Retiring Police Chief Wins Integrity Award

When retiring Police Chief David Barr accepted the Integrity Pioneer Award this week, he became the first “top cop” in the state recognized for developing and instituting a department-wide ethics program.

Given by Florida-based National Institute of Ethics, the award is one of six given annually to law enforcement agencies and police training organizations that have made significant strides toward the prevention of unethical acts.

Barr, who retires July 14, said that integrity and ethics have been a big part of his personal and professional life. The La Palma Police Department’s ethics program focuses on developing community trust through respect, responsibility, caring, justice and fairness, he said.

Since instituting the program in 1994, Barr said, the department has received fewer community complaints about its 24 officers, and none of the complaints has been substantiated in follow-up investigations.

“You can’t change people’s character, but you can hold them accountable within the organization,” Barr said. “It started with me. I told my people this is what I’m holding myself to. Starting from the top to the bottom, everybody signed off.”

Barr’s Police Department-based program spawned similar programs in the city.

Los Coyotes Elementary School Principal Jeff Schleiger, with a grant from the Orange County Department of Education, launched a character development program on his 540-student campus patterned after Barr’s program.

Neal Trautman, executive director of the ethics institute, said that the award was developed three years ago to recognize police agencies working to avoid misconduct, scandals and brutality.

“La Palma took the time to actually create their own internal ethics training process and program,” Trautman said. “They did it all themselves--it’s very unusual for an organization to take this on themselves and develop something new.”