New Fla. Police Policy Requires Home Visits for Officers Calling In Sick
Source Officer.com News
What to know
- The Miramar Police Department has rolled out a new policy that requires supervisors to conduct home visits for officers who call in sick as a way to monitor officer well-being and prevent leave abuse.
- The union representing officers opposes the policy as invasive and harmful to staff morale.
- Chief Delrish Moss defends the policy as a safety measure and a tool for accountability.
A Florida police department's new policy that requires supervisors to visit officers who call in sick for work is rankling the rank-and-file union. But officials say the change is about monitoring officers' well-being, not invading their privacy.
"Effective immediately, all supervisors are required to conduct a home visit for every individual who calls in sick," Miramar Police Chief Chris Delrish Moss wrote in a June 4 memo, according to WTVJ-TV. "This measure is intended to ensure integrity of sick leave usage and maintain departmental accountability."
The Miramar Fraternal Order of Police, Lodge 189, doesn't share that charitable view of the policy, however. In a statement responding to the policy change, the union said the measure is a form of harassment that undermines department morale instead of addressing more pressing challenges, such as combating "the alarming rate of officer departures and low staffing levels."
According to union President Brent Steffan, the policy is a blow to building trust between the department leadership and the officers who serve under them.
"It is amazing that you have police officers—again from one year on to 28 years—who you don’t trust enough to say that they are out sick, but you trust them enough to patrol and keep your community safe. There is a disconnect there," he told WTVJ.
Moss, though, says the policy is about making sure officers are safe, even when they're not on the clock. To illustrate his point, the chief recalled 2014 incident in which a Miami police officer was fatally shot by his live-in girlfriend. No one called 9-1-1, and Moss believes the officer's life would have been saved if someone had checked in on him.
Moss admits that the policy also could alert the department to cases when officers are abusing the time-off policy.
"We had a situation when I first got here where several people called in sick, and we kind of found out that a bunch of them were hanging out because they wanted to watch a game, and that cost us money in my first year here," he said. "We want to make sure that those things are not happening."
But in a post on its Instagram account, the union stated that the department is "penalizing officers" for past issues that had nothing to do with them.
