconduct at the agency that they were just leaving from. And I know that y'all have taken on a task to be able to follow those type of situations and make sure that any hiring agency is aware of any issues that that
officer may have had prior to that so also just with that if you would just kind of what you put in place to make sure that they don't I guess to say slip through the cracks you know and remain to be in law enforcement or some agency hiring them without knowing about it and also officers that have their misconduct has risen to the level of the possibility of decertification I think it'd be very enlightening to this committee if if you would walk us through the process as far as
someone that has you know conducted themselves in such a manner that it warrants the review of the commission for decertification and that process as it would move forward in that event so that's If you would, if you just take it from there and try to, you know, we'll just kind of open it up for discussion. And hopefully that will kind of get you going in the direction we need to go. Absolutely. So I appreciate the opportunity to
Speaker 87
32:18
have the conversation. I will say that over the last three years under this administration, we have taken those aspects that you've mentioned very seriously.
Not to negatively talk about the way we used to do things, but we do things very differently now. The accountability portion of the law enforcement standards for the state of Arkansas should be very serious to all of us, and those bad actors should be removed from the profession. So we take that very seriously. So just as an overview, there's nine reasons under the rules and regulations, the standards for the Commission on Law Enforcement Standards and Training that you can be removed, have your certification pulled. So we monitor those. Anytime an officer is separated from an agency, regardless of what the reason is,
They have to complete a separation form and send to us. And so before they can be hired, that paperwork has to be processed. If they are separated for one of those nine offenses, those rules that we can decertify for, it immediately creates a situation where we call that agency and discuss the reason for separation. If it meets a decertification standard and they did not check the decertification box, then we ask them why. We make them provide an explanation.
And there are times where they commit one of those acts that it just doesn't rise to the level of decertification. But to prevent them from going to another agency without that information being disclosed, we now have a system where we flag that file. So that individual officer, even though he's not decertified, he committed an act that falls under one of those categories. There's a flag placed on that file. If he goes to another agency and they want to employ him, they're not able to add him to the roster and complete the paperwork without calling us, receiving all the information
that we've gathered from the separating agency, and having full disclosure of why that officer was separated. We've seen that work. There have been officers that were separated, their files were flagged, agencies attempted to hire them, they were required to call us, that information was disclosed, and then they have full responsibility for either hiring or not hiring that officer. We've seen agencies pass on officers for their conduct. In the past that didn't exist so they could they could go from one agency to the other without consequence. They could be separated from one agency go to another and we've
seen that. We in your career I'm sure you've seen it. They would bounce from agency to agency to agency and each time they were committing an offense that should have been either caught or potentially decertified. So we've created a system that helps solve that problem. So if they do ask for decertification, I'll just kind of give a very short overview of the process. It is a legal process. An administrative hearing is set. Any law enforcement officer within that jurisdiction, whether it be the sheriff, the chief, an investigative authority, or myself in the
worst case scenarios, can request decertification upon review if it meets the standard. If the request is made, then we set basically a probable cause hearing, a hearing for the commission to look at the facts, to weigh the evidence, and determine if it moves forward to a decertification hearing. If it moves forward to a decertification hearing, that date is set, the officers, witnesses, we have a full legal team that preps for that case, and then that officer basically goes through an administrative trial before the commission to see if they keep their decertification.
