In the midst of police brutality and gun violence, the Office of Multicultural Affairs’ Ethnic Student Center and the Office of Residence Life’s SMART Program hosts Real Talk with Real Cops.
The event was a panel discussion held on Friday Oct. 14. The panel involved both the University’s and Bowling Green’s police departments and the University student legal services. The panel was held to empower students on their rights, the officers’ responsibilities to build trust and foster positive relationships between students, community members and police officers.
The panel was composed of five people: University Chief of Police, Dr. Monica Moll; BG City Chief of Police,Captain Mike Campbell; BG City Lieutenants, Tony Hetrick and Dan Mancuso; and University Managing Attorney, Rodney Fleming.
Ana Brown, Coordinator for Diversity and Retention Initiatives, was the mediator of the panel and asked questions in regards to police force, policies and procedures, local issues and enhancing community relationships.
“We want to join the community and police officers to help solve the problems that are going on. We need to educate each other more and have forums where we can talk,” Dr. Moll said.
Because of the current issues of gun violence and police brutality, the use of force was a central topic in the beginning of the panel. Police are allowed to use force if necessary and has to be documented in every situation, along with the level of force being used.
“The continuum of force is a chart that is color coded and two-sided for the officer and defendant. It starts at officer’s present, which is the lowest level of force for a police officer and goes all the way up to deadly force,” Lieutenant Mancuso said.
In some situations, a student may feel uncomfortable going to the police department to file a complaint about the use of force, therefore, students can go to the Student Legal Services to get guidance.
“Some students are hesitant to go to the police station where the officer they felt did something incessant works so they can come to the student legal service office with that complaint and sometimes it can even bypass the police and go to city council for further assessment,” Fleming said.
The panel emphasized de-escalation skills in a situation with police officers by communicating rather than using force. Police officers are also trained on practical use of force with live scenarios where they are tested to see if they use force appropriately or if force was even necessary.
“In order to minimize escalation in a situation, we have explicit bias training and blue courage training,” Chief Hetrick said. He continues, “with all the conflicts going on with the police and community, the state of Ohio is really focusing on the training on those topics.”
These trainings allow officers to understand how they should handle situations and make sure they are treating everyone fairly when they are enforcing the law and not allowing personal biases to affect their professional settings.
“The new crop of officers are all community oriented with great interpersonal skills and in order to come together with the community it has to be a collaborative effort,” said Dr. Moll. “We can’t keep seeing violent incidents on the news, the community and police officers can’t solve these issues alone,”
Reaching out to student organizations and community members has been an important mission for the University and city police in order to create dialogue and a relationship.
“Taking the initiative to go out in the community and put a face on the department has helped with problem solving and building relationships,” Captain Campbell said.
A panel discussion on “Exploring Ways to End Gun Violence” will be open to the public at the Wood County District Public Library Thursday, Oct. 27 at 6:30 p.m.
