Kane County Reporter

The village of Montgomery discusses how they are improving safety protocols and training with their police department.

“So just a little bit about the FBI National Academy,” Ishmael Diaz, police commander for the village, said during the meeting. “It's a ten week training program for law enforcement officers. It's a program designed to provide education opportunities to network with people from throughout the country and throughout the world. It's obviously regarded as one of the premier law enforcement training programs in the world. In my particular session, we had 247 students representing 47 states, I believe 28 countries, four military organizations and five federal agencies. And obviously, it's an honor to have attended is, as you can see, since 1935, there have only been 54,154 law enforcement officers who have graduated from the FBI National Academy. So it's obviously a prestigious and an honor to have graduated from there.”

The board uploaded a livestream of its public meeting to the village’s YouTube channel.

At their April 10th village board meeting, members of Montgomery received a presentation from one of their Police Commanders, Diaz, who had just returned from ten weeks of training at Quantico in the FBI National Academy. Diaz graduated from the class and was called up by police chief Phillip Smith to share what his lessons and trainings taught him and how he would be bringing it back to the community to help protect and serve the residents of Montgomery. He started off by thanking the village board and administration and the community for supporting him and sending him to the very prestigious training.

The board discussed paying approximately $50 thousand to purchase office furniture for the village police department’s new records area from KI furniture.

The curriculum that Diaz took included fitness in law enforcement, psychology in leadership, emotional intelligence, communication for law enforcement executives, seminar in managing the law enforcement image and leading at risk employees for executives. All these were graduate level classes credit through the University of Virginia, so Diaz earned hours towards a master’s degree. Diaz said that one of the most valuable aspects of the classes were the networking connections he made with other departments, sharing that he now has a connection with a Captain in the Chicago force that he could contact directly if Montgomery ever needed help from the City Department. He shared stories of fellow alums in Pennsylvania and Florida that were able to collaborate and solve a case from states away.

The board will meet again at 7 p.m. on May 8 at Village Hall at 200 North River Street.

This number one lesson from the academy is to create knowledgeable, ethical leaders that their respective communities can trust. A big aspect of this was the social media image and communication displayed by the department, which Diaz is looking to implement in their pages and messages. He received interview and media training from reporters and experts. He also shared that one of the best ways to have a strong and responsible department is to offer services to their officers to prevent them from being overloaded with stress from their very intense job. The village board was very encouraged by the presentation, and was glad to continue supporting their first responders, who they also thanked for going above and beyond with their service in the recent disaster weather events.