Biased policing main topic of Salisbury PD-hosted meeting
The dialogue continues surrounding racial bias and policing.
“What the science tells us is even well-intentioned individuals, including well-intentioned officers have biases that have impact on their perceptions and on their decisions.” said Lorie Fridell, a national expert and author on the topic. Fridell says in what she calls the “post-Ferguson era”, the actions of all police officers are often overly-scrutinized as a result of incidents that have sparked national outrage. While educating Salisbury police, city leaders, residents and other Wicomico county law enforcement Tuesday, Fridell told 47 ABC that one way to solve the problem is by helping everyone understand what it’s like to be in each other’s shoes.
Fridell told us, “We’re talking about what do community members say and think about bias and policing. Where do they see it. Why do they think it occurs. What do they think needs to be done. We’re asking the police officers to talk about what it feels like to be in law enforcement,”
We also spoke to Salisbury Councilwoman April Jackson. She says this class is a step in the right direction but moving forward but the respect needs to be there for the African-American community. “they seem to address us disrespectfully and it kind of escalates into another problem in our community,” said Jackson.
As a part of the day-and-a-half course, Fridell broke police, city leaders and community members into working groups. From there they broke down national data and analyzed scenarios containing bias and profiling. All this while working side-by-side. “it is about a partnership, it is about reaching out to members of our community that have been charged. What we’re hearing from our community members is that this is just as important as speaking with them as we work through this process.” Salisbury Police Chief Barbara Duncan told 47 ABC.
Salisbury police tell us that moving forward they hope this effort will spark more interest for future meetings and they hope to plan them soon.
Chief Duncan says police academy instructors are also taking classes to learn a “fair and impartial policing” curriculum which will be taught to Salisbury PD officers.
