Black Hawk Police Department provides a customer service approach
By Linda Jones
Police brutality makes the news in cities occasionally, but there is one police department that is truly courteous and helpful. Black Hawk’s Police Department delivers gasoline to visitors with an empty tank and unlocks cars for gamblers who have locked keys inside. Most unbelievably, they give rides home to drunks if there is no alternative. This is obviously a unique police force, matching the customer-service orientation of a unique community.
While Black Hawk is one of the smallest communities in the state, it hosts more than 20,000 gamblers every weekday, more than 10,000 just on weekends. Unlike other police departments, this one answers dozens of calls for assistance every month. Lockouts – keys locked inside – are the most common requests, with 333 such calls in 2010.
Chief Stephen Cole enjoys the customer-friendly policing approach after spending years in the Wichita Police Department, a typical big-city department.
Black Hawk Police Department
Cole said, “The biggest crime up here is theft in the casinos. People leave the machine they started playing on and move to another, leaving their personal property behind. Usually it’s women leaving purses. The security team at the casino catches the theft on tape, detains the thief and calls us.”
Security teams cannot make an arrest. There were 171 such incidents in the city last year, a very low number considering that thousands of gamblers come every day. The chief is proud of the close working relationship between his officers and the casino security teams.
Public records show how effective the department’s customer-oriented approach is to the city. Last year, the 182 traffic tickets issued were overshadowed by the 1,826 verbal warnings and 102 written warnings given. Drivers who are detained by security and who fail to pass a police administered portable breath test are given several alternatives to arrive home safely. First the officer tries to find a friend to drive the drunk home; if that fails, the department makes calls to locate a room in a hotel. As a last resort the officers drive the drunk to his home or to a safe place, which is usually in the Denver area.
Cole says the service orientation keeps the department busy with daily requests for getting into locked cars.
“That’s why I like working here so much. My background is in community policing and working here is consistent with my training and values,” Cole said.
Black Hawk Police Chief Stephen Cole at his desk & the 1870 Black Hawk School which serves as the Police Department headquarters.
Cole has a Master of Arts degree in Criminal Justice and has attended the FBI National Academy in Quantico, Va.
The chief came to Black Hawk in 2005 from his job as chief of the Northglenn Police Dept. Prior to that, he had worked several years in the Wichita, Kan., police department, where he earned many awards in various supervisory roles. He also managed 519 uniformed personnel with a $28 million budget. One of his goals in the department was to implement and direct the first community policing effort in targeted neighborhoods.
His staff in Black Hawk includes 22 uniformed officers and 12 civilian employees. His staff is routinely seen in the casinos connecting with the security teams. Two to four officers are always cruising through parking garages.
In the eyes of the public, the hero of the force in 2010 was Ken Lloyd. Lloyd happened to be the officer who cornered the man who’d robbed the Famous Bonanza Casino earlier, but the chief emphasized that he’s quite proud of all the men and women on the staff.
“They give outstanding service. I hire very carefully. I want men and women with the right attitude of public service, not the ones out to be a hotshot,” Cole said.
When an arrest is made in Black Hawk, the individual is taken to the Gilpin County Jail, as Black Hawk has only a temporary holding area. When possible, offenders are processed and released instead of being transferred to Gilpin County.
In order to serve the casinos’ security teams in any possible way, the department has conducted many workshops: domestic violence, workplace violence and RAD – rape, aggression and defense training – with a civil rights training scheduled next.
Black Hawk is a very safe town. In 2010 it had no homicides, no sexual assaults, no robberies and no arson. Only one stolen vehicle was reported. Relax and enjoy yourself here.
