Amazing Property in Lakeville! 5707 Big Tree Rd
585-503-8750
MOUNT MORRIS – Chief Ken Mignemi and members of the Mount Morris Police Benevolent Association say that the organization has deep roots in the Village community.
According to Mignemi and Officer Terry Soto, President of the Mount Morris Police Benevolent Association (PBA), the PBA began as a police officer’s union but slowly became more of a social organization and began raising money for Mount Morris events and charities.
“The PBA is an organization that was formed many years ago to be a union and now it’s more of a social membership for these guys to go out and do stuff in the community, raise money for different events,” said Mignemi. “Christmas in Mount Morris I know they’ve donated to in the past, the Italian Festival they’ve donated to in the past, and they just did a really nice movie day for the kids up at Mount Morris School.”
Soto said that the organization and the Police Department have changed a great deal since the PBA was founded.
“The PBA was formed in 2000, 2002. We decided as officers that we wanted to do more for the community,” said Soto. “When I first started 20 years ago, Chief DiPasquale always instilled to us that the kids are the future, you want to do what you can for the children.”
“Our Standard Operating Procedures, SOP’s we call them, used to be like half an inch, they went up to probably about 3 or 4 inches,” said Soto. “Some of that is stuff that we did, it just wasn’t in writing, and some of that stuff is newer stuff that officers need to know. When officers are out there, this policy’s in place, this is how officers are going to act. This is what we expect from officers.'”
As far as the goals of the Police Department itself, Mignemi said that training and equipment are priorities.
“We’re going to continue to work on upping our training standards. We’d like to send some more guys to some more schools and do our in-service training,” said Mignemi. “We’re going to try to buy the equipment, keep our guys as up to date as the rest of their brothers and sisters out there in blue and just try to do the best we can.”