Pasco County Sheriff Chris Nocco announced the appointment of appointment of General Counsel Lindsay Moore as their first constitutional policing advisor.
Nocco said Moore and Capt.Eric Seltzer will work with the State Attorney’s Office in an effort to make sure that agency members are abiding by the law and Constitution.
“We have to make sure that we have voices within our organization that are specifically looking to make sure that every right that we have out there is upheld in the Constitution and by what we’re doing as law enforcement officers,” Nocco said during a press conference.
Nocco and Moore explained that these are things they are already doing, but they will be codifying all of it into one cohesive program. They will be working with the State Attorney’s Office and other criminal justice agencies to make sure they are enhancing their constitutional policing efforts.
Constitutional policing is a new trend in law enforcement where agencies actively work to protect citizens’ civil rights. Nocco said it was an idea that came out of the Los Angeles Police department and has been in the works in the Pasco Sheriff’s Office for several months.
“The goal of constitutional policing is to work to fix problems before they arrive, rather than reacting to them,” said Moore. “My role for the agency in helping to further that goal is to constantly be making sure that we’re following the best practices and procedures out there as it relates to constitutional policing.”
Moore will stay on top of new rulings, case trends and laws that affect law enforcement. She will publish alerts for agency members when something changes with the law and conduct continual training on these issues if they arise.
During the press conference, Nocco also focused heavily on building trust in the community.
“We say that we’re going to police ourselves and we’re going to look at ourselves and discipline ourselves more harshly than anybody else ever could,” said Nocco. “We want to make sure [the citizens] actually realize that.”
