This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2016, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
A recently released video of an incident from two years ago shows a Salt Lake City Police Department officer verbally and physically abusing a handcuffed woman with blows to the head and misogynist epithets. The video is alarming, deeply disturbing and for many community members, a call to reignite our passion for action and change. The new Salt Lake City Police Chief, Mike Brown, has promised to make much needed changes in the culture of policing in Salt Lake City.
Our group of community members (Community Activist Group or CAG) found each other through shared interests in improvements in the transparency, accountability, culture and practice of Salt Lake City police. We are students, retired people, residents who've had bad experiences with the police, community members who've had loved ones or friends harmed and even killed by encounters with city officers, and mothers of children with mental health challenges. Some of us are also affiliated with groups that include the NAACP, the United Front, Cop Watch, Raise Your Pen, Utah Against Police Brutality and Utahns for Peaceful Resolution.
Since February, we've been meeting biweekly with Salt Lake City Police leaders, including Brown and many of his staff, as well as Mayor Jackie Biskupski's administration.
We've had difficult, sometimes long and unwieldy meetings. But this messy process has also resulted in surprisingly hopeful and helpful conversations. More significantly, we have begun to see a few policy changes as part of this ad hoc effort toward improving transparency, accountability and the culture and practice of policing in Salt Lake City.
For example, to improve transparency and communication, use of force and arrest data is now publicly available on the SLC PD website (http://slcpd.com/community/use-of-force/). The SLC PD has engaged in building community connections (our group is an example of this) and, they are developing a more community friendly, easier to navigate, website which will include a prominent complaint button on the homepage.
To improve accountability for use of force, we've been exploring ways to improve the Police Civilian Review Board (PCRB). For example, the City Council provided resources for an attorney independent of the City Attorney's office to work with the PCRB. More work needs to be done to ensure accountability, such as giving the PCRB disciplinary power instead of its current advisory capacity.
Finally, with regard to improving the culture and practice of the police department, we've encouraged more focus on de-escalation. Steps have been taken to add more de-escalation training, as well acknowledging the importance of de-escalation as a value, with measures such as a "De-escalation Award" Chief Brown has launched to recognize officers for successful defusing of a situation. Brown has also established a policy that two officers respond to every call in order to minimize the potential for use of force. At the urging of our group and others, the department is diversifying the police force in terms of race, ethnicity and gender. With the support of the City Council, an innovative program is embedding social workers into the police department to work directly to help people with serious mental health and/or addiction issues. From a community perspective, it is more humane, and less expensive, to get our most fragile community members the help they need, rather than sending them to jail. More de-escalation training and mental health support for police officers is needed but this is a start.
The opportunity to make these changes has occurred due to the openness of the Salt Lake City Police Department and the leadership of Brown, Biskupski and her staff, as well as the work of the Salt Lake City Council. And it has occurred because of the passionate, dedicated activist community members who want to help make things better.
Together our community can try new approaches to law enforcement, learn more about what works, and what is not helpful. We're going to face problems and challenges along the way. And this work will take time. But we will not give up until police brutality and lethal force approaches zero. As the news comes in from Dallas of violence against police officers, it becomes even more crucial to create a peaceful, non-violent dialogue between citizen activists and officers. In the coming months we plan to convene a broader community meeting to discuss where we are in our process. We hope you will join us.