Macon Police Department Hoping for Re-Accreditation

MACON, Georgia (41NBC/WMGT) – The Macon Police Department received only positive reviews from a public forum at city hall Monday night.

The forum was part of an assessment to determine if the department will be re-accredited.

Every three years, a team of assessors from the Commission for Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies makes a visit to Macon.

“And they, more or less, if you would, do an audit on the police department,” says Maj. Robert Grabowski, with MPD.  “There’s over 400 standards that we have to abide by to be accredited nationally.  So they’re here, basically, judging us in all of our files (and) our units within the departments to make sure that we’re following the policies and procedures not only that we set, but that the CALEA association sets as well.”

“One of my goals when I was first named chief was to stay accredited or get re-accredited and we’ve fulfilled that goal every time, and we’re going to continue to do it this time,” says Chief Mike Burns.  “It’s something citizens can be proud of, because not every agency, or the majority of agencies, are not nationally accredited.”

At Monday night’s forum, there were no complaints from citizens, only praise.

“Usually at things like this, some of us may have had problems with the police department,” says Burns.  “They want to talk negative about us.  Tonight, we had nobody like that.  But we did have some very positive comments about our department and our officers.”

The assessors say they’ve enjoyed being in Macon and working with the department.

“They’ve been very professional and very helpful,” says Josel Theurer, one of the assessors. “They’ve been completely open-door for us and willing to show us anything that we need and give us the assistance we need so that we can make this successful for them, because that’s the goal is to be successful with this.”

The process is completely voluntary.  Once the commission’s assessors complete their review of the department, they’ll report their findings and recommendations back to the full commission, who will then decide if the agency will be re-accredited.