• The Leon County Sheriff’s Office (LCSO) awarded a $349,635 grant to enhance de-escalation training.
• The new funding adds to a previous grant of $249,950, totaling $599,585 for de-escalation initiatives.
• The funds will be used to expand training and effective crisis response strategies.

The Leon County Sheriff’s Office announced a new grant to help improve its de-escalation training. The grant was awarded by the U.S. Department of Justice’s office.

The Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) awarded LCSO a $349,635.00 grant to support its ongoing commitment to improving de-escalation training and crisis response for enforcement personnel of the law.

This new funding builds on the success of LCSO’s previous $249,950.00 grant, which was awarded in the 2023/2024 fiscal year, for a total of $599,585.00.

Initial funds were used to fund a portion of LCSO’s de-escalation research project and the new funding will be used to improve training and strategies and to further expand its efforts to implement effective de-escalation techniques.

This funding comes shortly after the release of the LCSO De-escalation Tracking Project (DTP) report, which highlighted the effectiveness of strategies employed by LCSO MPs.

KEY TO REMEMBER:
The DTP documented more than 109,000 citizen interactions with LCSO deputies in one year.

• Calm Interactions: An impressive 97.26% of citizen interactions were characterized as calm and cooperative, reflecting our deputies’ efforts to respectfully engage with the community.
• Agitated Interactions: Only 2.69% of interactions were classified as agitated or uncooperative, with the majority of these managing to deescalate without incident.
• Interactions that escalated into use of force were extremely rare (0.05%).
• Safe Arrests: Only 1.76% of incidents resulted in one or more arrests, and only 2.76% of those involved the use of force to make the arrest(s).

CLICK HERE FOR THE FULL REPORT

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Leon County Sheriff’s Office releases data from initiative to strengthen community safety and trust

The success of the DTP was used to justify this additional grant, demonstrating the positive impact of LCSO’s ongoing de-escalation initiative.

For more information about the grant or LCSO’s de-escalation efforts, please visit our website at www.LeonCountySO.com.