Recording

Sgt. Germany from Henderson Police Department addresses an incident on his podcast where an officer's unacceptable behavior was recorded. The officer was removed from duty, pending investigation. Sgt. Germany emphasizes transparency, accountability, and the need for improved officer training for better community interactions. He apologizes to the affected citizen and offers assistance in filing a complaint. The department values integrity and respectful engagement with the community, urging feedback for improvement. Hello, and thank you for being here. My name is Sgt. Germany. I work with the Henderson Police Department. I would like to discuss the situation that happened, and I wanted to address it on my podcast. A video was, in fact, taken of this encounter, and I am not pleased with the situation and how it was handled. As a sergeant, I would like to believe that the people we hire to serve the community will do exactly that. This incident is an example of how we do not want to be remembered or represented. With this podcast, I want to help with transparency and inform the community of how we feel as a whole in the department. The officer in the video was taken off of the force, and an investigation is pending. As I stated, this is not something that is acceptable and is far from how the officer is trained to respond. The steps that will be taken to resolve the situation are to take the officer off of duty and place him under investigation. We will ensure that we are taking accountability for the officer's actions that day and want to inform the public that it is unacceptable behavior. We would also like to inform the public that we will make sure that we have training with all of the officers regarding how we interact with the public, as well as how we assist them with whatever they may need. We understand that this officer's actions that day could affect the way she sees police officers in the future. We want to apologize to her and explain what she experienced is unacceptable. When I see her, I would apologize to her and explain to her that his communication with her and a lack of assistance is a bad representation of our department. We are concerned about this interaction and want to let her know that our department will do more training on our interactions with the public. We are embarrassed that he behaved in this manner and did not assist her when she needed it. We are taking accountability for how the officer acted in this manner. We also want to inform her that we are trying to help with transparency and take accountability for our officer's actions. The options for her resolution that we would offer the citizen would be to assist her in writing a formal complaint to the Internal Affairs or to the Chief of Police, giving her the options of how she could make the complaint and assist her if she needs it. In this situation, I would have to take the officer and inform him that he is now on leave without pay due to his actions that day, informing him of how he damaged the image of the department that day with his rude behavior and his lack of urgency when assistance was requested. I would also let him know that we do not accept behavior like this in our department and remind him of his oath the day he chose to be an officer. It is not something that can be taken lightly in our department, and we are grateful that it was recorded. Now, we've saved someone else from possibly getting a response like this from him. I would take the officer back to the department and take him to an interview room. This way, we are alone. I want the officer to understand that he is in trouble and that we are serious when it comes to the safety of our citizens. We want to be direct and straightforward with the officer, letting him know that he is on leave and will be investigated. I want to let him know that we do not want to be represented by someone who has actions like this. Not assisting a citizen when someone is asking for help is unethical with his experience as a law enforcement professional. We have empathy with the woman who experienced this interaction. I would also recommend the officer writing an apology letter to the woman he treated this way. As a department, we work together closely to protect the community and assist them when they need it. We care about our image, and we also care about transparency. We work hard and care about interactions the community has with our officers. We want to remind the community that to have a good department, we need to have respectful, honest officers that have integrity and good engagement with the community. If you have had a negative interaction with our officers, report it so we can hold our department and our officers accountable. Thanks for coming and listening to my podcast. We want to help spread transparency and accountability. We also want to inform the public that we take feedback on how we can better our department and training to help protect and serve the community. Thanks for listening. Sergeant Germany.