you had asked for some numbers. I'm very proud of this. So the previous three years before this new administration, there were 158 requests for decertification. In the three years, not including this January, we went from 158 to 256. Now, a lot of that is due to education. Our relationships with the Sheriff's Association, the Chief's Association, us being in front of them, talking about the importance of this, explaining, educating, the purpose behind what we're doing has increased that so we're holding more officers accountable so right now as we sit in our last
month's meeting we heard 28 new requests and so we have 147 officers pending decertification hearings that puts us out about a year and a half on some of them so we were at a four and a half year delay in some of these hearings when we took over we reduced that to a year and a half but currently we're sitting at 147 officers waiting to be heard by the commission so
it's working thank you for that overview and I know I attended a public safety conference last year and regarding
and the one of the topics was decertification and I applaud you because Arkansas the process that we had in place and the way the way you were handling it here uh it was just kind of a role model for other states to be honest with you to follow they didn't have anything and uh to safeguard exactly from one officer you know from an officer being able to move from one agency to the other and you're right that used to happen quite often and pretty disheartening to
good law enforcement officers to be able to see that let me ask you this director if um If you have an officer with an agency that's under investigation and that officer resigns before that investigation is completed, does that open investigation, I'm just curious, does that open investigation and he seeks employment somewhere else, how is that handled with an open investigation?
Speaker 87
38:02
Again, sir, thank you for that question because that's asked a lot. So that is one of the nine categories that can create a decertification or a flagging process. They resign during or under internal affairs investigation or a criminal investigation. So, again, every agency, regardless of the reason for the separation, have to complete that separation form. So if that box is checked, again, we're calling, we're requesting that information. And, again, even if it doesn't rise to the level of decertification. Now, granted, I now have the option, if the agency doesn't want to do it, and it's a severe circumstance,
then I can request that decertification after consultation with the legal staff. And we haven't had to use that, let's say, nuclear option yet, because most of the time we're able to have conversations and convince them that that's the path to take. But again, if they resign, that file will get flagged. and so if they try to go to another agency full disclosure we're going to give them that information that hiring agency is going to have to consider that take on the liability and the potential risk of hiring that officer for misconduct that has been under investigation
Speaker 92
39:12
for misconduct for whatever the reason may be but they're going
to get full disclosure of what happened i know in the past you didn't have the authority to i don't think you did to be able to request uh uh you know someone to be reviewed for decertification so that authority was it granted to you i'm glad you have it that that is great news to me is it was that granted to you through legislation or something we passed or was that something internally that you were able to do so the
Speaker 87
39:43
rules were let's just say gray left up for interpretation so when i took this position i
requested an attorney general's opinion uh his opinion was that as the director for the law Enforcement Standards and Training Division that ultimately I had the ability to do that. Again, we haven't had to use that. That ruling came out or that opinion came out two and a half years ago. Again, the relationships that we built with chiefs and sheriffs and prosecutors across the state, once we start having these conversations and talking about the severity of the issues and the potential downflow of what may happen, I would say that 95% of the officers that need
to be heard for decertification are moving in that direction so our sheriffs and chiefs and prosecutors are stepping up to the plate and holding people accountable and again a lot of that is education on our staff's part so what a lot of people don't realize is we now have a compliance team that actually is auditing every agency in the state of Arkansas we're conducting about 250 agency compliance checks per year and it's not punitive what that is is we're going in and checking their records, making sure they're holding themselves to the right standards.
If they're not, we're helping them get into compliance. And, again, if we're seeing agencies that are compliant, then they're holding their own officers accountable. So we're seeing agencies do a better job on that side as well. But,
Speaker 86
41:05
again, that's proactive. It's very intentional on our staff's part, taking on extra responsibility,
but we believe that is our job, sir. And, Director, correct me if I'm wrong, but it's the commission. It's the commissioners of the law enforcement standards and training. And that group of commissioners that the officer appears before for consideration of decertification, is that correct?
Speaker 87
41:27
That is correct, sir. They're our hearing body. Our division, our staff presents the case, so we're the prosecutors, so to speak, and we present that case to the commission, and those individuals make the determination on whether that officer keeps his certification or not, sir. How
often do they meet? How often does
Speaker 95
41:46
that commission meet? We were meeting, we meet every other month. When we took over, we were doing
Speaker 87
41:52
one-day hearings. Based on a current workload, we meet every other month for two days' worth of hearings.
So we have 12 days of hearings per year, sir. We could easily do 18. That sounds
like it. Yes, sir. Okay. I've got a couple of questions here, Director. Senator Blake Johnson, you are recognized for a question. So, Chris, you said you're a year and a
Speaker 99
42:21
half out on those hearings. Yes, sir. So what is the status of an officer in that year and a half?
