Supervisory Police Officer

The incumbent serves as a Supervisory Police Officer (Sergeant) ensuring a safe and secure environment across all VA Administrations within various settings, including a variety of jurisdictional environments, such as VHA Medical Centers and facilities, Inpatient Clinics, Outpatient Clinics, domiciliaries, and administrative sites throughout the United States. This position serves as a vital part of the VA Police Services.

Qualifications:

To qualify for this position, applicants must meet all requirements by the closing date of this announcement, 01/16/2024.

Time-In-Grade Requirement: Applicants who are current Federal employees and have held a GS grade any time in the past 52 weeks must also meet time-in-grade requirements by the closing date of this announcement. For a GS-08 position you must have served 52 weeks at the GS-07. The grade may have been in any occupation, but must have been held in the Federal service. An SF-50 that shows your time-in-grade eligibility must be submitted with your application materials. If the most recent SF-50 has an effective date within the past year, it may not clearly demonstrate you possess one-year time-in-grade, as required by the announcement. In this instance, you must provide an additional SF-50 that clearly demonstrates one-year time-in-grade. Note: Time-In-Grade requirements also apply to former Federal employees applying for reinstatement as well as current employees applying for Veterans Employment Opportunities Act of 1998 (VEOA) appointment.

You may qualify based on your experience and/or education as described below:

• Specialized Experience: You must have one year of specialized experience equivalent to at least the next lower grade GS-07 in the normal line of progression for the occupation in the organization. Examples of specialized experience would typically include, but are not limited to: leading and directing employees in their duties in response to potential threats of violence, detecting criminal activity, fire and other emergencies; enforcing federal, state, and local laws; making arrests; conducting foot and vehicle patrol; maintaining control of a scene or incident; taking statements from witnesses/suspects and advising them of their rights; preparing detailed reports of criminal offenses, violations, incidents, and citations issued; interrogating suspects; and applying all correct rules of search and seizure. Creditable specialized experience may have been gained in work on a police force; through service as a military police officer; in work providing visitor protection and law enforcement in parks, forests, or other natural resource or recreational environments; in performing criminal investigative duties; or in other work that provided the required knowledge and skills.

Experience as a security guard or corrections officer is generally not qualifying. Note: Experience must be fully documented on your resume and must include job title, duties, month and year start/end dates AND hour worked per week.
You will be rated on the following Competencies for this position:

• Criminal Law
• Decision Making
• Leadership
• Managing Human Resources
• Security
• Teaching Others

Experience refers to paid and unpaid experience, including volunteer work done through National Service programs (e.g., Peace Corps, AmeriCorps) and other organizations (e.g., professional; philanthropic; religions; spiritual; community; student; social). Volunteer work helps build critical competencies, knowledge, and skills and can provide valuable training and experience that translates directly to paid employment. You will receive credit for all qualifying experience, including volunteer experience.

Note: A full year of work is considered to be 35-40 hours of work per week. Part-time experience will be credited on the basis of time actually spent in appropriate activities. Applicants wishing to receive credit for such experience must indicate clearly the nature of their duties and responsibilities in each position and the number of hours a week spent in such employment.

Physical Requirements: The work requires regular and recurring physical exertion such as long periods of standing, walking, driving, bending, stooping, reaching, crawling, and other similar activities. Employees engage in such exertions when pursuing suspects, or participating in weapons or other kinds of training activities, climbing stairs in office buildings or walking foot patrols in and around large buildings. May regularly require lifting and carrying heavy objects of 50 pounds or less. May require common physical characteristics and abilities in agility and dexterity and the strength to pursue, apprehend, and detain uncooperative suspects.

For more information on these qualification standards, please visit the United States Office of Personnel Management's website at https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/classification-qualifications/general-schedule-qualification-standards/.

Responsibilities:

Duties include but are not limited to:

• Approaches individuals/groups that may be fearful, skeptical or uncooperative in a tactful manner to gain cooperation/compliance.
• Revises work schedules to meet changes in workload considering factors such as peak loads, availability of manpower and processing time requirements.
• Directs subordinate Police Officers engaged in law enforcement responsibilities.
• Empathizes, engages, and communicates with all individuals encountered to ensure a positive and safe environment.
• Leads staff that functions as first line of defense during all crimes, terror attacks, potential threats to personnel and property at all classification levels.
• Plans work schedules and sequence of operations daily to assure an even flow and distribution of work and meeting schedules and deadlines.
• Prepares performance standards and performs staff performance evaluation.
• Receives and resolves formal and/or complex complaints of employees.
• Prepares formal requests/recommendations concerning promotions, reassignment, recognition of outstanding performance, and personnel needs.
• Analyzes logs and activity reports or other data to ascertain problems in accuracy, adequacy, procedure adherence, etc. and takes corrective action.
• Develops, implements and revises departmental policies and procedures.
• Makes independent decisions to take/direct/coordinate immediate steps to preserve life and property.
• Takes disciplinary action as deemed necessary and/or proposes to higher authority specific disciplinary action consistent with the problem and facts.
• Oversees investigations, prisoner transports, patient search and recovery, life-saving efforts, disaster response and recovery, asset protection during transit, training, and other matters.
• Formulates and issues written instructions and procedures and special instructions for non-routine or complex assignments or to clarify published guidelines.
• Investigates incidents and takes steps to mitigate further risk and resolve situations.
• Detects and intervenes in criminal activity, responds to calls for police assistance, irregularities, and unusual or suspicious circumstances.
• Identifies and preserves evidence, writes comprehensive incident reports, prepares case files, and testifies in court as it pertains to enforcing laws and regulations.
• Keeps abreast of policing best practices, the latest policing technology, and the latest criminal and policing laws, rules, and regulations to provide advice and guidance.
• Seeks, detects, seizes, and protects evidence and witnesses at the scene of an incident.
• Intervenes when necessary to deescalate situations and determines when and how much force must be applied.
• Provides emergency response coordination as needed.
• Intervenes to deescalate active suicidal behavior and/or prevents suicides, when needed.
• Formulates training plans for all Police Officers to ensure proficiency in performance.
• Conducts formal/informal training to broaden employee skills and provide back-up skills through cross-training.
• Coaches and mentors Police Officers to ensure employees obtain the necessary training.
• Provides instruction to staff regarding situations such as drug and contraband intervention techniques, investigation techniques, searches and/or seizures of vehicle and property, etc

Work Schedule: Rotating Tours and Off Days (40 hour week)
Compressed/Flexible: Not Eligible
Telework: Not Eligible
Virtual: This is not a virtual position.
Position Description/PD#: Supervisory Police Officer/PD99829A
Relocation/Recruitment Incentives: Not Authorized
Critical Skills Incentive (CSI): Not Authorized
Permanent Change of Station (PCS): Not Authorized
PCS Appraised Value Offer (AVO): Not Authorized
Financial Disclosure Report: Not required