Wittenberg’s Police Division will welcome Patrick Oliver, director of the criminal justice program at Cedarville University, to present a four-hour Diversity and Inclusion/Preventing Bias-Based Policing training this Thursday, Dec. 17, from 1 to 5 p.m. The training will focus on the issues that bias-based policing can create and how to ensure that departments are policing impartially.

Prior to joining Cedarville’s staff, Oliver served for 27 years in law enforcement, including as Chief of Police in the cities of Fairborn, Grandview Heights, and Cleveland, Ohio, and as Ranger Chief of Cleveland Metropolitan Parks. He also spent 11 years as a trooper with the Ohio State Highway Patrol.

Serving as a Crown Financial Ministries budget coach and seminar instructor, Oliver is a consultant and trainer for the International Association of Chiefs of Police and the Ohio Association of Chiefs of Police, and is a member of the Research Advisory Committee for the International Association of Chiefs of Police. He earned his M.B.A. from Baldwin Wallace University and his Ph.D. in leadership and change from Antioch University.

The training will take place at the Joseph C. Shouvlin Center for Lifelong Learning during the Police Division’s annual December officer in-service, according to Wittenberg Chief of Police Jim Hutchins.

“Since 2014, we have tried to have a summer and winter in-service training,” Hutchins said. “With everything going on this past summer, we did not have training. While there has not been a state mandate for in-service training since 2017, the state still encourages departments to conduct an in-service training and would like to see departments train for 40 hours per year.”

For more on Oliver, click here.