Plant City Police Department was awarded the excelsior level of accreditation from the Commission for Florida Law Enforcement Accreditation, making it one of only 58 other law enforcement agencies statewide to obtain the status.
Accreditation is awarded during the CFA’s annual business meeting in St. Augustine and this is the fifth time PCPD has successfully completed its reaccreditation with no corrective actions or compliance issues. Once the agency gets its initial accreditation, the reaccreditation process occurs every three years.
“One of the big things I have talked to the city manager with is this is a thing, a process that Bill (McDaniel) was passionate about,” PCPD Chief Ed Duncan said. “And that passion is a legacy and that legacy of excellence, I am here to tell you tonight, continues.”
PCPD was first accredited in 2005 and has accepted the challenge of reaccreditation every three years since. There are approximately 400 law enforcement agencies statewide and PCPD is only one of 59 to have the excelsior status.
Duncan compared the process to someone coming into your home and peeking around in every nook and cranny, evaluating how you run your household. They have keys to everything PCPD has and they comb through it all to ensure the department is operating the way it should be. Though Duncan said it was certainly a challenge, he believes PCPD is doing the right thing welcoming that in-depth evaluation.
“This was a vision from sometime in the early 2000s, around 2003, for the Plant City Police Department to become a fully accredited law enforcement agency,” Duncan said. “And that vision was instituted by then-Police Chief Bill McDaniel. The initial onsite for that review was very comprehensive, as they all have been, but for the first time for our agency to get involved with that it took a monumental amount of work to make sure your policies and standards were all efficient. That began in 2003 and that all came to fruition in 2005 when we got the first accreditation.”
He said the process has only continued to move forward since then and that the department is growing and evolving every year as standards increase.
Reading comments from the report, Duncan said the people of PCPD are the reason the department is able to go above and beyond every year. Those who work at PCPD are the foundation and he said without them, it would be a very different place.
McDaniel was the police chief who initiated the search for accreditation and now, as city manager, he said he is proud of the department for achieving the excelsior accreditation and continuing to pursue excellence.
“It’s not about us, it’s about the people that make up that department,” McDaniel said. “The consistency that has been through all of this, along with the outstanding men and women that serve this community with the Plant City Police Department, I can tell you and the Chief knows this, but I am so proud of them for achieving this excelsior accreditation. Because it means that they had those consistent five reaccreditations with no flaws. It singles them out for the excellent agency they are and I’m proud of each and every one of them.”
Mayor Rick Lott said many on the commission were there when the process started and said they remember how much work goes into the accreditation and the pressure that puts on the department. He said as a commission they want to say “thank you, thank you, thank you.”
“We build parks and we build projects and so forth and we take care of the roads and everything, but when it comes down to the everyday touches with our citizens that give them the comfort of the character of the community we live in, the men and women in blue are really the ones who touch our community more than anyone,” Lott said. “So with the professionalism you have and the desire you have to be perfect, just that desire to be the best, to be perfect, to have no flaws, I think it shows our community that we care and respect them and are doing our best to give them a great and safe place to live. Thank you so much.”