[Mpls] How do we talk to our police dept.?

[Svattheriver]

  Dear chief Olson.
     How do we build support and trust for Minneapolis Police Dept.?  I
would like to find a way to talk about how the police and citizens can work
together.  The object is to have trust and confidence  in the police dept.
and to believe our officers are professional and fair.  Their job is to help
us have a safe and livable city. In my community, we've used  NRP funds,
raised additional funds, and organized around the issue of community oriented
policing. We currently have a community oriented policing task force that
meets weekly during the day and monthly evening committee meetings that
grapple with how to better implement community oriented policing. One of the
things that we have found in the third precinct is that we do not have a
shared vision.  I participated in an evaluation of our community oriented
policing initiative and I was chairperson of the meeting to evaluate our
evaluations.

What I discovered was that after years of working on these issues, is that
on this day at least, the opinions of what community and oriented policing is
to the community and the police were diametrically opposed. The police
perspective of community policing was defined as getting people to get bike
licenses.  Our perspective was beat patrols and bike patrols.  The police
perspective was we will tell you what we need in order to do our job better.  
Our perspective was we wanted to work on a law enforcement strategy combining
a  long term assignment of officers for continuity, a problem solving
approach to crime and the livability issues, and an active role for citizens.
 Because of different priorities we no longer have the beat officers and the
bikes we purchased to fund the bike patrol have no one to ride them.

Making our conversations more difficult was the fact that the Minneapolis
police dept. does not have a working definition of community oriented
policing - if you don't have a definition, what do you measure? How do you
know what you do is working?
 I am told that code four is community oriented policing. I'm told that when
CCP/ Safe hands out literature, that is community oriented policing.  I say
we need to have conversations about code four and the role of CCP/ Safe.

There are some great things and great people in the police dept. working on
community oriented policing and there are award wining programs, but I don't
think the basic Minneapolis Police Dept. philosophy is community oriented
policing.    I have experienced much resistance to these ideas. I don't know
why.  I have been told that I should work on specific projects that meet my
goals but call it something else.  Is this a problem of semantics? These
ideas I am putting forth are not a radical plunge into the unknown. The
hundred thousand Clinton cops were sent out to do community oriented
policing. Rather than innovation, this is usually looked at as the prevailing
wisdom. We should look at the relationship of citizens and police in St.
Paul. ( The National Cops Evaluation: St. Paul, Minnesota by Catherine
Coles.--www.ncjrs.org/nij/cops   case study/stpaul )
   In St. Paul, community oriented policing has been embraced by the
community, by officers, and by the chief.  And this has a real impact on how
problems are approached. In today's paper you see a much different response
and interaction about releasing statistics. In St. Paul the union wants to be
involved with the process of the collection of data about racial profiling. I
have no problem dealing with unions and ask the Minneapolis police federation
to work with us neighborhood folks.
What we need is a structure that addresses the actual complexity of the
interactions between citizens and police.  We need to share common goals and
have a place for ongoing conversations.  If you look at the complaints and
concerns that are being expressed by the black community, protesters at the
genetics convention, and advocates for the mentally ill you see a common
thread of "the police are not enforcing the law in a way that has
neighborhood support."  How do you build trust and support? It is important
to have leaders who have a vision and understanding about a variety of models
of community oriented policing and who can discuss the underlying issues of
why this would, or would not, make sense.
I'm hoping to find a forum for these discussions with the police dept.

      Separately, but connected to these issues is the use of deadly force.
Maybe I've seen too many  star treks where you can put phasers on stun.  But
in this age of miraculous technology and scientific ingenuity, we should be
able to find better technologies to reduce some of the tragedies in police
work. Can we use these technologies to find better ways of disarming and
disabling.  Where is the sleeping gas canister, the tranquilizer gun, the
rubber bullets, the laser beam?

Yes, I know many of the responses of how this can't work, but I would like
to hear more of the responses of how it could work.  This has been an
especially tragic year for officers and citizens.  I have been told that
innovation involves having an idea that no one thinks will work, that
challenges the prevailing wisdom, but that works and eventually becomes the
prevailing wisdom.  There will be a lot of people who say it can't be done
with good reason.  But if that weren't the case it wouldn't be innovation.    

Implict in my view is a discussion of the police role in restoring order, how
do police see their role in such issues as litter and graffiti ? This is an
important piece of what needs to be discussed.              Thank you, Scott
Vreeland     Ward 2   Seward