Speaker 88
42:33
So his question was, and that's a great question because.
Speaker 102
42:47
it's in his balls balls in his court yes
Speaker 87
42:50
sir okay so i heard the question so you asked what that officer is doing there in that year and a half period so again let's go back to that flagging system because they were separated for for a issue that rises to the level of decertification while they are pending decertification we flag their file so even so if they go to work for
someone else if they determine an agency determines they want to take the risk of hiring that officer We have fully disclosed that they are pending decertification We have nothing in the rules and regulations to prevent them from being hired But what we do is disclose all the information to the agency that wants to to entertain
Speaker 95
43:28
they possibly can continue to work. We see that happen. Yes, sir There are
Speaker 87
43:32
agencies out there that struggle hiring people And they will hire officers that are pending decertification doesn't happen often, but we have seen it happen. Yes, sir
Speaker 99
43:39
So chair if you had if you hadn't went out there I had the opportunity to see one of those hearings, and it was very enlightening. And I think what it amounted to more than anything is the guy lied. Yes, sir. And that probably hurt him more than the actual offense did. And, you know, he didn't do his paperwork, and he lied about it. And that probably hurt him more than anything. But, you know, just to hear one of those things, with your background, you would enjoy it a lot more than I did waiting on what I had to do.
You know, I just think you'd enjoy to hear one of those things.
Speaker 87
44:23
Okay. Thank you, Senator. That's a good question. Can I add a comment to that? Yes, you can. Specifically to that. just for information purposes, probably 90 to 95 percent of the reasons that the commission decertifies officers is tied to an integrity issue, an honesty issue. They may commit an offense, but then somewhere along the way, you're absolutely right. They lie about it during the investigation. They withhold information. They don't disclose all the facts. And we've seen
individual officers that curbed a tire and didn't want to admit to it and lied on a document, an accident report be decertified we've seen officers lie about not wearing their ballistic vest and none of that probably would have got them fired none of it would have gotten them fired but because they lied about it without integrity
Speaker 95
45:06
we we cannot carry the badge i appreciate
Speaker 99
45:09
what y'all have to do that i mean it would be very hard but i understand you know it's those little things that add up to big things and if you can't trust them with little things they never
get to the big things absolutely sir thanks senator representative perry you're
Speaker 111
45:29
recognized for a question thank you so i think you mentioned over there under um understood your timeline is about a year about 18 months from a request to hearing and i'd say that's fairly accurate because the last incident in a county next door to me was 15 months so my question is um if an officer commits an action that is more serious than than just you know something
Speaker 113
45:48
you know more serious you know I don't know what that could be I don't want to
Speaker 114
45:53
dive into something else is that hearing moved up faster we can and we have done that in the past depending on
Speaker 87
46:04
the seriousness of the issue now some of the more serious issues obviously potentially have criminal ties a criminal prosecution tie to that we usually let the criminal prosecution play out before we have that hearing just procedurally that's the smart thing to do but yes we have had cases that are more severe than others and and we feel the need to move those up we do try to move those up when we can it's not standard practice but again it's based
Speaker 106
46:27
on the severity of the action sir all right well i appreciate that yes sir but again four and a half years is what
we inherited and we're down to a year and a half and that's
Senator Missy Irvin
Unverified
46:45
that that's better than it was do you have to follow no okay thank you senator thank you and your your program covers
Speaker 87
46:50
all level of law enforcement is that correct yes ma'am every law enforcement officer in the state of arkansas regardless state county or municipal gets their certification and authority through us to to to wear the badge and do the job so yes ma'am we cover everything from the smallest agency to
Senator Missy Irvin
Unverified
47:02
the largest agency in the state okay and and remind me one more time your investigations are triggered or initiated by a report or is it interagency is it from citizens so
Speaker 87
47:17
