Pueblo Police Department Awarded International Reaccreditation

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: April 1, 2025

Pueblo Police Department Awarded International Reaccreditation

Pueblo, CO― The Pueblo Police Department was awarded its third law enforcement accreditation from the Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies (CALEA) last week in Garden Grove, California.

CALEA is an international credentialing authority that facilitates an agency's pursuit of professional excellence and is the Gold Standard for Public Safety Agencies. CALEA's accreditation program is a voluntary way for agencies to demonstrate that they meet an established set of professional standards. Currently, less than 5% of law enforcement agencies nationwide have attained this recognition of excellence. Out of 246 law enforcement agencies in Colorado, only 20 have achieved full accreditation status.

The Pueblo Police Department received its initial CALEA accreditation on March 25, 2017, at the Mobile, Alabama CALEA Conference. This achievement was a culmination of a three-year endeavor that required a careful evaluation of the department's operations. During that three-year self-assessment phase, many policies and procedures were updated to raise our already solid department to CALEA's benchmark level of a professional law enforcement agency.

The Pueblo Police Department continues to live by the letter and the spirit of CALEA's rigorous standards and is proud to have earned its first reaccreditation on March 27, 2021, with no standards issues, and its recently awarded second reaccreditation on March 22, 2025.

"I want to thank and acknowledge Corporal Katie LaConte for her hard work in ensuring that we once again completed our accreditation process without any standards issues," stated Pueblo Police Chief Chris Noeller. "The men and women of our department are committed to upholding nationally recognized best practices, and it shows with our third accreditation."

CALEA's current accreditation process entails a four-year accreditation cycle with annual remote compliance checks and a site-based visit every four years. This accreditation has given our agency tangible benefits that include a well-thought-out, uniform set of written directives, reports, and analyses that give department leaders the ability to make fact-based and informed management decisions, a preparedness program that enables us to be ready to address natural or man-made unusual occurrences, and accountability through transparency that improves the department's relationship with the community.

###

Left to right: Colorado State Patrol Colonel Matthew Packard, Pueblo Police Chief of Police Chris Noeller, Pueblo Police Accreditation Manager Corporal Katie LaConte, Pueblo Police Sergeant Antoinette Ramos, CALEA Executive Director Craig Hartley