GARY | A group of residents gathered Saturday afternoon for a brainstorming session discussing what can be done to help prevent confrontations between residents and police, citing recent ones in Ferguson, Mo., and New York City, both of which ended with a resident's death.
The group met at the Human Development Action Center on Broadway. The session was organized by Eddie Tarver, a community organizer and one of the center's founders.
“The idea is not just to react” after a confrontation has happened, Tarver said, but “we want to be proactive,” and prevent confrontations from happening.
He suggested a divide existed between residents and government, including police.
“It’s sort of us and them,” he said. “We need to reclaim it.”
The issue provoked a wide-ranging discussion. A distant, and for some a nonexistent, relationship between police and citizenry was a common theme.
“When I was growing up, we had police who walked the neighborhoods,” resident Jesse Grimes said.
The group agreed that any means to increase the proportion of officers living in the city would help alleviate that. Existing rules should be fully enforced, and providing incentives to encourage residency should be offered.
Grimes also brought up the issue of officers from other departments working in Gary. Outside officers sometimes work in Gary to supplement the city’s department’s efforts, but that can reinforce the distance between police and citizenry, the group agreed.
Educational efforts for both police and residents were also a common theme. Residents should know their rights, and expect those to be respected, but should also know exactly how to act when in contact with police. Meanwhile, police officers need a better sense of the community they’re policing, and need to be held to a standard by which their behavior matches their training, the group suggested.
“The community and police are on a different page,” resident Norma Carey said. She suggested residents tend to focus on the idea that police are here to protect them, while police focus on enforcing laws — or, protecting the government, in her formulation.
“There’s not a general sense of safety,” Carey said. She suggested the public has lost its “sense of being free,” its “sense of being happy.”
Tarver said Gary should have a Citizen Review Board to review incidences of potential misconduct. He said the board should be made up of people who have experienced misconduct themselves or are family to someone who has.
Other topics included an engagement of the city’s many churches, and reinvigoration of some pastors’ moral leadership.
The group agreed to refine its list of problems and solutions, and to compose a letter to be sent to local elected officials, and a petition to present to residents. They also decided to research ways to share information with the community, and to create a training program.
They agreed to meet again Dec. 27.
