August 13, 2019
To My Fellow Milpitas Community Members:
With the recent shootings in Gilroy, El Paso and Dayton, I am compelled to write you and, on behalf of your Police Department and City Officials, share support and offer information to hopefully calm any concern or angst within our community. You should know what your Police Department is doing in response to mass shooting incidents and you should know how you can help. The Police Department relies on you to help be our eyes and ears in the community and when working together, we are stronger and safer.
First, your Police Department remains committed to your safety and strives to remain in a stage of readiness for any event. We are consistently training and have equipped our staff with the necessary tools to ensure they can respond to save lives. This includes critical active shooter response training to effectively and safely respond to such an event. We will continue our practical exercises, tabletop exercises, and tactical discussions, as well as, purchase equipment and hire the highest-caliber staff so that we are ready to protect you when we get the call. My hope is that the call never comes but be assured we will respond, when needed. As your Police Chief, my goal is to ensure your safety, as well as the safety of all our Officers.
We remain aware that our schools, public events, and places of worship need increased attention. As the first day of school approaches, I have adjusted police staffing to ensure we are more visible around our schools. I have directed our Officers to meet with school staff, interact with our students, and remain near our schools for the first few weeks of the school year. We will continue to evaluate our deployment around schools to meet the needs of our community. In addition, we are working on enhanced security plans for larger scale community events and will continue to have Officers present at our City Council meetings.
What do we need from you? Vigilance. We cannot be present at every school, public event, or place of worship throughout the day so I need you to remain vigilant. Be mindful of good personal and professional safety practices. Police Departments across the country remind our residents, “If you see something, say something.” When you see suspicious or criminal activity, call us. The Milpitas Police Department is a full-service department and we will come when you call us. In a case of an emergency, call 9-1-1. In a non-emergency, our business line is (408) 586-2400. If you are not certain whether what you are seeing is an emergency or not, call 9-1-1. If you are faced with an emergency and cannot speak, you can text 9-1-1 in Milpitas and we will return your text. Our Dispatchers are always prepared to answer your call and they do an outstanding job in ensuring the right resources will reach you quickly.
Lastly, our Police-Community Relations Unit provides response training for active shooter events. If you have questions regarding this training, you can call our business number and ask to speak with Sergeant Bryan Hinkley.
The women and men of the Milpitas Police Department are working diligently to serve you. I am proud of all of them. Thank you for the opportunity to serve as your Chief of Police.
Respectfully,
Armando Corpuz
