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Pleasanton Police Department is welcoming two new police officers to serve the Pleasanton community.
Officers Muriel Dutch and Qais Habib were sworn in Wednesday.
According to Lt. Jeff Bretzing, the two officers competed in a “very challenging” selection process — which included multiple interviews, medical and psychological examinations and an in-depth background investigation.
“The background process to assess these new officers revealed stellar work histories and solid communication skills,” Bretzing added.
The two new officers will be undergoing a 16-week field training process before being assigned to patrol Pleasanton as solo officers — replacing positions vacated through service retirements during the past year.
“Officers Dutch and Habib bring a variety of work and life experiences and a diversity of job knowledge that will be a significant gain for the city of Pleasanton,” said Bretzing.
wish them all the best. I have always liked ptown police people. even though one issued my first speeding ticket in 1981, they are always friendly and courteous. that’s something that dublin police staff seem to lack. too aloof.
Congratulations to both!!
Interesting to note that one is a woman and the other is middle eastern judging by the name. Considering all the trouble white male officers have been having lately at BART, Ferguson MO, NY and elsewhere PPD seems to have made the safe choice to stay away from the sterotype that has been in the news lately.
My 19 year old son was considering law enforcement as a career but after what’s been happening he’s changed his mind. It’s a thankless job, many parts of society would enjoy seeing their local PD’s disbanded in favor of “community policing”. They view their local police as an occupying army intent on oppressing low income and minority folks.
Hurry up, get your experience and lateral away.
Have to agree with what J said. If you ask most of the PPD line officers their honest off the record take on the job their they usually say they only stick around for the pay. From what I hear there are lots of bogus complaints on line officers that take a toll on morale. I would lateral out after two years.
Lateral out to what may I ask?
Lateral means to transfer from one police department to another as an experienced officer.
Ok, so to further show my ignorance and curiousity, why would it be more advantageous to transfer to another department?
PPD officers don’t face the same problems and amount of crooks as does Oakland PD for example, so why would they want to leave P-town? Better pay?
Officers don’t need to lateral to Oakland to make more money (which they would), they can go to nearly any other city in the Bay Area (San Fransisco, Alameda, Hayward, Emeryville, Berkeley, Richmond, Santa Clara, Redwood City, Milpitas, Mountain View, Newark, Concord, etc.) Even BART Officers take home more. Even in the central valley, Manteca has a higher base pay. This is despite Pleasanton probably being the most financially stable city in the area with a constant surplus.
If you think working in a nice town is an acceptable exchange for less pay, than they could also lateral a couple towns north and work in San Ramon, which also has a higher base pay. And I bet these officers in Pleasanton have to do much more than would be expected from officers in some of those other cities mentioned.
To Ed
Why in the world would anyone in law enforcement want to leave Pleasanton for one of the cities you mention above? The reason they pay more is probably as a means of attracting people to become police because of the higher level of crime in those cities.
To Pete
Don’t be so naive to think Pleasanton is the only nice city around. It’s far from perfect. If they want to maintain a decent police force they should pay them equal to the market. Otherwise, you get what you pay for.
I hope that this discussion about the issue of attracting and keeping police officers is remembered when it comes to the next discussion thread about Pleasanton police officer pay, benefits, etc.. In those discussions, many posters seem to think that giving police officers raises or good benefits is some sort of “charity” that we’re giving them. It’s not. Our city is in a hard competition with surrounding cities and other communities to attract and keep high-quality police officers. We give raises and benefits not out of “charity”, but to remain competitive with other communities which would only be too happy to lure talented and qualified officers away to serve in their communities. Let’s remember that.
*To Pete,
They would leave because the pay is better, and they actually have been leaving from what I heard. Pay is just about everything, it is a competitive market for officers. The expectation for a high quality of service in a nice town will require an officer to do much more work than they would have to in a town with more crime at the patrol level.
For example, I would imagine if you work a shift in Oakland, there is no expectation to write any tickets or make any proactive arrests. The only expectation would be to respond to your calls, which is likely to be one after another. However, the quality of investigations, follow up, etc. will not be as high in a nicer city, meaning the officer has to do much more detailed work in a city like Pleasanton. Plus there are less officers on the street in a nicer city, which increases their workload.
Conversely, I would imagine a shift in Pleasanton there would be an expectation that an officer not only handle his calls, but go above and beyond on his investigations, but there would likely be an expectation to make proactive arrests, write citations and respond to citizen calls that would never be responded to in other cities. The evaluations would likely require an officer to do much more than just respond to calls to get a satisfactory review. All the while working for less money.
To put it in perspective, Manteca PD’s stop step for officers is over 8% higher than Pleasanton’s. Manteca is in the central valley where pay is typically far lower than the bay, the city is not even close to financially as stable as Pleasanton and yet that is what they are offering their officers. Don’t expect top quality people to hang around Pleasanton too long anymore, why would they? They have been falling behind in pay for the past decade.
I am not a policeman but I would sacrifice a little in pay to work in a nice safe city like Pleasanton. I also think my life expectancy might be higher here than in say Oakland, Richmond, Stockton, Modesto, or Hayward.
Congratulations!
What is the pay scale for PPD officers? Don,t forget the generous pension package they enjoy. I wish I could have retired in my 50’s with the benefits and pay they get. By the way, how many of these comments were written by PPD employees?
This has been eye opening for me. I didn’t realize the pay disparity between PPD and other PD’s in the area.
Logically, it would make sense for a PD in a “nice” town to pay less than some place like Oakland due to the increased risk and work demands, but then we have the example of San Ramon, which can be argued is similar to P-town, but pays it’s officers more.
Nope, I don’t get it. I guess life ain’t perfect as they say.