It is more difficult now to be a police officer than ever before. The mission of the Oxford Police Department is to serve our community with wisdom and compassion, and to create a safe and connected community. As your Mayor, I can tell you that our police officers are charged with being public servants every single day with this mission in mind.
In 2017 under my administration, the Oxford Police Department established a Safe Site in front of Visit Oxford on Jackson Avenue East. Uniformed officers are there Wednesday through Saturday evenings assisting any patrons that feel unsafe, need assistance in finding a ride home, would like to be escorted to their vehicle, or need police assistance. This Safe Site has become a great way for Oxford Police Officers to meet and build relationships with our student population. Officers and residents can often be seen playing corn hole or laughing and talking at this site every evening.
The Oxford Police Department has held events to interact with all ages and build relationships and trust. These events have included an Annual Fun Day allowing Oxonians to interact with officers, Camp COPS, Annual Haunted House, and Coffee with a Cop at local restaurants. Officers have also begun doing bike patrols in neighborhoods to better interact with citizens.
In 2021, the Oxford Police Department announced the official start of a Community Response Team. The Community Response Team is a team with one full-time employee dedicated to victim services accompanied by volunteer officers and staff members.
As first responders, OPD typically gets the initial call when a person is in need or has become a victim of a crime. OPD’s goal is to connect those individuals with our community partners to best fit their long-term needs. On average, the Oxford Police Department answers over 1,000 calls a year where victim services are needed. The Community Response Team will be responsible for identifying these cases, training our officers to recognize these cases, and connecting our citizens with the services. OPD wants to better serve the community by connecting them with the appropriate partners that can best fit the long-term needs. We know this program will work because if we can reach one person or rescue one individual from a violent encounter, then we can save a generation.
The Oxford Police Department has gone through an extensive assessment process to earn national accreditation status by the Commission on Accreditation of Law Enforcement Agencies (CALEA). CALEA accreditation is considered the gold standard in public safety. Only nine law enforcement agencies in Mississippi have received this accreditation honor. This should give the citizens of our community a sense of security that the Oxford Police Department is working hard to do it right, and that the City of Oxford is working to be transparent.
The Oxford Police Department has established key partnerships that assist in serving our citizens with domestic violence and mental health issues. OPD has completed a pledge called the One Mind Campaign which focuses on improving their response to those living with mental illness in our community. In doing so, OPD has partnered with Communicare and pledged to implement practices to improve the outcome of interactions between police officers and people in crisis or impacted by mental illness. This includes a 40-hour Crisis Intervention Curriculum which has improved the way we respond to situations that require communicative strategies, de-escalation and crisis intervention.
It is our goal to build relationships within the community and to be as transparent with our citizens as possible. We will continue to find ways to connect and serve.