ways the citizen complaints are probably the least common if there's an allegation made by a citizen of a criminal activity we would often refer that either to the local prosecutor or the Arkansas State Police for investigation for follow-up but most of ours are prompted by the
separation documents or a conversation with a prosecutor sheriff or
Senator Missy Irvin
Unverified
47:41
a local chief okay um i mean just i i personally had a real issue that occurred um with a with an officer that was just repeatedly harassing people. Um, and it, this was several years ago, six, seven years ago, perhaps, but
I think this is, I think there, this person is still an officer. And I was, I didn't, at the time I was elected, but I chose to file a report as a citizen, just like anybody else. And it was literally dismissed. And it, it became really, really, really bad, um, that I, you know, I had some very strong visits at that point because it wasn't just me that was filing report after
report after report. I mean, there were other citizens that were filing reports on this in particular person and it was not taken seriously. And so I have a lot of concern about that because you know this was a repeated behavior that was occurring with an officer who was literally throwing his weight around um bragging about it to other officers and harassing people um and and eventually you know was able to be moved uh to where they had a larger supervision
which i thought was needed and appropriate for this person i don't want anybody to lose their job however i also know that when an officer acts like that they're putting themselves into danger um they might pull the wrong person over and give the wrong person a hard time and then you know children may lose a dad i mean that so i i hope you know that these things are taken seriously from citizens that do have some issues, you know, about being harassed or being
bullied or, you know, so egregious to where, you know, I'm going to arrest you, put you back in the back of my police car, travel, you know, 10 miles or 15 miles to the police station, but then let you out and not arrest you but now you're stranded and you have no car and i just just basically did it just to show you that i could that happened and nothing happened to the officer so i just hope that you will look at citizen complaints just as strongly as you do others um because i think
that's really important because at the end of the day it should be about the safety of not just the citizens that are being patrolled and and and policed but the officers themselves um could be in real danger if they act like that and they just pull the wrong person over at the wrong time yes ma'am so um anyway i'll follow up more so on that but you know we we've got to deal with that because not everybody's meant to wear a badge
Speaker 106
50:59
i absolutely agree with that our number one job as
as law enforcement officers to build trust
Speaker 87
51:05
and legitimacy within our communities that's our number one job every single day that we we walk on out of out the door and so that responsibility is is very great um our rules and regulations don't allow for just a a ton of action reaction to the citizen complaint the way they're currently written so what we traditionally do if i get a citizen complaint. The first contact is their supervisor, their agency head, whether
it's the sheriff or the chief, potentially the prosecutor. If it rises to the level of something you talked about, there could potentially be a criminal charge there. So we're talking to the prosecutor. We're having those conversations. We've seen that be very effective. We've seen that very effective in addressing those issues. Eventually, we'll get a case probably that rises to the level that we have to consider that citizen complaint and seek a decertification in conjunction by working with the sheriff, the chief, and the prosecutor. So, yes, ma'am, we do take those serious. Every one of us followed up with, again, we pass some of those to a local entity
or the state police for investigation because there potentially is a criminal aspect of that. That's something that we don't do. We don't investigate the criminal side. But, yes, ma'am, they are taken very seriously.
Senator Stephanie Flowers
Unverified
52:26
Thank you. Senator Flowers, you're recognized for a question. Thank you. Thank
you, Director, for your testimony. Yes, ma'am. I wanted a couple of things. As it relates to what Senator Irvin brought up about citizens' complaints,
sometimes you have citizens that complain through the local department. Do you all pull those records, or what
happens? Is there an investigation that's initiated because of an internal or a local complaint? So I probably wouldn't
Speaker 114
53:05
be aware of those internal complaints unless
Speaker 87
53:10
there was a separation of that officer from the agency.
