Message From the Chief

From July 2021

The Hurricane City Police Department works hard to engage with our community and work together to enhance and protect the life, safety, and quality of life for individuals and families. Our team of supervisors and officers focus on partnering with the community to provide a safe and equitable environment to live and work. We are committed to community-oriented policing which includes dedicated personnel for community education and outreach. This includes one community officer and three school resource officers. Additionally, all of our officers are actively involved in community projects, police support at community events throughout the year and are dedicated to working closely with individual members of our community when concerns arise.

We as a department recognize that we have a duty and responsibility to hold ourselves to a high standard. For this reason, we have proactively trained our officers on implicit bias, crisis intervention, and de-escalation techniques so our officers have the resources to keep the community and themselves safe. We established a Use of Force Review Board many years ago that reviews all use of force incidents within the department to ensure that there is additional oversight when force is used. The Review Board includes supervisors, instructors, and citizens from the community.

Hurricane City Police was one of the first departments in Southern Utah that implemented the use of in-car cameras. When body cameras became available we implemented that tool for all our officers. We will continue to document interactions and evidence this way to protect our officers and the public.

For a smaller department, Hurricane Police has several divisions to serve and protect the community. We have officers in patrol, investigations, community policing, school resources, traffic enforcement, and the drug task force. We have civilian personnel in records, budget, crime scene/evidence, school crossing, animal control, Volunteers In Police Service, and emergency management.

Hurricane Police Officers and civilians work hard to serve our community, but we also recognize that there is always room for improvement. As a department, we are dedicated to increasing our efforts in recruiting, hiring, and retaining officers with diverse backgrounds, bilingual language skills, and other skills that allow us to better serve our community. We do appreciate your feedback on specific and broad concerns and look forward to collectively serving the community. Hurricane City Police Department is dedicated to working hard to ensuring the health, safety, and wellness of everyone who lives, works, and plays here.

Sincerely,

Chief Lynn L. Excell