Police foster relations in the community

Following the case of Freddie Gray that is still playing out in court, Maryland lawmakers have put improving relations between community and police on the forefront.    

The latest legislation proposed by Sen. Ben Cardin, with the focus of addressing the issue of police accountability and building trust between police and the people they serve.The legislation is still so new, it hasn’t been touched by Congress yet, but the effort to improve trust is already underway.

Officials in Berlin say that although legislation might be coming out now to improve trust between police and the community, they’ve had that trust for years.

Lt. J.D. Lawson of the Berlin police department, said Berlin started putting an emphasis on community policing in the early 90’s.

Prior to that he says Berlin used to have an open air drug market, but partly in thanks to strengthening their community relations, that’s no longer a problem.

Berlin police participates in numerous community functions and Lawson says by having people’s first interaction with police be a positive one, that’s helped foster relationships.

“When (an) officer has interaction other than that on a negative note, then it’s much easier for that individual to communicate with that police officer and they have a little bit more trust in what that police officer will do, what action they will take that will be in their best interest,” Lawson said.