On Tuesday, it was revealed that the City of Antioch has not conducted an Antioch police officer annual performance evaluations since 2017.
It was explained during the 2022 Annual Update presentation of the Antioch Police Department when Mayor Lamar Thorpe asked a series of questions about the department to Chief Steve Ford, which included performance evaluations.
Thorpe asked what was the policy around annual performance evaluations to which Chief Ford stated they recently enacted the process that had already existed.
“If I said we have been evaluating our officers on a yearly basis on a consistent basis. Is that an accurate statement?” asked Thorpe. “Have we been evaluating our officers every year as the policy proscribes?”
Ford said he didn’t know as he has only been with the department for less than a year (he had been appointed as interim chief in April 2022 and was named permanent chief of the Antioch Police Department as of November 2022).
Antioch Police Captain Trevor Schnitzius was called on to answer the question.
“With respect to the employee annual evaluations, those have not been done for a number of years. That has not been at the desire of the police department as the police department has a strong desire to have those evaluations done,” stated Schnitzius. “We have been trying to work with Human Resources for a long period of time to try and get those evaluations sent to us to get them completed. We have been working very diligently with Ms. Cortez to get that rectified and get that system up and running. And also to revamp the evaluation process to be more over reaching in terms of categories of evaluation and officers performance during those evaluation period.”
Thorpe then asked when was the last time all of the officers were evaluated adequately based on the policy.
“If I had to make my best assumption, that would be 2017,” stated Schnitzius.
Thorpe stated that they needed to know that police officers were being evaluated regularly based on the policy.
Questions were sent to the Antioch Police Department at 12:35 pm Wednesday and have not been answered regarding statements made by Schnitzius and the potential impacts of not having annual police officer evaluations completed such as new hires, firings or promotions. As well as what impacts it would have on certifications.
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