Pleasanton Police Department is committed to building strong relationships with the youngest members of our community. Through programs such as DARE, Pop-Up Storytime, Teen Academy, Every 15 Minutes, Youth in Government Day, and the Explorer Program, we maintain our connection to the youth in our community.

The Pleasanton Police Department connects with the community through programs and events such as National Night Out, Neighborhood Watch, Cone with a Cop, Coffee with a Cop, Citizen’s Academy and station tours. It is important for police staff to stay in tune with our residents and businesses by providing the most up-to-date news, alerts, and advisories through our social media platforms, AC Alerts and in-person conversations.

In January 2002, the Pleasanton Police Department and the Pleasanton Unified School District implemented the School Resource Officer Program as a joint effort to make Pleasanton schools safer and have a positive police presence in the schools. SROs collaborate with administrators and counselors to develop comprehensive safety plans ensuring each school site is a safe place for students to learn.

Yes. 86% of PPD officers have attended the 40-hour Critical Incident Training course. The remaining 14% are new hires and will attend training as soon as classes become available. The goal is for officers to be CIT-certified within the first 18 months of being hired.

TOPICS INCLUDE: The below topics are taught by subject matter experts in their respective field:

Yes, since September 2015 all PPD officers are issued body worn cameras. Click here to review the complete policy.

Before becoming a Pleasanton police officer, applicants must complete an extensive and rigorous hiring and training process which can take 18 months to complete. The department carefully screens all qualified candidates and specifically looks for individuals who demonstrate a high degree of integrity, leadership, compassion, and are of high moral character. Once hired, new recruits must successfully complete 1,064 hours of Peace Officer Standards and Training (POST)-certified training including principled policing, criminal law, and patrol techniques.

Pleasanton Police Department makes continuous training a priority. Peace Officer Standards and Training (POST) requires every officer complete 24 hours of training every two years. Pleasanton police officers exceed POST standards and complete a minimum of 120 hours of training (every two years). Between 2017-2019, Pleasanton police officers received updated training in procedural justice, racial and cultural diversity/principled policing, and verbal and reality-based de-escalation techniques.

Officers are responsible for activating their body worn cameras prior to making contact with members of the public, or as soon as reasonably possible under the circumstances in a number of incidents as identified in the Body Worn Camera policy.

Future contracts for body worn camera systems will allow for automatic activation in certain circumstances. Recorded data including video and audio recorded by a body worn camera system shall be retained minimally for detentions and searches, misdemeanor and felony cases, incidents, and for pending reviews as outlined in the policy.

Yes. The City’s Two-Year Operating Budget can be found here.

A taser, also known as a Conducted Energy Device, is designed to incapacitate the muscles in the human body by overriding the Central Nervous System with electrical pulses. When the central nervous system is flooded with electrical pulses that are similar to their natural frequency and strength, normal signals get drowned out and muscles contract uncontrollably. The intent of these devices is not to elicit pain but to contract muscles in order to provide time for police officers to safely restrain the individual. An electrical cycle from a conducted energy device generally lasts five seconds and upon completion there are no lingering effects.

Over the past several years, one of the department’s goals has been to increase diversity in our police officer candidate pool. Our Personnel & Training Unit has worked collaboratively with the department’s Recruitment Team and the City’s Human Resources Department to expand our reach. As a result of these efforts, more than half of the applicants to the department have represented ethnic minorities and more than 10 percent were women candidates.

The Pleasanton Police Department has an extensive Peer Support program that is led by a licensed clinician and includes critical incident stress debriefings following intense incidents that employees may face.