El Paso Police Department
| El Paso Police Department | |
|---|---|
| Abbreviation | EPPD |
EPPD Shoulder Patch (same insignia used on doors of marked vehicles)
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EPPD Badge (Since 2004)
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| Agency overview | |
| Employees | Approx 1,300 |
| Legal personality | Governmental: Government agency |
| Jurisdictional structure | |
| Operations jurisdiction* | City of El Paso in the state of Texas, USA |
| General nature | |
| Operational structure | |
| Headquarters | El Paso, Texas |
| Agency executive | Greg Allen, Chief of Police |
| Website | |
| El Paso Police | |
| Footnotes | |
| * Divisional agency: Division of the country, over which the agency has usual operational jurisdiction. | |
El Paso Police Department (EPPD) is the principal law enforcement agency serving El Paso, Texas, United States. As of Fiscal Year 2014, the agency had an annual budget of more than $118 million and employed around 1,300 personnel, including approximately 1,100 officers. Greg Allen was appointed as the EPPD's chief of police in March 2008.
The early history of the department is difficult to study. Many older newspaper accounts are inaccurate and documents from before about 1950 were lost in a fire. Newspaper accounts were often heavily exaggerated for local entertainment value or to bolster a "wild west" image for the city to readers in the eastern United States.
The formal establishment date for the department is 1884, but historical references to the department exist before that official date. During this period, the department employed a series of City Marshals who were known to be as rough and wild as the criminals in the frontier town, with shootouts and small scale wars being much more common than today. Some marshals were involved in confrontations out of town including the El Paso Salt War and the Lincoln County War. It was also not unheard of to have local, state and federal law enforcement at odds, including armed confrontations.
In 1889, the police department had its first appointed chief, T.C. Lyons. Lyons had previously served in the Fire Department and was not the typical "rough" character previously known in El Paso law enforcement. His tenure may mark the beginning of the more modern and civilized approach to law enforcement in the city.
Newspaper accounts show the police starting to use motor vehicles for law enforcement in 1909. Fingerprinting began in 1915. By the 1920s, pictures are available showing some of these advancements. Radar was introduced for speed enforcement in 1955, and the department formed its first SWAT unit in 1972.
In 1946, the department hired its first African American officer (the official website states that four African American veterans were appointed in 1945) However, between that time and the 1970s-1980s, black officers were not allowed to do many of the things other officers could do, including arrests, driving vehicles or writing reports. The current chief, Greg Allen, is the department's first African American chief. The department started actively recruiting women in the 1940s, but none actually served as officers until 1974. However, during this time women actively served as "meter maids" or worked in the jail. Today, several women have achieved high ranks in the police department and the department has hosted the Women in Law Enforcement conference multiple times.
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Wikipedia