also about some regional state and some national issues that he has to respond to on a daily basis as well as all the police departments in the united states but before we do that i just want to give you a little about the police chief sutter as i said he served as police chief since twenty fourteen and he also served as the officer in charge of the partment during twenty thirteen prior to his service with the prince the police department he served eighteen years with the prince the borough national academy he's a member of the new jersey chapter of the f b i national academy associates new jersey chiefs of police association international socialist and of chiefs of police as well as new jersey honor legion he has a b a economics and a b s in finance from kane university and has pursued graduate level degrees at the university of virginia and failed to take us in university the chief host certificates in numerous law enforcement related disciplines including major case management incident command and holds instructor level certifications  police officer doing something and right away as are all police officers are looked at this way so basically look thoughtful about what's going on in princeton and the department and what you're looking at trying to you know as far as what the prince the police department does for each and every citizen and the outreach that you're providing absolutely so yeah to your point every time we see these things on television and we certainly have seen in today's day and age with the technology and the cameras we see the gory details of these incidents that are occurring nationally without making any judgments on right law or the different things that are occurring one thing that i've really acknowledged is that each one of those events affects us even though we're not involved and that is through perception that the you know that we knowledge that when our citizens see these encounters a four perception of what occurred and it really gets projected on all police officers it's i think it's human nature you know you can say that maybe with doctors teachers police officers where we kind of get grouped together and it's understandable but what we're trying to do here in princeton we want to find who we are as an individual police department we think we're amongst the best ok we're working very hard at it but we want to make sure that we're judged on our actions and not the actions of others around the country in anytown usa if you will so i've also you know realized early on was in placing it's not a matter of if something's going to happen controversial we respond to things every day that put us in situations that we probably rather not be in but we know it's when is it not when or not if it's when a so excuse me so we plan for that and we plan for that by making those positive interactions proactively historically a lot of interactions with the police or drugs as negative interactions arrest motor vehicle stops and ticketing and these are all really negative type of interactions that leave a bad perception of police of plans with our citizens to work trying to outweigh those negative actions because we have to have them it's a function of our of our duties and existence but we're trying to outweigh those negative encounters with positive encounters buying gaging in programs and gauging in different activities with the community that lets them see us as who we really are the good people that we think we are that we know we'll that i know our officers are and we're you know you kind of you put in that effort and i really do think that people see it and they then judge you more fairly what i mean by fairly is when we're wrong i'll be the first one to stand up and look in the eye and tell you that we were wrong and that we're human we made a mistake whether it be policy or actions and we're going to fix it the first part is the acknowledgement but what we also know that many times it's not a matter of whether we were right or wrong but perception so we're really working hard on defining us as an individual police department and i think it's been really kind of successful over the last three or four years that we've gotten very very proactive with it but i think it's your credit because it's one of the toughest jobs right now to be a police officer and i think there's a lot of individuals who have perceptions you know of police and there's a lot of individuals who are very supportive because they know exactly what an officer has to go through on the day had their routine in your in your department having been here eighteen years and i've seen you know the department in the part of the do a wonderful job you know they're princeton but i think one of the one of the interesting things that we always like to talk about is you know the community policing evans and princeton and how do you think that has changed over the last couple of years when you started as an officer to now as you know going up the ranks the police chief it's a great question  recently gave a presentation night at a group about this and as i was researching it it was amazing how it's changed how pleasing is changed and what even the definition of community policing is over the last twenty years or so  that was written a book called the broken windows theory and it really became the bible if you will of community policing that we were taught and that we were said that this is what you need to do to invest in your community and it basically the broken windows theory very very basically is that if you have a building and one window it's an abandoned building and one window gets broken out and you don't address it another window gets broken out and before you know it the building i and falling down and then it starts in the building next to it and before you know it the whole communities in disrepair so the philosophy makes sense and that really was a well placed philosophy what i've come to learn and read about is that in other places around the country it became a zero tolerance type of policy meaning if you everybody that jaywalks everybody that commits any violation has to get cited or arrested because it's it's that broken windows theory and the authors of this theory make an argument that a kind of a hijacked in some places was applied correctly so in any  event that's what i was stuck what we started on here in princeton well you start to see now that that's by many many scholars in policing fields been thrown out the window if you will and then the kind of the new landscape and the new strict i called a strategic plan of policing it was the is the twenty first century pleased to report that was a task written by a task force formed by president obama in twenty fifteen and it was  and it defines in within six pillars six general pillars that if you follow these pillars and in and make a culture in your police department based on these pillars you're going to be successful well as i'm reading this boy this is you know it was in lightning and it was right on and i realized we were doing ninety percent of it but it never really defined it never said it we were doing it naturally we were engaging in these practices actually so you know there are things