The mission: defining and
improving community policing.
The discussions are being held at different times in each of Cobb's five precincts. "Each precinct has discussion groups with five to eight members to discuss any concerns the community may have with the police," said Deputy Chief C.T. Cox, a Cobb County resident for over 50 years.
The first meeting for Precinct IV was
held at 7 p.m. last night at police headquarters on Lower Roswell Road. The
meeting was led by Major Jerry Quan and Captain Everett Cebula. Group members
present included Joseph Gavalis, Tomi and Kurk Johnson, Byron Wells, Tony
Bailey, Richard Durden, Roger Phelps, and Jerry South.
The group formations are also the
result of a $93,000, 267-page report made by the International Association
Chiefs of Police (IACP) commissioned by the department after Commissioner Lisa
Cupid alleged she was racially profiled and followed by an officer late at
night in an unmarked car. To view the report, go to:
https://s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/cobbcounty.org.if-us-west-2/prod/2018-07/IACP_CCPD_Final_Report.pdf
https://s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/cobbcounty.org.if-us-west-2/prod/2018-07/IACP_CCPD_Final_Report.pdf
It is unclear whether
recommendations to improve Cobb County police will be funded out of existing
budgets or will require a tax hike.
The report cited the following
issues:
Recruiting, hiring and properly training new officers
Building
relationships and trust with the community in a co-production model of
policing, with modern policing methods and practices
Implementing
adjustments to staffing and deployments
Adjusting
organizational leadership actions to support the transition to a co-production
policing model and procedural justice focused management style.
“We have a pretty good department,
and many things we do in the community to help citizens are not promoted in the
media,” Captain Cebula stated. “We have a 91.5% approval rating and are doing
what we can with what we have.”
“We need 60 more officers,” Major Quan
told the group. “We have 10 beats with main challenges in high density
population areas where Section 8 housing exists,” Quan said. Crime in high
density areas is disputed in some circles, but it seems to be more of an issue
in major U.S. cities as opposed to Japan which has the opposite scenario.
Crime
in high density areas could be due to devolution of the family unit, decline in
moral values, children raising themselves with predictable results, too many
parents not involved in raising their offspring, etc., according to a Guns and
Ammo forum.
It was mentioned that some community
members would not like the idea of hiring 60 more police officers unless they
were guaranteed new recruits would be properly trained to "protect and serve"
rather than kill unarmed lawbreakers. Quan said department policy mandates
officers to use voice recorders at all traffic stops and that body cameras are
not being used by all officers due to funding restraints.
It was also stated by Kurk Johnson
that many confrontations between the police and citizens could be improved with
proper communication techniques which require special training. It costs $120k
to train officers, and new hires can expect to make $40,014.18 to $64,022.89
per year, according to the Cobb County Police website.
Calls for Service in Cobb County in
July totaled 4584, with false alarms being the most prevalent. (Alarms – 682,
Suspicious Calls – 355, Auto Accidents – 344, Domestic Disputes – 235, Traffic
Stops – 1245, Citations issued – 1496.)
Group members have also been invited
to attend the Citizens Public Safety Academy Program, a 14-week introduction
into procedures by police, fire, animal control, and 911 which begins Sept. 5.
The group’s next meeting is scheduled for Tuesday, September 19.
The Cobb County Police Department is
a CALEA accredited and nationally recognized full-service law enforcement
agency, with an authorized strength of 690 sworn officers, located in the
metropolitan Atlanta area, and services a population of approximately 800,000
citizens.
For more information on this group,
call Major Jerry Quan at 770-499-3928.
 |
| Major Quan and Kurk Johnson pose after meeting. |
MJQ says: Very nice, thanks Tomi. It was great meeting your husband last night!
ReplyDeleteH says: Good job!
ReplyDeleteW says: Sounds like excellent progress to me!
ReplyDeleteCommunication is always good but frankly we've been doing these meetings for a decade and we still have the same issues. I have offered potential solutions which have fallen on deaf ears so am not optimistic. There is a war, especially on people of color and the poor---the war on drugs. There has to be a cease fire in that war before there can be peace negotiations. I have produced documents outline potential terms of such a "cease fire", one of which is to stop arresting people for minor drug possession, as under existing law it can already be done with writing a citation rather than an arrest. Another term is to stop using bogus reasons like a broken taillight to stop and search people and cars, especially people of color. These are things which can change tomorrow with a single policy and practice change. I am not waiting any longer and will not cooperate with any agency engaged in a war on my children and friends of color---there must first be a CEASE FIRE!
ReplyDeleteThis is undoubtedly great progress.
ReplyDeleteAt least Chief Michael Register is entering the Cobb County Community with some form of solution for the issues that are faced in the community. As the father of Nicholas Thomas, killed by Smyrna police, Kenneth Owens, I know all too well that there are officers who are not trained properly and the need for ongoing training is crucial for both citizens and the community.
