Missoula Police Chief Shares 2024 Successes and Innovations

Missoula, MT (KGVO-AM News) - I spoke with Missoula Police Chief Michael Colyer this week for a look back at the accomplishments and training the city police force has experienced in 2024.

Colyer began with some important statistics.

Police Chief Michael Colyer Provided a Brief Recap of 2024

“2024 was a busy year for the Missoula Police Department, and it looks like we're just about on par,” began Chief Colyer. “We might be about one percent right now from last year. Last year we were at about 56,000 (criminal calls) so I don't think that our calls for service or incidents will be up for 2024.”

Colyer said one major improvement for the police department has been the purchase of new state-of-the-art vehicles.

Colyer Praised the Addition of a New State of the Art Vehicles for the Department

“We essentially will have turned over our entire fleet in about the last year,” he said. “We've transitioned into support utility vehicles and with (Ford) F-150 pickups. There's a new technology that is supported on a half-ton chassis, and the new F-150’s are called Grapplers, and they are pursuit intervention devices. It allows us to deploy into the back tires of vehicles that were that we’re pursuing and it tangles up and tethers up the vehicle and pulls it to a stop.”

Chief Colyer said the department also utilizes state-of-the-art virtual reality training.

Colyer Praised New Virtual Reality Training on De-escalating Conflicts

“The new ‘Axon’ contract that we have expands our virtual reality training simulators,” he said. “They're the headsets that you see on the commercials of VR (Virtual Reality)  and they're pre-loaded with scenario-based training that officers use. It's about as close as you can get to real-life training without doing real-life training, and so we're anxious to continue to use those with the additional VR headsets that we have.”

Colyer continued on the subject of training. He said the doctrine of de-escalation is leading the way in police response.

“De-escalation is the center point of all of our conflict control training,” he said. We have ongoing training in service all the time.  We train every other Wednesday, and the department as a whole gets a training day every month. With de-escalation, there are both verbal and non-verbal techniques to try to get compliance, and then always training with intermediate use of force, so things that can be used to stop an incident from escalating all the way up to lethal use of force.”

Chief Colyer is already preparing his official end-of-the-year report for the city that will be released in early January.