Page 39 - 2019YearEndDraft

39

Officers also attended annual department firearms qualifications. Drills were
developed to provide officers with the necessary knowledge and practical skills to
meet the Cranston Police Department and State of Rhode Island mandated
annual firearms qualifications. Officers received training in the following areas,
decision shooting, reduced light shooting moving targets, use of cover, non-
dominate hand shooting, alternate position shooting, reloading drills, and
malfunction situations.

Officers were provided classroom instruction prior to all range drills and
qualification courses. All firearm drills stressed the importance of target
identification, isolation, and the importance of maintaining a good sight picture
while shooting. All officers must obtain a passing score for both day and night
qualification courses. Any officers not able to obtain a passing score were
required to complete remedial training to obtain a passing qualification score. We
also conducted qualifications to any department member that has a personally
owned pistol.

Recruitment

The Police Officer Recruitment was conducted from May 1st through June 28th.
The objective of the recruitment campaign was to attract quality applicants,
representative of the City’s demographics with the goal of increasing their
representation within the
department. The message was
posted on the department’s
Facebook and Twitter accounts. In
2019, a billboard campaign was
utilized displaying the recruiting
effort. We utilized four billboard
locations with three different
advertising messages. The
billboards depicted officers from
various demographics in different
department units. A digital formatted
billboard message was display at the
intersections of Park and Dyer
avenues. The message was
displayed on a rotating basis and
was visual for ten seconds every
minute. There was a billboard
displayed on route 95 northbound
(Jefferson Blvd on-ramp) near the
city line with Warwick. This targeted

www.cranstonpoliceri.gov