Police-involved citizen abuse in the United States is getting worse, as all statistics state, and this trend must stop. When police around the country are all on the defensive when in contact with citizens this is a fuse waiting to be lit.
There are too many officers, both veterans and rookies, who have never received sensitivity training, communication skills, nor training dealing with mentally ill citizens. Many police-involved shootings and unarmed citizen murders, such as my son's, can be avoided with tactical, mental health, and ongoing communication within the communities served by police officers around the United States.
There continue to be too many police-involved citizen murders in this country of minority citizens. No other country in this world has such a problem. Driving-while-black and waking-up-a-suspect is not acceptable. Racial profiling has existed, and still is prevalent, for decades. These procedures and practices need to be reviewed, systematically, for change.
Until police are held accountable by wearing body cameras that are on at all times when a citizen is being questioned, detained, etc., receive training on how to deal with citizens regardless of color, refrain from pulling weapons - including Tasers - to “shoot-to-kill,” lose the “Blue Code” mentality, and understand that they are to serve and protect as citizen servants that they are hired to be for citizens, change is less likely to happen. The community is watching, and will continue to do so, and hopefully Chief Michael Register will make the change that all citizens deserve.
On a more universal note; hopefully, this change will allow other metro Atlanta, and around the state/U.S., police departments to stand on more aligned principles of being more accountable, or the lack thereof, for their actions.
(edited because too long) D says: I've read the transcripts of the officers and their managers, and of the Commissioner. I also went through some of the blog chatter. I have not heard of any suit being brought to date, but it appears there is mention of follow-up somewhere I read. I'm guessing that's what you guys are doing.
ReplyDeleteIt's unfortunate the officer said what he did, but it does show there was some pent up frustration around culture and race. Hard to determine in this case if it was pre or post event, but it doesn't matter, it was said.
Independent oversight: I am all for any proactive evaluation or monitoring of processes, procedures, and behaviors to ensure they are the best we can have at the moment. I believe police organizations audit and/or assess themselves periodically, as a matter of policy. However, I am all for independent oversight or second opinion as long as the assessment is objective, not predisposed to conclusions, and does not automatically assume or imply that there is a systemic problem. There may be all of these, but find them don't go in assuming them.
There should also be some performance criteria to gage officers against. Articulating a problem or taking corrective action on a hypothetical, or thinking you can achieve perfection is not a good path to go down. Need to constantly strive for excellence, whatever that may be, not perfection. Corrective actions many time have unintended consequences. Hopefully good, but sometimes not so good.
For example, CCPDs immediate action/response was to stop all undercover activities. I'm not a policeperson, so I don't know what the ramifications to the community was or could be for that action, but as a citizen I'd be a little concerned about that decision. The Commissioner lives close to the area that was under surveillance, and it was obvious she became very frightened for good reason. Basically, they stopped all possible undercover police monitoring or interaction with anyone in a bad area, even though the CCP track record up to that point was pretty good (not perfect). The bad guys can and do see this type of action. I'm sure the CCPD also took some compensatory measures, like increased marked car patrols, but I didn't read it. Was the risk worth the PC thing to do?
My work experience was as an nuclear reactor operator, and subsequently as an evaluator of nuclear power plant operations, maintenance, and all aspects of plant operations. Our industry's premise is that improvement is always possible, we just need to find where to improve. I spent the last 26 year here traveling to many power plants to find those areas for improvement in an industry that was performing at 95% +. I can certainly believe this must be true of our police forces.
I also performed event and incident analysis and investigations to determine the root causes, and identify corrective actions to prevent recurrence. These are very detailed and sometimes difficult because policies and procedures were not always the cause,, individual or organizational behaviors were. An interesting fact is the Europeans felt we were incorrect to address human behavior as a root cause. Their premise is that if an event occurred, managers must have failed to place the appropriate barrier. Basically, people don't need to think as much for themselves, and just follow procedures.
G says: Good stuff Tomi. Our forum ( the Barbershop Forum) met august 12th with two Louisville police officers to discuss police interactions with not only our black communities but our communities as a whole. I think we as a society benefit from such interactions with our police and vice versa...stay woke !!
ReplyDeleteIt concerns me that officers who "forget" to turn on voice recorders at traffic stops are allowed to carry and use tasers and guns!
ReplyDeleteGreetings! This is my 1st comment here so I just wanted to
ReplyDeletegive a quick shout out and tell you I genuinely enjoy reading your blog posts.
Can you recommend any other blogs/websites/forums that deal with the same topics?
Appreciate it!
Having read this I thought it was rather enlightening.
ReplyDeleteI appreciate you finding the time and energy to put this content together.
I once again find myself personally spending way
too much time both reading and posting comments.
But so what, it was still worth it!