Again, that separation is a key factor in what we base a lot of our decisions on. So if an officer has multiple complaints and the agency determines that he just doesn't need to be there, maybe it didn't rise to a criminal violation, maybe it's not a policy violation, but he's just not, shouldn't be wearing the badge, shouldn't be doing the job. Once that separation document comes in, then we're asking those questions. That's when I would probably become aware of the complaints, that we would review those complaints, see if it fell under one of those nine reasons for decertification.
That would prompt us to have conversations with that chief and sheriff. Does this officer need to be decertified? Do we need to flag his file? So I'm kind of in on the backside of that. If those complaints are coming
Senator Stephanie Flowers
Unverified
54:04
to the department, I'm usually made aware of those during that separation process.
And the other question I had was about the process itself. Now, much is done administratively with an administrative hearing, but is there an appeal that can be made by that officer that may be dissertified?
Speaker 85
54:25
There is, ma'am. It's a typical appeal process that would go to, I believe, circuit court.
Speaker 87
54:30
Usually the AG will represent us. The Attorney General's office would represent
Speaker 86
54:35
us in those hearings. But yes, ma'am, there is an appeal process. And it's
Senator Stephanie Flowers
Unverified
54:40
used. We've seen it used numerous times. Do you have
any kind of statistics? Can you offer us any numbers on how many appeals are made? No,
Speaker 95
54:50
ma'am, I didn't bring that information, but since I've been here for the last three years,
Speaker 87
54:56
I can recall probably less than half a dozen. I'll
Speaker 130
55:01
be glad to provide that information to the body if you would like that, but
Senator Stephanie Flowers
Unverified
55:09
I believe it's probably less than half a dozen. So, and last, Mr. Chair, I wanted to know, after an officer is decertified, and maybe there are no criminal charges filed against the officer, but depending on the facts and the circumstances,
Do individual citizens have a right to pull that decertification packet order to pursue civil claims? Yes, ma'am. So our
documentation is foible under the Freedom of Information Act.
Speaker 87
55:51
So, yes, a citizen could request, and that happens often. We receive a lot of requests for information, very common. So, yes, ma'am, that exists, and it
Speaker 106
56:01
has been used for those purposes, I'm certain.
Senator Stephanie Flowers
Unverified
56:05
And so that would probably cause you or
some of your staff or maybe the local, either the sheriff or the police chief, to come to court and testify, possibly? It could result in that, yes, ma'am. Have
you ever been in one of those type of appeals? Not
Speaker 87
56:24
as the director, but as a former chief of police, I've been in numerous hearings over my career, ma'am. but not as the director since I've held this position. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Senator. Director, I don't see any further questions from committee members. Really appreciate you being here today. And I'll just close by saying this. I appreciate you safeguarding and, you know, the law enforcement communities across this state by making sure that the bad actors are eliminated and the process that you've put in place because, you know, there's always been a saying among law enforcement officers is there's no one that resents a bad officer more than a good officer.
And I can attest to that, and I think you can too. And we know when an officer's actions are unwarranted, unjustified, or excessive, they're going to be scrutinized for more greatly than people in comparable walks of life. But that goes with wearing the badge. So with that, you're excused, and committee members, Senator, do you have
Senator Missy Irvin
Unverified
57:33
anything? I'll just say a March meeting. We're looking at having a March meeting in Lone Oak at the fish hatchery
and having a tour of that fish hatchery there. So hopefully we'll work on getting that going. I talked to the director of the game and fish about perhaps doing that next month. Okay. That's okay with
you. That sounds good. Committee members, no further action for this committee. This committee, this meeting is adjourned.
Agenda
A. Call to Order
B. Comments by Co-Chairs
C. Discussion of 2025 Pit Maneuver Statistics and Impact of Act 734 of 2023 [Exhibit C]
D. Discussion of the Decertification Process for Law Enforcement Officers in Arkansas
E. Other Business
F. Adjournment
Documents
Speakers
Representative Dwight Tosh Chair
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Mike Hager
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Chair
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Senator Stephanie Flowers
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Senator Ricky Hill
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Senator Mark Johnson
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Senator Missy Irvin
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