Interim Twisp Police Chief Doug Johnson said he is in “complete rebuilding mode” when it comes to finding the next police chief and filling two deputy positions in Twisp.
“I am setting the table for the next administration,” he told MVE.
Johnson was hired in February by the town mayor following the dismissal of his predecessor, Jay King, who was only five months into the job. Twisp Mayor Hans Smith provided few details on the termination, saying it was a “sensitive personnel issue.”
In hiring King, the mayor hoped he would build the department around himself by hiring two deputies and administrative staff. Johnson is recruiting the personnel and the chief, saying he is “focusing on all aspects of completing employment numbers.”
Johnson said he is looking for lateral entries, which are officers with previous experience.
“It is difficult to train hires here in the very beginning of their careers,” he explained. “There are two ways you learn to be a police officer: going to calls and working with competent police officers. We don’t have an adequate amount of calls for police officers to train on. On the west side, an officer will have more calls in three months than in Twisp in a year. My focus is on hiring competent lateral personnel.”
Johnson said there is an extensive background check for applicants.
“We dig into everything- personal relationships, marriages, your landlord, credit reports. We’re still not 100% successful but it’s much higher than the rest of the workforce. It’s a complex and thorough process, or is designed to be.”
There are companies that can perform background checks, but Johnson said he prefers to do it himself.
“If you contract that out, then you’re hiring to their standard, not your own. I am doing the backgrounds for the Twisp Police Department,” he said.
“I will talk to family members, wives, girlfriends, ex-wives,” said Johnson. “When I get done with a background, it will be an inch and a half thick of paper. We interview 28-30 to 70-100 people, depending on the application. We contact an additional 1.8 people for every person we talk to in their personal history statement. It is a very thorough process.”
Johnson said these days social media is part of the background check.
“They’re essentially the same type of investigation as the FBI. The general public has no idea. Seventy percent of the population can’t qualify to begin the process.”
Applicants also have to take a personality test called the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-2 (MMPI-2), an employment screening tool that looks for signs of mental illness and personality disorders. The longer version of the test consists of 567 true-false questions.
Passing a background check isn’t the only challenge for applicants. A lack of affordable housing and amenities like food choices pose a challenge to recruiting officers who are used to life in a bigger town, said Johnson. The policing job itself also comes with unique challenges.
“The frequency of crime is higher on the west side, but there is more backup. If there is a problem or something goes badly, you can get backup in 90 seconds to 3 minutes. Here, when things go badly, it’s just you. Backup is 8 minutes away, and a lot can go wrong in eight minutes, but if Twisp isn’t on, backup can arrive in 35 minutes. In winter, it can be 50 minutes to an hour.”
When asked about negative publicity for law enforcement, Johnson replied, “There is an anti-law enforcement stance. A lot of negative publicity comes from that. People are going to believe what they’re going to believe. We have this negative press, but we never seem to not have police officers. The vast majority of their actions are completely justified,”
“We’re not a PR firm. We’re a law enforcement entity. The vast majority of people support law enforcement.”