that go beyond and separate from enforcement on forstmann is needed and part of our duties it really step dresses those relationships even you know i believe in princeton i really do believe this and i don't mean this metaphorically we can change our perception and and help our community one contact at a time if i have a positive interaction with you as one officer on the street and you're going to go tell five other people about what a great interaction you had with this officer where most of those five people are going to tell five to ten other people about it and soon after you know thirty forty fifty people you do that hundreds of times a week and in a community our size we can really make a difference we really feel that we can make a difference that way so we stress that it doesn't start the culture starts with me but those positive perceptions start the ground level our officers on the street have to be making those positive contacts so we gear our initiatives from the ground up we want i don't want me going out and talking to to someone is great and it's it's really it's a film to fill in for me and it's good that people hear my message but it's more important that you hear from our youngest officer on the street that you see that he or she is doing the right thing when they come to your house for a call or when they stop you on a motor vehicle stop that they're polite professional and compassionate and i think i really feel strongly that they're doing they're doing just that so when i came on to draw a draw this comparison in the changes that took place it was more enforcement heavy even community pleasing engaged or really professed in forstmann of those small crimes small disorder small quality of life issues to prevent the bigger problem and what we're saying now is there's ways to do this before and forstmann is necessary if you get involved as a police department and form partnerships early where there's a need for forstmann in theory and i see in practice you alleviate the need for an foresman worker you know and that's kind of some of the that's really the drastic difference that that's kind of taken place with the community policing model over the last twenty years it's good you know it's great that people talk about community policing but it's really become i think almost two too freely used community community please what is that you know what is that and i think when you look at our this really starts at the i guess at the very top with our governing body and and their commitment to diversity in the police department of professionalizing the police department which we've been really working and been successful at but one of the pillars in the twenty first century please report explains that a person is most likely to connect with i think it's human nature and it is something that's proven  guess scientifically social in sociology that you're connecting to connect with somebody from your culture somebody that you're familiar with that you can relate to especially in a crisis situation right so it really stresses the importance of the police department racially ethnically ethnically diverse in a diversity matter to reflect the community that we serve zoos you know and that stretches a lot of different it could be language it could be ethnic background it could be a lot of different things and maybe maybe it's even religion i mean that that's part of diversity even that somebody can connect with somebody that way but we have been so dedicated to this philosophy that we are actually a more diverse percentage wise in the police department than our own in the community so work seeding the diversity of the community which is really not seen  ok and we're really we're continue to to stress this as a principle but the key to it is our recruitment strategy and our recruitment isn't something where we put a letter out in the in the paper and advertise in the paper and say come on and sign up we proactively go out and recruit people to engage in our process we go to universities civic groups all types of different different organizations and our last recruitment attracted eight hundred candidates and we didn't have a position open at the time yet and it was super diverse and we ended up getting some just outstanding outstanding young officers a real by versed group over the last five years now since twenty third four years and it's super important to me because those officers are going to be serving this community long after i'm gone it's almost like a legacy if you will where i want to look back and see these people as as sergeants and lieutenants and chiefs running the the department and and look back and say man i knew when we hired them they were really up to the up to the task so it's important for us that this that that that it's successful rather strong bench there's absolutely a strong bench absolutely absolutely so that the growth is there and that that's important because of the population changes you know yes individuals  look for models and role models and they look the best of people like themselves that they can communicate with correct and especially we've been successful not to interrupt to get some really strong local candidates as well which is really important people have grown up in the community the stork lee in the old days it was more common for sons and daughters of of the local town to get on the police department and knew the community but it got less and less prevalent but whatever the reasons were over the ninety's i guess early two thousand and starting i see and it could because of our perception in the community which i'm hoping is the case for starting to get more local  and maybe you can talk a little bit and talk about how the police department's handling that absolutely so i have to tell you it's seeing it firsthand both professionally and personally if you don't know somebody now  in today's day and age that hasn't had a issue with opioids you're lucky if i go through the community i talk to people and all i hear stories about friends family members  co workers that have been affected and we saw this happening we we ran into we started running into it more and more and we started to see locally that i saw personally with you know especially with some younger maybe not juveniles but younger teens and early twenty's and these addictions that just were kind of made you think you know how house is happening  where's it coming from how we're seeing it more and more and we blank and it's a crisis and to me that's how kind of quickly it happened so we we learned early on or fairly early on that we were not going to solve this problem by arresting people and arresting our way out of the the the problem and what you find out is you know you arrest someone for possession or whatever the case may be or related crime and it's a revolving door because they're there in crisis and they're suffering and they can't help it and that the arrest serves it really doesn't serve to help the person recover so we started gauging our partners a corner house holding forms get trying to get people that we contacted in to work with corner house and then we were approached by a group of recovery advocates of america and they