Another Local Police Department Set for Classes by Rogue Training Company

In May, a North Texas police department and sheriff’s department cancelled scheduled training classes after the Observer reported the company conducting the classes was embroiled in a number of controversies. Now, another North Texas department is deciding whether to continue a course it booked with the same training company.

Over the course of the past couple of years, New Jersey-based Street Cop Training has been accused of teaching unconstitutional policing methods, while employing racist, misogynistic and sexually explicit language in its classes, thanks in large part to video taken during a 2021 Street Cop conference. In the past year, a dozen states, including New Jersey after a lengthy state investigation, have banned its police departments from booking classes taught by Street Cop Training.

Street Cop Training offers classes in topics such as legal use of force, search and seizure and others. The company once had a crowded calendar for Texas, not to mention for many other states, but not at this point. In December 2023, three Houston-area departments — the Brazoria County Sheriff’s Office and the Katy and Jersey Village police departments — canceled their Street Cop sessions because of the findings of the New Jersey report.

In February, Street Cop Training filed for bankruptcy, and founder Dennis Benigno cited the New Jersey investigations as part of the cause for dwindling business.

The police department in Crandall, about 25 miles southeast of downtown Dallas, currently has a Street Cop Training “Interdiction Academy” class scheduled for January 2025. For $299 per person, “[t]he course entails a well-structured curriculum that primarily focuses on crimes pertaining to the transportation of Narcotics, Illicit Currency, Weapons, and Human Smuggling,” the Street Cop website states. Street Cop did not reply to our questions or requests for comment.

Benigno issued a statement on YouTube shortly after the New Jersey comptroller's office went public with its report in December 2023. He didn't dispute any direct allegations.

“We do important work, and there is no place for demeaning, harassing or hateful words or jokes in our training,” Benigno said in the video. “Since that time, we have worked as a company to implement quality control measures to foster a cooperative environment among our instructors and professional staff here at this office. We don't want that type of incident to ever happen, similar to the way it did in the October 2021 conference.”

After emailing the Crandall PD on Wednesday with questions about their January Street Cop session as well as a link to our May article, we followed up with a call to the department on Thursday. We spoke to Lt. Ivan Elizarraras about where his department stands on allowing Street Cop Training to conduct a class for them in January.

Elizarraras said that to his knowledge, neither he nor anyone else in the department had been aware of the controversies involving Street Cop before our email from the previous day. He said that one of the officers in his department attended a Street Cop session a while back in another city and recommended the company to his superiors.


“We’re now looking into it, looking into the email you sent yesterday,” Elizarraras said about the problems involving Street Cop Training. “We’re willing to call other agencies to see what their thoughts are on it too.”

This is the first time that Crandall PD has booked a Street Cop class, and it's unusual for the department to enlist third-party training sessions from anyone. Elizarraras said that most of the training classes his officers attend are arranged through the Kaufman County Sheriff'’s Department.

The lieutenant added that in order to book the class, the department had to guarantee, he estimates, either 40 or 50 attendees. He wasn’t sure at the time about the possible financial obligation of the department should the class in question not meet the minimum number of attendees required.

Elizarraras isn’t sure when the department will decide whether to keep its Street Cop class on the schedule, but he says there are guidelines to help determine what is appropriate.

“We could [cancel the class] soon if we don't feel comfortable with hosting it, or if it represents something we feel is contradictory to what we think policing really is,” Elizarraras explained. “We certainly don't want to do anything that’s immoral, unethical or unlawful. That’s our standard. If the class teaches anything outside of those guidelines, we won’t be having it. Right now, it’s just a matter of looking into it more.”