Policing emerges as THE issue in Salt Lake City’s Ballpark area and District 5 race

Salt Lake City has seen a rise in violent crime and an increase in the time it takes for police to respond to an emergency call.

The police department is also trying to fill more than 50 openings left vacant after officers retired or resigned.

Public safety concerns are an issue throughout the city, but in no City Council race has it dominated the conversation like it has in District 5. This is the area that includes the Ballpark and Central Ninth neighborhoods, along with Liberty Wells and East Liberty Park.

Two of the five candidates — Amy Hawkins and George Chapman — have made advocating for police the focus of their campaigns.

“People need to educate themselves and go on ride-alongs and understand the issues that police officers are really facing right now,” said Hawkins, who heads the Ballpark Community Council.

Incumbent Darin Mano and candidate Sarah Reale say public safety and policing are key issues but not the only ones deserving of attention. Vance Hansen is also on the ballot but has run a limited campaign.

“My opponents have focused solely on the issue of policing,” Mano said, “which is of course a critical piece of the puzzle but is not the whole puzzle.”

[READ MORE: Salt Lake City Council candidates answered key questions from The Salt Lake Tribune.]

While Mano has served on the City Council since January 2020, this is the first time he’s been on the ballot. The council appointed him to an opening created when Erin Mendenhall became mayor.

That was before the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis touched off nationwide protests in May 2020 that at times became violent, including in Salt Lake City. It was before thousands of protesters marched in reaction to two Salt Lake City officers shooting and killing Bernardo Palacios-Carbajal. Those officers were later determined to have acted within the law and department policy.

It also came before Menhendall and Police Chief Mike Brown announced in September 2020 a pattern of abuse in how officers used police dogs to bite people. In that ongoing investigation, one officer faces criminal charges and the city has stopped using dogs to apprehend suspects.

In the aftermath, Salt Lake City police have seen an increase in officer resignations, with some saying they didn’t feel supported by city leaders.

Since then, the City Council improved a big pay increase for police officers — 30% more for entry-level officers — and the department says it has more recruits in the pipeline.

But Hawkins, an instructor at the University of Utah medical school, said while the pay bump is nice, it won’t solve this problem. She said the city has a morale problem and needs to foster “a culture of mutual respect.”

“It is a matter of feeling supported,” she said, “when it comes to policies and situations that look questionable at first glance.”

Hawkins mentioned some of the body camera footage of encounters when officers told a police dog to bite a person. She said she isn’t a public safety expert and “folks without that expertise were making judgment calls and making public statements about it.”

She said the May protests, which she called “riots,” also hurt officer morale. She said she supports protesters but “inflicting damage on properties crossed a line.”

Hawkins said the city should be doing exit interviews with police officers to determine why so many have left. She also said officers have been “demonized” in the same way that public health officials, front-line health workers and teachers have during the pandemic.

‘Jail is not the solution’

When the protests took place and activists were calling for Brown’s removal and funding to be diverted from the police department, Mano questioned the police chief at a council meeting in June 2020.

He asked Brown if the police department had a problem with implicit bias and racism. Brown said no.

“The public perception is quite the opposite,” Mano said. “What can we do … to help bridge that gap?”

Brown called for hiring more diverse officers and conducting better community outreach.

Now, Mano said, the City Council has taken aggressive action. He said the goal is to expand “the toolbox of the city to help public safety.” The council has not only increased officer pay but also has provided funding for the police to hire more social workers. He has supported the downtown ambassador program, which conducts outreach to people who are unsheltered. And he backs Mendenhall’s plan to create park rangers, city staffers who would enforce rules in the parks and call police when necessary.

“Some of my opponents are really using fear and anxiety as a way to motivate people,” Mano said. “I don’t think it is productive.”

During a debate on ABC 4, Chapman, a retired engineer, criticized the city for not jailing more drug dealers and for not having police patrol the parks more often. He also called for retention bonuses for officers. That debate was sponsored by the Pioneer Park Coalition, a group largely of business leaders that has been critical of city officials on the issue of policing and public safety. Some of them, like businessman and former mayoral candidate David Ibarra, have financially supported Hawkins in this race.

Mano said, “The jail is not the solution. It is not humane to create policies that would criminalize the human condition of poverty.”

Reimagine policing

Reale, who works in marketing for Salt Lake Community College, tries to put this debate into a larger context.

“This has become a big topic nationwide,” she said. “Cities are seeing a big increase in crime, and we are also reevaluating policing as a nation. This is a major societal conflict we are having.”

She wants to reimagine policing, providing more employees who are experts in mental health and social services. She encouraged more community engagement as a way for the community to rebuild trust in officers and officers to become more trusting of the community. And she knows that morale is low among Salt Lake City police.

“It is evident,” she said, “that the relationship needs to be repaired.”

Reale sees the connection between homelessness and public safety that Hawkins and Chapman sees. Encampments attract drug dealers and that can lead to property crime. But, again, she said this is hardly unique to this district or Salt Lake City.

“Our country has failed us in a lot of ways,” she said, “in supporting people with mental health issues, in having too low of a minimum wage, in higher education being too expensive, and this has led us to have this situation across the entire country.”

These conversations are crucial, Reale said, but she wished the campaign in District 5 also focused on what the future of these neighborhoods should look like, how to get more walkable communities and reduce reliance on fossil fuels.

Mano, an architect, wants to see a focus on changing zoning rules to, for example, make sure the State Street area becomes vibrant and can’t become a magnet for manufacturing or warehouses.

Hawkins is open to conversations about traffic calming and adding more accessory dwelling units to neighborhoods, but she said that in this race, “I’m biased toward the Ballpark.” And in that neighborhood, safety and issues surrounding the homeless are paramount.