8 September 26 - OctOber 2, 2024 dallasobserver.com DALLAS OBSERVER Classified | MusiC | dish | Culture | unfair Park | Contents marred by the city’s violent crime rate and the handling of Black Lives Matter protests in 2020. ▼ LAW ENFORCEMENT BACK ON NORTH TEXAS STREETS ANOTHER LOCAL POLICE DEPARTMENT SET FOR CLASSES BY ROGUE TRAINING COMPANY. BY KELLY DEARMORE I n May, a North Texas police department and sheriff’s department cancelled scheduled training classes after the Ob- server reported the company conducting the classes was embroiled in a number of con- troversies. Now, another North Texas de- partment is deciding whether to continue a course it booked with the same training company. Over the course of the past couple of years, New Jersey-based Street Cop Train- ing has been accused of teaching unconsti- tutional policing methods, while employing racist, misogynistic and sexually explicit language in its classes, thanks in large part to video taken during a 2021 Street Cop confer- ence. In the past year, a dozen states, includ- ing New Jersey after a lengthy state investigation, have banned its police depart- ments from booking classes taught by Street Cop Training. Street Cop Training offers classes in top- ics such as legal use of force, search and sei- zure and others. The company once had a crowded calendar for Texas, not to mention for many other states, but not at this point. In December 2023, three Houston-area de- partments — the Brazoria County Sheriff’s Office and the Katy and Jersey Village police departments — canceled their Street Cop sessions because of the findings of the New Jersey report. In February, Street Cop Training filed for bankruptcy, and founder Dennis Benigno cited the New Jersey investigations as part of the cause for dwindling business. The police department in Crandall, about 25 miles southeast of downtown Dallas, cur- rently has a Street Cop Training “Interdiction Academy” class scheduled for January 2025. For $299 per person, “[t]he course entails a well-structured curriculum that primarily fo- cuses on crimes pertaining to the transporta- tion of Narcotics, Illicit Currency, Weapons, and Human Smuggling,” the Street Cop web- site states. Street Cop did not reply to our questions or requests for comment. Benigno issued a statement on YouTube shortly after the New Jersey comptroller’s office went public with its report in Decem- ber 2023. He didn’t dispute any direct alle- gations. “We do important work, and there is no place for demeaning, harassing or hateful words or jokes in our training,” Benigno said in the video. “Since that time, we have worked as a company to implement quality control measures to foster a cooperative en- vironment among our instructors and pro- fessional staff here at this office. We don’t want that type of incident to ever happen, similar to the way it did in the October 2021 conference.” After emailing the Crandall PD with questions about their January Street Cop session as well as a link to our May article, we followed up with a call to the department the next day. We spoke to Lt. Ivan Elizarr- aras about where his department stands on allowing Street Cop Training to conduct a class for them in January. Elizarraras said that to his knowledge, neither he nor anyone else in the depart- ment had been aware of the controversies involving Street Cop before our email from the previous day. He said that one of the offi- cers in his department attended a Street Cop session a while back in another city and rec- ommended the company to his superiors. “We’re now looking into it, looking into the email you sent yesterday,” Elizarraras said about the problems involving Street Cop Training. “We’re willing to call other agencies to see what their thoughts are on it too.” This is the first time that Crandall PD has booked a Street Cop class, and it’s unusual for the department to enlist third-party training sessions from anyone. Elizarraras said that most of the training classes his offi- cers attend are arranged through the Kaufman County Sheriff’’s Department. The lieutenant added that in order to book the class, the department had to guar- antee, he estimates, either 40 or 50 attend- ees. He wasn’t sure at the time about the possible financial obligation of the depart- ment should the class in question not meet the minimum number of attendees required. Elizarraras isn’t sure when the depart- ment will decide whether to keep its Street Cop class on the schedule, but he says there are guidelines to help determine what is ap- propriate. “We could [cancel the class] soon if we don’t feel comfortable with hosting it, or if it represents something we feel is contradic- tory to what we think policing really is,” Elizarraras explained. “We certainly don’t want to do anything that’s immoral, unethi- cal or unlawful. That’s our standard. If the class teaches anything outside of those guidelines, we won’t be having it. Right now, it’s just a matter of looking into it more.” Unfair Park from p6 Illustration by John Holcroft Street Cop Training has engendered plenty of negative headlines across the U.S., but not every department knows about the controversy. West Village | 214-750-5667 | www.avalon-salon.com 34 years of excellence. countless awards. one unmatched experience. 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