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Robert Hardgraves - Chief of Police

Robert Hardgraves

Chief of Police

Thank you and welcome to the Escalon Police Department’s website. This website is one of the many ways the Escalon Police Department strives to communicate with our community members and visitors. We hope the website provides you with information and helpful insights into the Escalon Police Department.

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What anti-racism training and anti-bias training, if any, do we require our local law enforcement members to undergo? How frequent and comprehensive is the training?

Anti-racism and bias training are generally included together in our training. Training on these topics begins within the police academy. You can reference the California Peace Officer Standards and Training (POST) website for additional details. Training for new and current police officers is conducted via POST standards and mandates by law. After initial training, officers are mandated to receive refresher training every two years, and it is a minimum of two hours of training on this topic. It is formatted to address various situations and provoke conversation lead by the moderator of perceptions and actions taken by the personnel depicted in the scenes. The course clarifies what constitutes racial profiling, conceptually, and legally. It emphasizes the role law enforcement plays regarding civil rights and covers key indices that define culture and how racial profiling affects everyone. POST is designing courses related to implicate bias training. In conjunction with this training, most agencies, including ours, have policies in place to address bias-based policing.

What is the detention, confrontation and arrest policy regarding unarmed suspects?

Most, if not all, can be located on our police department web page. They are listed by name, and those related to this request would be; use of force, handcuffing and restraints, control devices, and techniques, as well as conducted energy devices.

Along with these policies and required training, we supplement training for personnel to included specific courses on de-escalation as well as crisis intervention. One of the mandated courses is referred to as tactical communications. This course relates to honing communication skills and techniques to assist personnel to effectively deal with difficult people. Techniques are provided and explained to assist with listening/persuasion, judgment and decision-making, officer safety, de-escalation and verbal commands, and effectiveness under stress conditions.

Does local law enforcement do any active community work with traditionally and/or actively oppressed populations?

Considering the small size of our community, we have programs that reach out to all members of our community. These include our police volunteer (any adult citizen of the community) and police explorer programs (for any youth 14 to 20 years of age). We address parent groups at meetings with the schools, especially parents, whose primary language is not English. We take part in programs to reach out and connect with citizens on a more personal level such as Coffee with a Cop, and National Night Out. Members of our agency interact with youth at the local Escalon Youth Center and various events that take place within the city. We are willing to meet with any group. You will have to expand upon your definition of “traditionally and/or actively oppressed populations” if additional information is needed.   

The ethnicity of our organization is very diverse. Well over 38% of our full-time personnel would be classified as “persons of color.”  It could be even higher than what I have represented, depending on your definition of persons of color. We have a large number of personnel that are bilingual; many of our officers have a significant other or spouse that is Hispanic.

Stress training - What training do we have our local law enforcement members undergo that hones their ability to remain calm and clearheaded under pressure? How frequent and comprehensive is the training?

This type of training begins in our police academies, continues during the field-training program, and with what we refer to as perishable skills training. The topics I have already listed above as training our personnel attend, address your question about remaining calm under pressure. Tactical communications are mandate refresher training every two years, and it is a minimum of two hours of training on this topic. We have included de-escalation training as well to provide techniques to be utilized.

Prior to being hired, each officer must undergo a psychological examination conducted by a psychologist whose specialty is in public safety and law enforcement. They test personnel to determine their suability and qualification to be a peace officer.  We further address the stress our personnel face from their daily duties, by providing access to employee assistance programs free of charge to address any stress-related issues they may have.

We also monitor personnel and mandate that they visit our police psychologist after a critical incident. The psychologist is also available for other than critical incidents to assist personnel. Further, we are working with our insurance provider to provide an app specifically for law enforcement personnel to access mental health resources as needed.


It is our desire as a department to provide answers to inquiries and alleviate citizen concerns that one of our personnel could be involved in an unjust death of any person. Our ongoing training, the daily interaction our supervisors have with their personnel, and review of the actions our personnel take, along with promptly investigating and addressing complaints registered against our personnel, is all for the purpose to provide the best service possible to our community and avoid the unjust death or injury of any person with whom we have contact.

Our patrol division is the largest division within the Escalon Police Department and is the backbone of the organization. The primary function of patrol is to serve the community and strive to maintain the quality of life, the residents of Escalon enjoy. The men and women assigned to patrol are committed to the cities mission statement “Taking pride in our community through quality service”.  We will continue to provide prompt and exceptional service to residents and businesses within the city. Patrol is split into two squads each supervised by a sergeant, and maintaining coverage 24 hours a day, each and every day of the year.