Durango Police Department’s dilapidated station on East Second Avenue presents plenty of problems for its employees, according to its command staff. But it also impacts everyday residents who depend on law enforcement services, they say.
In addition to being old, rundown and contrary to modern policing techniques, the 14,500-square-foot building at 990 East Second Ave. lacks adequate space for offices, showers, evidence storage, conference rooms, interview rooms and community functions.
And don’t get officers started on the lack of parking for emergency vehicles.
But the building’s problems – and the police department’s need for an adequate facility – run deeper than that, said Durango Police Chief Brice Current.
Successful police departments at their core reflect a community’s values, Current said. When facilities aren’t designed for community use, they are less likely to be used by the community.
That includes people looking to file police reports, people seeking information from the police department and even people taken under police custody.
Current has said a police force is only as effective as its tools. On July 3, he said the police department’s building was not purpose-built to be a police station. It was built for selling cars.
The city plans to ask voters in November to approve extending a bond issue that would allow it to build a new police station and town hall on property formerly owned by Durango School District 9-R, about two blocks north of the existing police station.
“It was 1962. It (the station) was converted from a car dealership,” Current said. “We had about 11 officers and then professional staff and probably less than 20 people in this entire building.”
He stood in DPD’s conference room. It was spacious for a group of five or so, although a little dimly lit. If one were to pack in teams of people from various law enforcement and emergency response agencies, as with interagency meetings that occur regularly, there would be a lot less room, he said.
DPD often opts to hold larger meetings at the Durango Community Recreation Center over using its own facilities, he added.
The station’s lobby has a pretty straightforward layout with seats lining the walls and a clerk’s desk placed behind a long glass window. Restrooms. Water fountains. Usual office stuff.
But behind the securely locked doors at the east end of the lobby, a labyrinth of corridors await.
“This building, there's a maze of hallways of unusable space because it's not purpose-built. And a police department is a tool. That's (what’s) different from a police department and other buildings, is that the department acts in and of itself as a tool,” Current said.
In an ideal police department, the whole station is built with utility and functionality in mind.
“Purpose-built” for professionalism, Current said.
Rooms used to interview victims and suspects are adjacent to administrative offices, and confidential conversations aren’t always private.
“We had somebody lose their brother in a hotel room, and he was in (the interview room) waiting and he's banging his head against the wall, slamming the table and screaming and crying because he just misses his brother, and that's traumatic,” Current said.
That’s a traumatic event. For the officers who are handling the case, for the administrative staff on the other side of the wall who can hear the screaming and banging, and for the victim or troubled person himself or herself.
Current said the limited, inadequate space make dealing with interview subjects difficult.
“There needs to be anonymity,” he said.
It can be hard to keep parents and their children separate for interviews and maintain integrity in questioning if everyone adjacent to the interview room can hear through the walls.
Restrooms in the station are kept tidy, but officers and jailees alike use them. Not all jailees are hygienic or are concerned about other people’s hygiene, Current said.
Then there are other problems.
Last year, a woman attempted a breakout during a trip to the bathroom. According to DPD Cmdr. Jacob Dunlop, she pushed back the light tile that specks the bathroom ceiling and climbed into the space.
Officers successfully retrieved her, Dunlop said.
DPD has just two holding cells for people taken into custody. They are small rooms with no built-in surveillance besides the windows on the doors.
The holding cells are positioned in an office space with narrow dividers not too different from polling booths where officers go to write up reports.
Officers have resorted to using their body cameras taped to the windows of the holding cells to monitor inmates, Current said.
Current and Dunlop grabbed a spare body camera and put it in position looking into the cell, which was empty, to demonstrate what it’s like.
Current said it is uncomfortable for jailees, officers and support staff. Officers must focus on filing police reports while a jailee stares out at them. Jailees have to wait with a camera directly in their face while officers try to talk, gossip or vent after long shifts.
cburney@durangoherald.com
