Clive police hand out awareness stickers to help communication in emergencies
CLIVE, Iowa — The Clive Police Department is trying to improve communication with those who have medical conditions or disabilities that impact their ability to respond to verbal commands.
The new Emergency Awareness Stickers Program is providing free stickers that can be placed on home entrances or vehicles to alert emergency personnel that someone inside may have a condition or disability that requires more care or understanding.
They got the idea from a department in Indiana and realized it's low cost, high reward.
They have six stickers so far that people can pick up for free at the Clive Police Department Monday-Friday 8 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Autism or special needs
Alzheimer's or dementia
Diabetes
A hearing impairment
A seizure disorder
A disability affecting mobility or communication
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'It's an awareness program so that our officers have all the information that they could possibly need or as much as they could gather prior to getting to a residence or a business and sometimes even on a traffic stop,' Clive Police Chief Mark Rehberg said. 'At the beginning of those calls, a lot of times we don't get that information from dispatch. It's not necessarily a question that is asked of a person calling in.'
The autism sticker is the most requested sticker that has been picked up so far, followed by the Alzheimer's/dementia sticker.
'It's not to call anybody out, it's not to identify people on the block that might be suffering from these types of diagnoses. We just want to have that information so if they can get just one little tidbit of info knocking on a door, that's going to help things,' Rehberg said.
They're also trying to reduce the use of force.
'The biggest thing is just communication and them not understanding what we want them to do and us not understanding why they won't do what we're asking them to do,' the Clive chief added. 'Typically, that usually doesn't go very well. It turns into those use of force cases that we see. Use of force is never a good look. It doesn't matter if you're fighting with a criminal or you're trying to wrestle somebody that was on the spectrum, for example, they just don't look good. So, we want to try to avoid that. That's what the purpose of this is, is just to give us a little bit more information when I go and knock at somebody's door and I see that sticker, hey, this person might have dementia, they might not respond the way we normally would think. It gives us a little bit more heads up and that information that we need to handle the call better.'
Polk County has a similar program where they stick signs in peoples' yards.
After Clive PD posted the stickers on their Facebook page, the comments were flooded with people tagging their police departments to get this program too. Many departments commented back saying they'll look into it.
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