CRITICAL ISSUES IN POLICING SERIES Advice from Police Chiefs and Community Leaders on Building Trust: “Ask for Help, Work Together, and Show Respect” Page intentionally blank CRITICAL ISSUES IN POLICING SERIES Advice from Police Chiefs and Community Leaders on Building Trust: “Ask for Help, Work Together, and Show Respect” March 2016 This publication was supported by the Motorola Solutions Foundation. The points of view expressed herein are the authors’ and do not necessarily represent the opinions of the Motorola Solutions Foundation or all Police Executive Research Forum members. Police Executive Research Forum, Washington, D.C. 20036 Copyright © 2016 by Police Executive Research Forum All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America ISBN: 978-1-934485-32-3 Cover and text page design by Dave Williams. Photos by James McGinty. Contents Acknowledgments ....................................................................................................................................... 1 Community-Police Relationships: An Essential Element of Moving Forward, by Chuck Wexler .......................................... 3 18 Points We Heard about Effective Community-Police Partnerships ........................... 5 Community Leaders and Police Chiefs Talk Frankly about the Issues They Face, and How They Work with Each Other ................................ 9 Sidebar: Perspectives from Federal Officials ........................................................................................................................31 Summary Understanding the Problems and Devising Solutions: What Community Leaders and Police Chiefs Told Us .................................................. 71 About PERF ................................................................................................................................................ 75 About the Motorola Solutions Foundation ............................................................................................ 77 Appendix: Participants at the PERF Summit, “Strengthening Community-Police Relationships,” July 10, 2015, Washington, DC ....................... 78 Acknowledgments PERF is profoundly grateful to the Molloy, Senior Vice President for Sales, North Motorola Solutions Foundation for supporting the America; Gino Bonanotte, Executive Vice President Critical Issues in Policing series. I encourage all and Chief Financial Officer; Cathy Seidel, Corporate our readers to look at the back cover of this report, Vice President, Government Relations; Domingo for a list of the previous Critical Issues reports that Herraiz, Vice President, North American Govern- PERF has produced with support from Motorola. I ment Affairs; Matt Blakely, Director of the Motorola think you will find that just about every major issue Solutions Foundation; and Rick Neal, retired Vice you can think of has been the subject of a Critical President at Motorola Solutions, who continues to Issues report. Issues like training officers to reduce assist us with Critical Issues projects. use of force, de-escalation, the issues of Ferguson, Of course we are also most thankful to all of the managing large-scale demonstrations and other police chiefs who participated in this project, and major events that often involve a joint response by who invited the community leaders who provided multiple agencies, cybercrime, the heroin epidemic, their thoughtful perspectives. Nearly all of our Crit- changes in marijuana laws, active shooter incidents, ical Issues projects are based largely on the knowl- federal investigations of local police agencies, new edge and wisdom offered by our members, and this technologies in policing, labor-management rela- one is no exception. tions in policing, gun crime, gang violence, the role Finally, PERF’s staff deserves credit for manag- of police in immigration enforcement, and many ing and organizing this project. Deputy Chief of Staff more. Shannon Branly was in charge of the entire project, Never has our support from the Motorola Solu- under the supervision of Chief of Staff Andrea Luna tions Foundation been more important than right and with superb assistance from Research Assistants now, as the policing profession faces one of the big- Matt Harman and Allison Heider. Research Asso- gest challenges in memory: creating a new, “post- ciate Rachael Arietti and Research Assistant Sarah Ferguson” model of policing, one that prevents Mostyn handled logistics. Research Associate Sunny unnecessary uses of force and is built on community Schnitzer, Executive Assistant Soline Simenauer, trust. As I write this, we are drafting a new Critical and Intern Jean Hyun assisted with the meeting. Issues report about PERF’s new “30 Guiding Princi- Communications Coordinator James McGinty took ples” on police use of force, which will help agencies the excellent photographs for this report and man- increase officer safety while also reducing the likeli- aged the review of quotations. Communications hood of police shootings in certain types of situa- Director Craig Fischer deserves special credit for tions, such as a mentally ill person brandishing a drafting this report, and once again making sense knife. This forthcoming report will be based largely of a very dynamic conversation. Graphic Designer on three previous Critical Issues reports—the one Dave Williams brought his excellent attention to you are holding, along with Defining Moments for detail and design skills to this report. Police Chiefs and Re-Engineering Training on Police Use of Force. Among PERF’s funders, the Motorola Solutions Foundation is unique in providing PERF with the flexibility to address new issues the moment they emerge. Executive Director PERF is grateful for the leadership of Motorola Police Executive Research Forum Solutions Chairman and CEO Greg Brown; Jack Washington, D.C. Acknowledgments — 1 Community-Police Relationships: An Essential Element of Moving Forward By Chuck Wexler The last 18 months have been traumatic meeting. We wanted frank, candid discussions that for the policing profession and for communities would produce useful information and guidance, so across the nation, with issues of use of force being we asked each chief to “choose a community leader questioned. To address these issues, the Police Exec- who is not necessarily your biggest fan, but who has utive Research Forum has been working to devise credibility in the community.” new training programs for police officers, empha- I think most of our chiefs took that guidance sizing concepts of de-escalation, crisis intervention, to heart. As you will see when you read this report, and “slowing situations down” in order to give offi- many of the community leaders were very candid in cers more time to evaluate what’s happening, con- expressing their views about the police. sider their options, get additional resources to the At the same time, we asked police chiefs to scene, and devise effective responses that minimize choose a community leader who is constructive and use of force. who wants to work with the police to build relation- The national upheaval in policing since Fergu- ships of trust. And again, I think the discussions son is not only about issues of policing and train- in this report show that our participating com- ing regarding use of force. Equally important is the munity leaders did have constructive attitudes and impact on the level of trust by community mem- approaches. bers in their police departments. So we invited With more than 150 participants, not everyone police chiefs and community leaders to a national at the meeting had an opportunity to speak; there conference in Washington, and asked them to dis- simply was not enough time in the day, even though cuss what’s going on in their cities, particularly with participants honored my request that they focus on respect to issues of force and the level of trust in a few key points and speak concisely. In some cases, the police. We wanted to know how they see what’s participants later told us that they did not speak going on in their city, and how they feel about what’s because others had already made remarks that were happening nationally. And to the extent that com- similar to what they would have said. In other cases, munity leaders and police chiefs could tell us that participants later sent us comments by email to they have solid relationships of trust, we wanted include in this report. I am grateful for everyone’s to ask them for their best advice about how they contributions, and I regret we couldn’t hear from reached that point. everyone. To get this project under way, we contacted I hope you will find this report helpful. The bulk PERF’s member chiefs, invited them to participate of the report is simply quotations from our com- in a one-day meeting, and asked each participat- munity leaders and police chiefs. The final chapter ing chief to invite one community leader to the summarizes many of the key observations that were Community-Police Relationships: An Essential Element of Moving Forward — 3 made and the suggestions and strategies for improv- However, I don’t think I have ever moderated ing relationships between police agencies and the a conference with a more passionate group of peo- communities they serve. ple who were so deeply engaged in trying to make As a number of chiefs and community leaders things better. Police agencies across the nation can said at our meeting, this is a very serious business. use this report to guide their efforts to build trust at