Community Oriented Policing Bureau

Major Jose Vargas

The Community Oriented Policing Bureau’s (COPB) primary function is road patrol, which is under the leadership of Major Jose Vargas. COPB provides quality law enforcement services including responding to emergency calls. The bureau is committed to preventing and reducing crime through a variety of proactive problem-solving initiatives. Within the bureau, there are specialized units and divisions such as: Community Resource Unit, Community Service Aides, Canine (K-9), Field Training Program, Field Force and Honor Guard.

COMMUNITY RESOURCE UNIT

The Community Resource Unit is managed by one sergeant and is comprised of eight community resource officers. The unit is responsible for responding to community needs, evaluating the effectiveness of community programs, crime prevention activities, community concerns, community activities, meetings, presentations and attending special events. This unit is tireless in their efforts to be innovative and dedicated to our community. During 2021, the Community Resource Unit hosted or participated in many programs designed to build bridges into the community. Although the pandemic created challenges throughout the year, the Community Resource Unit continued their efforts by enhancing community relations through special events. It should be noted that CDC guidelines were followed during every event.

COMMUNITY SERVICE AIDES

The Community Service Aides Unit is a civilian component of the Community Oriented Policing Bureau. The community service aides provide an invaluable level of support to the sworn members of the Miramar Police Department. This unit is comprised of 16 community service aides. The unit responds to traffic complaints and offers assistance, as requested, by officers and immediate supervisors. They write offense and property reports as reported by citizens, and they provide court testimony when needed. The community service aides also provide service to the Records Unit where they provide weekly delivery of correspondence to and from the South Satellite Courthouse and Broward County’s Main Courthouse. Community service aides are assigned to Miramar Police Department’s front desk and Town Center’s front lobby/

information desk. The unit also supports other units by providing coverage to communications personnel and serving as the primary investigators on traffic crashes. They provide traffic control whenever possible and enforce parking regulations. Additionally, the community service aides also volunteer at various community events throughout the city. Although the COVID-19 pandemic created challenges throughout the year, these individuals in the unit accumulated some truly impressive statistics. Throughout the course of the year, the unit responded to 3,370 calls for service, issued 1,247 traffic citations, completed 1,476 offense incident reports, handled 11,467 crash reports and processed countless crime scenes.

CANINE (K-9) UNIT

The Miramar Police K-9 Unit is comprised of 5 specialized law enforcement officers who have amassed hundreds upon hundreds of training hours to qualify for the responsibility of using a dog for law enforcement purposes. These dogs cost over $10,000 each and are vetted by the K-9 Unit instructors to ensure they can locate and hold suspects who have committed violent and felonious crimes from gaining access to more victims. This unit is on call 24/7 and responds whenever a significant threat to the public’s safety presents itself. In 2021 the K-9 Unit was successful in apprehending 13 suspects and assisted in the apprehension of countless others, all of which surrendered when ordered by police and therefore had no direct contact with the police dog. Other accomplishments which occurred in 2021 are as follows:

• Maintaining a focused and accountable training methodology that exceed industry, FDLE, state, and national training requirements. • Adding and training Evo, a newly purchased police dog, to the K-9 Unit. • All K-9 teams completed their grueling annual recertification. • Assisted in removing over $900,000 in fake US currency from the streets. • Explosive K-9 Detection Teams assisted in large scale events such as Miramar’s 9/11 Memorial Site Dedication Ceremony, Ft. Lauderdale’s Air and Sea Show,

NASCAR, Ft. Lauderdale’s Boat Show, Women’s Gold Cup Soccer matches at

DRV PNK Stadium, North Miami Beach’s Snow Festival, and Miami Gardens’ 1st

Annual Juneteenth Event. • Conducted hundreds of daily business checks every month throughout the city • Presented K-9 Unit demonstrations for the Citizen’s Police Academy and numerous public schools in Miramar.

FIELD TRAINING OFFICER PROGRAM

The Miramar Police Department, in keeping with community expectations for professional police services, has an established Field Training Officer (FTO) Program. The purpose of the Miramar Police Department FTO Program is to prepare officers and community service aides in training to perform essential duties and to enhance the professionalism of the patrol division through continuous quality improvement. The FTO Program is comprised of 18 dedicated officers & community service aides who are all in excellent standing within the department. All of the field training officers undergo regular training on updates of policies and procedures and have also received instructor-level certifications to allow them to deliver the highest level quality of training to the future of the Miramar Police Department. In 2021, the department was honored to train a total of 28 officers & community service aides, 13 of whom successfully completed the FTO Program. 15 of the trainees are currently progressing through the FTO Program.