Black leaders, police meet
A summit of police chiefs and black community leaders
took steps last Thursday toward creating a "colorless atmosphere" within police
departments and improving the relationship between the black community and the
police.
The day-long summit included Jewell Jackson McCabe, chair of the National Coalition of 100 Black Women, National Urban League President Hugh Price and current police chiefs from nearly a dozen United States cities. It was hosted by Rice's James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy.
Lee P. Brown, a Baker Institute scholar and former police chief, led the "Police and the African American Community: Building Bridges for the Future" summit with Baker Institute Director Edward Djerejian. The summit was held in the Kyle Morrow Room of Fondren Library and was telecast on Rice TV.
The main topic was the growing mistrust between black communities and police. The tension between these groups has recently been worsened by the videotape of the Rodney King beating, the riots following the acquittal of the officers involved, the O.J. Simpson trial, the killing of a black man by Pennsylvania police and the videotaped abuse of a black woman by South Carolina police.
Many of the participants brought up particular problems they saw with the attitudes and behaviors of police officers.
"The issue is not this officer or that officer's attitude ... the departments are just a reflection of the larger society," Ramona Edelin, president of the National Urban Coalition, said.
Ira Harris, the executive director of the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Officers, said that police often inadvertently harass blacks.
"In many instances, police officers are offending citizens just by being overly officious," Harris said.
Buffalo Police Chief Gil Kerlikowske also said that community involvement was the key to improving relations with blacks; he has implemented citizen police academies which "open up all of our policies, procedures and training to citizens."
Chuck Wexler, executive director of the Police Research Forum, said that departments should look ahead in making their hiring decisions.
"When we hire someone, we have to think what they are going to be like in 20 years," Wexler said. "The policing field is littered with departments that hired fast and are paying for it 10 years later."
After defining the problem in depth, the group formulated a number of recommendations to begin to ease tensions between blacks and police. Brown explained the conclusions on behalf of the group.
"We believe there should be a national commission appointed by the president to address the issue of race in America," Brown said. "We note that of all the commissions that we have ever had in this country, we have never had a commission to address the issue of race."
The selection and training of officers was brought up several times during the forum as an area in which there is room for improvement.
"We want to screen off those who are not tolerant to racial differences and that cannot function with all different races in an objective way. [They] should not be police officers in our country," Brown said.
Brown emphasized "implementing programs to empower police officers to use his or her [sic] creativity to solve problems that have a negative impact on the people they serve." He said that the youth were a particularly important group that police should try to improve relations with.
The summit participants felt that it was important to keep the group together and meet regularly to investigate outside solutions, to involve corporate America and to "draw from the vast body of scholarly knowledge," Brown said.
Houston Police Chief Sam Nuchia was pleased with the efforts made during the meeting and plans to take the ideas from the summit to the officers in his department.
He appreciated the opportunity "for all of us to be together [and] ... have the perspective of our community here in Houston [with] ... national leaders and leaders in other communities."
"We're all concerned about these same kinds of problems and looking for answers," Nuchia said.
This item appeared in the News section of the October 4, 1996 issue.
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