Law enforcement seminar focuses on police misconduct

Published 3:34 pm Tuesday, June 18, 2013

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More than 60 law enforcement individuals attended a daylong training seminar focusing on the topic of police misconduct at Jemison Municipal Complex on Tuesday.

John Mulligan, who retired from the FBI and was involved with law enforcement for 40 years, taught the course on money corruption, sexual misconduct and abuse of force.

“This is an interactive class where I ask a lot of questions and give everyone scenarios to think about,” Mulligan said. “There is a very fine line between a formal and informal code of conduct but my goal is to teach these officers how to have the integrity to know what is the right thing to do.”

The seminar is sponsored by Auburn University at Montgomery Division of Continuing Education (AUM) Crime Prevention Clearinghouse and Training Institute and open to law enforcement officers with no cost to attend.

The seminar is part of a project funded by the Alabama Department of Economic and Community Affairs (ADECA) Law Enforcement and Traffic Safety Division and the AUM Continuing Education Division through a grant that is awarded to AUM and the Alabama Crime Prevention Clearinghouse.

The Clearinghouse coordinates efforts and partners with state agencies to provide statewide crime prevention training for law enforcement officers.

Continuing Education provides matching funds and handles all conference/workshop training coordination.

Jemison Police Chief Shane Fulmer said this is the third year Jemison has hosted the seminars due to Jemison being a central location for many of the officers.

“These are good classes for the officers to stay abreast on current ethics laws,” Fulmer said. “We thought this would be a good topic to host and we enjoy being able to provide the seminars in our location.”

Fulmer said the seminar on Tuesday with the topic “police misconduct” mainly focused on making sure police officers were doing everything they should be doing.

“We always strive to do what is right and these training sessions are great tools to ensure we can continue doing the right thing,” Fulmer said.

The officers register for the classes online and receive credit hours of continuing education for attending the seminars.

Tuesday’s seminar provided six hours of training.

Alabama Crime Prevention Clearinghouse and Training Institute liaison Margaret Faulkner said one of the benefits of the seminars was teaching officers the need to break bad habits that can sometimes be picked up from popular television shows on crime.

“A lot of times the things portrayed on crime shows are very far from reality,” Faulkner said. “These seminars can deal with a lot of the topics portrayed on crime shows but educate the proper ways for dealing with certain situations as opposed to the television side of things.”

Faulkner said officers attending Tuesday’s seminar came from across Alabama including Thorsby, Clanton, Montevallo, Homewood, Cullman, Tuscaloosa, Gadsden, Birmingham, Selma, Pelham, Centreville, Gardendale and UAB.

Faulkner said an upcoming seminar at the Jefferson State Community College Clanton Conference and Performing Arts Center will be on June 27 from 9 a.m.- 4 p.m. focusing on “criminal behavior assessment.”

For more information about the classes, visit www.aum.edu/acpc.