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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2014 08-20 Ruben Rosario: Ferguson crisis offers lessons for other police departments PIONEER PRESS08/20/2014 Ruben Rosario: Ferguson crisis offers lessons for other police departments Ruben Rosario: Ferguson crisis offers lessons for other police departments By: RUBEN ROSARIO I rrosario@pioneerpress.com August 20, 2014 The messaging behind the mission statements is telling. "The Ferguson (Mo.) Police Department provides protection of life and property in Ferguson through the enforcement of laws and ordinances and assistance with emergency medical services," states the one posted by perhaps the most scrutinized and criticized police department in the land right now. Contrast that with Maplewood police's commitment to "effective, innovative and high quality police service" and "communication and transparency that builds community trust and partnership." The first one prioritizes laying down the law, which I guess is fine. The second acknowledges that effective policing is much more than simply enforcing laws. "Community is not about a place; community is about relationships," Paul Schnell, Maplewood's police chief, told me this week as we chatted about the situation in Ferguson. Like most police executives in America, Schnell has kept a close watch on developments in Ferguson after the fatal shooting of an unarmed black teenager by a white police officer during a street encounter. Sure. The demographics of the two suburban communities are different. Nearly 68 percent of Ferguson's roughly 22,000 residents are African-American; whites account for 72.3 percent of Maplewood's nearly 40,000 residents. Although the number of sworn officers is similar (Ferguson has 53 sworn officers to Maplewood's 55), Maplewood's force better reflects demographically the community it serves than Ferguson, which has three black officers on its force. Schnell, a 23 -year police veteran who also teaches a diversity and justice class for criminal justice and law enforcement students at Metro State University in St. Paul, believes the lack of diversity may account http://www.twi nciti es.com/2014/08/20/ruben-rosari o-ferguson-crisis-offers-lessons-for-other-pol ice -departments/ 1/4 08/20/2014 Ruben Rosario: Ferguson crisis offers lessons for other police departments for some of the pent-up tensions and mistrust boiling over in Ferguson. He also believes there are several universal lessons to be learned from events in that Missouri suburb. COULD IT HAPPEN HERE? Q: What sticks out in your mind as you assess the situation in Ferguson from a police chief's perspective? A: For anyone who is a police chief or, quite frankly, in any police role, it's a terrible thing. The first thing I asked myself was: Could this happen in Maplewood, Minnesota? I've asked this question of many of my colleagues and the answer is: yes. Under the right set of circumstances, it is possible. If that's the case, you ask yourself how you make sure to minimize that risk at every level. This is a lesson that this is not just an urban issue. Q: What are some of the things you have seen that prompted you to ask yourself, "I don't think I would do it like this"? A: One of the images — there was an armored truck with the (heavily armored cop on top pointing an assault rifle at the crowd). I can get the use of an armored vehicle for the purposes of just securing an area. I can get someone being on top to watch or get a vantage point, but the presence of that gun becomes a game changer. It's a powerful image. We do have patrol rifles. In this day and age, it's a practical reality. But the deployment of that has to be measured, especially in a crowd -control situation. Q: In any industry, reflecting the community you serve is a value asset. How is it in Maplewood in terms of diversity? (Maplewood has five officers of Hmong descent, one African-American and an officer of American Indian heritage). A: It's got to be a priority, and it's a struggle. We have a fairly large Hmong population here. The truth of the matter is that law enforcement in Minnesota, we fight over diverse candidates. The number of women coming into law enforcement is down. We want to try and attract and get diversity because it's a reflection. Whoever has an opening, and (the police candidates) are qualified, they're gone (quickly hired). Suburban departments pay well, but it's who is at the door at the time you have that opening. And we may get one or two openings, not like St. Paul or Minneapolis. MESSAGE: BE TRANSPARENT Q: How important is releasing timely information to the public? The criticism is that the Ferguson Police Department mishandled the flow of information from the beginning. A: For me, there are two things: relationship and message. The relationship is the preventive stuff http://www.twincities.com/2014/08/20/ruben-rosario-ferguson-crisis-offers-lessons-for-other-police-departments/ 2/4 08/20/2014 Ruben Rosario: Ferguson crisis offers lessons for other police departments because bad things can happen. Not can't — bad things are going to happen in this business. One of the things that is going to steel us in these situations is to have as deep a relationship (with the community) as we can establish. Second of all, the paradigm in law enforcement has been, "It's an active criminal case and we are not talking about anything." But the reality is that we can say quite a bit without compromising that. I think the more we tell, the more transparent we can be — generally speaking, the better off we are going to be. Part of the resistance to that is that people don't want to be wrong. How you manage this is engaging the relationship and having as much transparency and accountability built into the process as possible. Q: The Ferguson police department released a store surveillance camera video of a man matching shooting victim Michael Brown's appearance strong-arming a clerk and taking off with a box of cigarillos shortly before the fatal shooting incident. The video was released a few days later when it appeared that the street disturbances, looting and the confrontations appeared to be subsiding. It looked like all it did was throw more gas into the situation. Was that a mistake? A: Yeah. What should be relevant is strictly the assessment of what happened in the encounter and nothing else. There was no relevance to what happened in the store and what happened later. The focus should be on the investigation, what happened between (Brown) and the officer. `TRUST ME. IT'S HARD SOMETIMES.' Q: I notice that your department is on Facebook, Twitter and local cable TV and that the names, cellphone numbers and email addresses of every police officer on the force are listed online in the staff directory. Ferguson has no names, just 911 and a general phone number for citizens to call on its Web page. Is this deliberate? Why? A: Transparency. The value is that we want you to reach a cop. I owe you that as a professional who you pay for. We are trying to be purposeful about connection and openness and all that stuff. Trust me. It's hard sometimes. But it increases the level of accountability with the officers, and the community likes it. Q: Your thoughts on trust between the community and police, in the wake of Ferguson? A: We can put 100 cops on the street. We are not going to be any safer until and unless we build stronger relationships. And that's not just between police and the community. It's between neighbors and neighbors. It harkens back for me to (slain Mendota Heights police officer) Scott Patrick's funeral. It's a reminder to us who wear a uniform in service to some city that there are people who value what we do and that is http://www.twincities.com/2014/08/20/ruben-rosario-ferguson-crisis-offers-lessons-for-other-police-departments/ 3/4 08/20/2014 Ruben Rosario: Ferguson crisis offers lessons for other police departments relationship. The people who were standing on that (funeral procession) route were not all from Mendota Heights. Community is not a place; it's a connection. And we have to do better. Ruben Rosario can be reached at 651 228-5454 or email at rrosano pioneerprPss.com. Follow him at twitter.com/ nycrican. http://www.twincities.com/2014/08/20/ruben-rosario-ferguson-crisis-offers-lessons-for-other-police-departments/ 4/4