Yuma Police Chief talks five year plan

YUMA, Ariz. (KYMA, KECY) - The Yuma Police Department (YPD) is developing a five-year plan to help improve the way they operate.

YPD Police Chief Thomas Garrity said they will focus on two key components over the next five years.

The first is mental and physical health for police officers.

The second is how to work better with new technology. 

“For instance, we just bought cell phones for all our officers. They're able to communicate quicker, they’re able to use those phones to show crime scene photos or suspect photos that they can actually talk to each other real-time,” said Chief Thomas Garrity.

Sergeant Lori Franklin was able to share some of the benefits of keeping these officers in good spirits.

“There’s a lot of stuff that our officers respond to that the general public doesn’t see and a lot of this takes a toll on their mental health. So to be able to focus on that and make sure that they’re okay gives us the ability to keep that officer for a longer period of time,” said Sgt. Franklin.

Chief Garrity provided some examples of how they can improve the mental health of his officers.

“One of the things that we look at is how do we have officers spend a little bit more time with their family. Yeah we have certain times that we have to be at work but how can we reduce that time," shared Chief Garrity.

YPD hopes to have this plan in place by this October.