{"id":18976,"date":"2015-10-27T16:26:21","date_gmt":"2015-10-27T21:26:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/?p=18976"},"modified":"2015-10-27T19:21:29","modified_gmt":"2015-10-28T00:21:29","slug":"police-chiefs-civil-rights-leaders-talk-violence-building-relationships","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/police-chiefs-civil-rights-leaders-talk-violence-building-relationships\/","title":{"rendered":"Police chiefs, civil rights leaders talk violence, building relationships"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Steve Musal<\/p>\n

After a year during which public awareness of violence involving police has sparked a nationwide conversation, the nation\u2019s top cops decided to have one.<\/p>\n

Obama calls for police reform, support \u2014 and tougher gun laws. Full Story.<\/a> <\/div>\n

The International Association of Chiefs of Police moved from a traditional one-speaker format for their annual assembly to a four-person panel discussion on police and community relations, use of force, racial profiling and the President’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing Report<\/a>, released today.<\/p>\n

The panel was held prior to President Barack Obama’s scheduled speech at McCormick Place to the national gathering, where he was expected to call for tougher gun control laws. Obama’s visit has particular resonance in Chicago, where research has found<\/a> that guns often flow freely across the state line from Indiana and the number of shooting victims <\/a>between Jan. 1-Oct. 27 reached 2,524, well on pace to exceed the 2014 total of 2,587 victims.<\/p>\n

\u201cHaving tough conversations about racial profiling and excessive use of force … is an affirmation of the vocation of policing.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2014 Cornell Brooks, NAACP president<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

On the panel were Cornell Brooks, president and CEO of the NAACP; Vanita Gupta, acting assistant attorney general for the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice; Arlington, Texas Police Chief Will Johnson; and Seattle, Washington Police Chief Kathleen O\u2019Toole.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is a difficult conversation, and it happens at a difficult moment in our public history,\u201d Brooks said.<\/p>\n

A shift in mindset<\/h1>\n

At the center of the conversation was the need for a shift in police mindset from being warriors to being guardians of public safety.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe believe that\u2019s critically important, because all across the country we see communities that regard themselves as objects of suspicion rather than protection,\u201d Brooks said. \u201cWe have communities that expect a standard of excellence and look to their police departments and law enforcement agencies with expectations of that same standard of excellence.\u201d<\/p>\n

Much of that standard, Gupta said, is having a conversation about what communities want from their police. Building relationships and having conversations between communities and police outside of the context of law enforcement is important.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a lot harder to demonize and engage in the \u2018us versus them\u2019 when you\u2019re engaged in conversations,\u201d Gupta said. Communities and law enforcement must understand each other, she said. This is key to changing perceptions both of police and by police, so \u201cthere is a reservoir of trust that exists.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a lot harder to demonize and engage in the \u2018us versus them\u2019 when you\u2019re engaged in conversations.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2014 Vanita Gupta,\u00a0U.S. Attorney General’s office<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Johnson stressed the need for that trust and conversation as well, saying that it goes hand in hand with building support for police and support for communities.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo community wants to be void of police,\u201d Johnson said. \u201cEvery community wants to be safe and secure, and the police need to be part of that conversation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Data on police-involved violence should also be collected, as part of building understanding and relationships, he said.<\/p>\n

Johnson added that a barrier to building public trust is transference, in which the actions by some police officers or departments often get attributed to all police.<\/p>\n

Lack of diversity hurts policing<\/h1>\n

Brooks, however, pointed out that while perception and understanding between police and communities are important, real problems exist.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we talk about the ratio of perception versus reality, the reality is pretty brutal, pretty hard,\u201d Brooks said, adding that young black men are 21 times more likely to be killed by police. \u201cI don\u2019t know of any black man of a certain age who doesn\u2019t have a story.\u201d<\/p>\n

These problems, he said, also make prosecution more difficult–for instance, if witnesses mistrust police and refuse to tell what they know about a crime– and policing harder.<\/p>\n

Addressing the lack of diversity in police departments is one way to address that reality, O\u2019Toole said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe must have police services that reflect the communities we serve,\u201d she said. To that end, departments should work hard to recruit a diverse police force, and people who understand that policing is not just a job. \u201cIf done right, it\u2019s a vocation,\u201d O\u2019Toole said.<\/p>\n

All panelists agreed that this conversation needed to continue.<\/p>\n

\u201cHaving tough conversations about racial profiling and excessive use of force, in the context of relationships, is an affirmation of the vocation of policing,\u201d Brooks said. Now, he said, is the time for that conversation. \u201cThis is a crisis that, literally, our children are holding us accountable for. We must embrace this with a fierce urgency. We can\u2019t wait until the perception goes away.\u201d<\/p>\n

Photo at top: A St. Louis County police officer holds a rifle in the wake of the 2014 Ferguson, Missouri, protests. (Loavesofbread<\/a> \/ Creative Commons<\/a>)<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Steve Musal After a year during which public awareness of violence involving police has sparked a nationwide conversation, the nation\u2019s top cops decided to have one. Obama calls for police reform, support \u2014 and tougher gun laws. Full Story. The International Association of Chiefs of Police moved from a traditional one-speaker format for their […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":159,"featured_media":18980,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[509,30],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18976","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fall-2015","category-public-affairs"],"yoast_head":"\nPolice chiefs, civil rights leaders talk violence, building relationships - Medill Reports Chicago<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/police-chiefs-civil-rights-leaders-talk-violence-building-relationships\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Police chiefs, civil rights leaders talk violence, building relationships - Medill Reports Chicago\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"By Steve Musal After a year during which public awareness of violence involving police has sparked a nationwide conversation, the nation\u2019s top cops decided to have one. 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