City of Champaign Candidates on Police-Community Relations

This question was created by journalists and community members during the Democracy in CU: Let’s talk solutions to community violence event on March 14th.

Describe your strategy to build positive and trusting relationships between police departments and residents – particularly in areas that are highly policed. How will you increase transparency?

MAYOR

Deborah Feinen:

Since I have been Mayor, we have approved a Citizen’s Review Board and a Use of Force review committee both increase transparency and help to build relationships. Since I have been on Council, we have created the Community Coalition which is designed to provide interaction between providers, community and police. If you visit http://champaignil.gov/police/community-engagement/ you will see many different ways we have community engagement in our community by the police department.

Council has approved the strategic plan for the department which can be found here: http://documents.ci.champaign.il.us/v/0B5PBg5nhG-UJUlBSYjNxT3FNNXM. The plan speaks to the issues raised in this question and others.

CITY COUNCIL

Tom Bruno:

We need to continue to support community policing efforts.

Andrew James Christensen:

Police officers are in a line of work that can be dangerous and too often thankless, and they deserve tremendous respect from the community they serve. But there is a trend in our country of militarizing local police departments. It is the city council’s responsibility to make sure that the Champaign Police Department has clear guidance that they are a force for community cohesion and not conflict.

I support community policing initiatives to build bonds between citizens and officers. These include unarmed beat police and bicycle police, community events and open houses, and more opportunities for citizen feedback. I would like to see police liaisons to minority communities that have been trained in sensitivity to those communities. I am glad the citizen police review board has been established, but it needs to be improved because its powers of ethical oversight are weak and because it meets behind closed doors with little transparency. It is also focused on conflict after it has happened. We can also leverage technology to help citizens make requests and report concerns. These initiatives require more city resources and I would like to find a way to allocate those resources to this very important goal.

Matthew Gladney:

Champaign's Police Department can build on the work it has already been doing. Officers will attend some neighborhood meetings, answering questions from, and providing information for, the citizens they serve. Police often attend block parties, interacting positively with folks in attendance. The department has implemented the national Coffee With a Cop program on a local level, having informal, sit-down events with people at various locations across the community. I worked with our police department to have Champaign's first LGBTQ Police Liaison, who works with the local UP Center in being a safe point of contact for members of the LGBTQ community to come to with concerns. And, the police have an active social media presence, on Facebook and Twitter, which provides another way to converse with the public. Police Chief Cobb has actively promoting greater police volunteering and engagement within the community, something which I of course support.

William Kyles:

Two committees, the Citizen Review Board and the Internal Use of Force Review Board, are two committees that will help increase transparency.  Stemming from citizen request, I was blessed to be able to acquire the signatures necessary to get a study session for a board of this nature.

After council direction, citizens and staff spent several months crafting a board that both the community and police could support. When citizens and police have opportunities to work together and build positive momentum, we will continue to be able to build  on working relationships.

We also have tools such as body cameras which has helped increase transparency. When incidents have happened, more than ever, we have released as much information to the public, legally possible, to allow for citizen engagement and to allow for increased transparency.

I will continue to encourage and support neighborhood policing. I will also support neighborhood beautification projects and neighborhood economic development. This influences positive police community relationships, as healthy neighborhoods affect how we see our community.

Pattsi Petrie:

First, I would propose to reinstate police on bicycles and second expand community policing. Then I would involve Neighborhood Services to have increased direct involvement with the various neighborhoods and neighborhood organizations. Last, but not least, work with Unit 4 for the police to adopt a class of 1st, 2nd, or 3rd graders. Baseline data would be collected at the beginning to determine whether there is trust and bonding developing between the students and the police. After one year of implementation, the approach ought to be revisited by collecting data at that point. These programs may be working well, need minor adjustments, or need rethinking. If the programs are successful, then brainstorming can be used to identify how to expand involvement.  

All of the above provide opportunities for the residents and police to get know each other, build trust, and open avenues of communication that will enhance transparency. Neighborhood Services can enable the communication/transparency

Jon Paul Youakim:

I believe that trust is earned, it can’t be given. The US has a long history of violating the trust of minorities and this has resulted in members of our community and communities all across the nation in having a distrust of the very institutions that are supposed to safeguard their rights. The very first step in solving this problem is recognizing that there is one. I feel that Champaign has finally realized that and as a community we are starting to make strides in correcting our mistakes by creating more police oversight with the Citizens Review Subcommittee and Use of Force Review Committee.

We must further build trust by implementing community policing by having police talk to community members on a daily basis to slowly chip away at the hesitancy of the community. I would want to ensure that our police department is highly trained in de-escalation strategies to help police officers decrease instances where they use their weapon. I think the formation of the Citizens Review Subcommittee was a great step forward in bridging that gap in trust. I would like to see more transparency in this subcommittee when information is not part of an ongoing investigation.

In this day and age we are asking our officers to be part social worker, part psychologist and part police officer when dealing with our community. Instead of approaching people they encounter with the mindset of “what’s wrong with you?” we should be training them to approach individuals with the mindset of “what’s happened to you?”. This is how you implement systemic empathy. Police officers have one of the most difficult jobs in our community and I admire those that serve to protect our community. However, I also hold these brave men and women to the highest standard. I want them to be successful, I want them to be looked up to by all in our community and feel that they have the support of the community. I know this can be a lot to ask of our police officers, but by implementing this idea of systemic empathy, we start addressing the narratives of individuals they interact with and better serve the community and continue to improve the outcomes of those interactions.

NOTE: We reached out to Azark Cobbs, Kenton Elmore and Michael LaDue and received no or incomplete responses.