partnered with several mercer county police departments i think they're probably in all the police departments by now and it's go a a county wide initiative soon but we developed a policy where when ever we contact someone that suffering from addiction doesn't this they have to be opioids it just is mostly nowadays  someone that we medically had to help someone that we may have had to arrest or somebody that we just came across in our our day to day goings on we are advocates of america are committed you call us and if this person voluntarily goes for help we will get them a bed a room in a in a recovery facility no questions asked no worry about the the finances or whatever later insurance no insurance whatever the case may be and that's so important because we when we tend to encounter people that are in crisis there's a high probability that they're there at that rock bottom point where they're likely to get help there may be at the point of despair where we were called for whatever reason and they're at a low point and they're looking for that help and ready to ready to voluntarily go and it's this is where it has to happen it has to happen proactively i also really feel and i kind of didn't understand this at first but as i do more research encounter more i think we have to get involved with the children t earlier than what i i personally thought i think that maybe some people are starting with this down this path earlier than what we we thought years ago and that that education at an early age and i leave that to the experts obviously but i think once the education starts later in life it may be too late because a lot of people are starting early so we want to turn cajuns multi disciplinary process where we're working with people before there's a problem for actively education working with corner house and then we're also partnering with recovery advocates of america to deal with people that are in crisis and then finally i think as you know we we do carry our can learn and well that's a great thing and i have to tell you as a opioid overdose so we carry it in a nasal spray we're trained in it and we've unfortunately had to use it quite well often not maybe quite often but often enough where a person is basically without a heartbeat and respiratory cardiac arrest from an opioid overdose and we can administer this spray nasal nasal passages and literally bring the person back and it's as a parent you know and seeing the the kids that are affected and people that are affected it's it really is a great thing i've heard people debate this as to whether it exacerbates the problem but when it's a life and death situation we choose life we choose life the issue that i want to get better at is getting partners we called a second that we're first responders and we need to get better at engaging our secondary responders to get help to these people that need it so badly when we administer that nor can the person is unwilling to get help we have no choice but to walk away knowing what that addiction is going to do but bring that person back to that point again if they don't get help and it's very frustrating for us so we're talking in the law enforcement circles about developing secondary responders that we can kind of like the recovery advocates group i talked about that we can get with us as kind of a crisis intervention team to respond as as we're finishing in can't get these people anymore help we've exhausted our ability to get the mental health experts in there with them at the scene to try to convince them and help them get the get the aid that they need and i think when about because there's immigration issues policing and there's perceptions about that and the focus so maybe just touched on that a little bit absolutely so i think the first thing i want to make sure all your viewers understand is that we are not trained nor do we engage in immigration enforcement we are actually prohibited by law from asking anybody about their immigration status and less they're arrested for certain serious offenses and then we're required by  kind of like the ones that we saw recently as yesterday we do quite the opposite so we've developed a part of an actual formal policy on we can fund our website is we actually go with our human services colleagues or municipal services and follow up with social services for the families that are kind of left behind after these enforcement actions take place so for instance mother father is arrested by immigration authorities for of the case may be and were notified of that will go with human services and make sure the family that person could be the monetary fiscal supporter health care supporter of the family and is taken out and there in the family maybe less needing assistance and not know how to get it right so and we're be scared to get it at that point so we'll be there to proactively say to you are you going to school kids do you have a ride do you do you have jackets are you eating know what services do you need and these are services that we would do if we had to arrest somebody on a local issue we would do that same thing but it's important that people draw that distinction that we need the trust of the community in dealing with local crimes we do not deal with federal immigration crimes or not they're just not a function of our existence we're not trained in it we don't know how to do it if we if we wanted to do it where we would know how so we try to preach that and we go around to different groups and i think again it's not in what we say but what we do so i think as people start to see us  on our actions where amounts are and see that we we mean what we say there's more legitimacy attached to what i'm telling you right now and as we continue to you know go through and navigate this this difficult type issue i think people will gain more trust in what i'm saying because it's important that we continue to get this trust we need help from the community in solving crimes and helping people we need a partnership and if we don't have it we're not going to be successful ok quickly longrange mission of the police department urging like see the police department be in the next couple of years great question so you know the the number one thing that i have been preaching since consolidation consolidation what kind of put this on us is flexibility so i see the department as being very flexible moving forward they're going to be a lot of changes in law enforcement moving forward i just we're going through that transformation right now so very generally i want to see us continuing to stay up to date on these national issues and being flexible adjusting with these issues but i also see us increasing our positive footprint even more it's going to be slow type of  nice to hear some of the points that you raised and hopefully the audience who's was watching you know realizes and knows that there's a human element behind the individuals who are guarding their safety each and every day and night and the way i'm to go steve  you for watching your show stay healthy stay active stay involved you know keep your eyes open and hopefully next week you'll be watching us as we have another newsmaker on the show until then th