Diversity and Policing Presentation

71e6b33dd7d621158375a95 Police/Community Relations RECORDED ON May 04, 2016 COPYRIGHT 2016 SPEAKER Chief Calvin D. Williams TAGS police, community, relations, phoenix, bridge 02-VIDEO-571e6b33dd7d621158375a95

Police Community Relations

Transcript Speakers: Chief Calvin Williams MODERATOR: Chief Williams, can you tell us about your Peace Makers Alliance that you created? CHIEF CALVIN WILLIAMS: Yes sir, of course. I would definitely like to thank Chief Garner and the city of Phoenix for having us here, the University of Phoenix. This is an excellent opportunity for us to get together and kind of exchange ideas. Chief White basically told you everything that's being done out there with policing. I mean he hit the nail on the head on just about every point as far as police community relations. But we have an organization in Cleveland that's called the Peace Makers Alliance. It was started by a former Cleveland Browns legend. For those of you that go back that far, Reggie Rucker played wide receiver for the Cleveland Browns. He got involved with an organization that wanted to do something with some of our formerly incarcerated individuals, some individuals from the community that aren't the people that you would see in a meeting like this but that he knew could move the bar as far as police community relations in the city of Cleveland. He got those young men and women together and he turned the Cleveland Peace Makers Alliance. What this organization does, they work hand in hand with the Police Department and the community during high profile events, during community events, during times in the city when we need that so-called buffer between the Police Department and the community because things have happened. These individuals have what is commonly referred to as street credibility. They've been out there, so to speak, in the game. They know the players. They live in these neighborhoods and they definitely have a genuine desire to help make things better in our city. We applaud them for that so I utilize them often. Every officer involved shooting that we have in the city of Cleveland, there are members of the Peace Makers alliance on scene working with myself and our officers to make sure that the factual, timely, correct information is given to the community because rumors start and they spread quickly. If you don't get the correct information out there then you spend most of your time trying to dispel those rumors. We work with our Peace Makers Alliance members and we give them that information so they can tweet and snapchat, Facebook, even face to face put that information out there to the community. We had an incident that happened in Cleveland earlier this year. Our officers were fired upon. They returned fire. Nobody was struck. They arrested the individual. We taped off an area that was the crime scene. Investigators came out to process the crime scene, to talk to the officers and talk to the arrested individual. Peace Makers Alliance guys were on the scene with us and a huge, huge boisterous group from the community because the word had spread that members of the division of police had shot an individual in the head, killed them and he was lying in the back yard dead and that's why we taped off this area. There was no one shot. There was no one even hurt on that scene. VIDEO TRANSCRIPT © University of Phoenix 2016 Police/Community Relations Page 2 We were able to have the members of the Peace Makers Alliance along with some of our people from the community relations to actually come out and start walking through and talking to the crowd to give them the factual information on what transpired that day. That calmed things down tremendously for us. We utilize Peace Makers Alliance guys on a daily basis. The Mayor of the city of Cleveland also started a One CLE hashtag during some troubled times we had earlier this year, this spring. We got the Peace Makers Alliance along with our clergy, along with our street outreach workers, along with our activists in the community and basically got all of them onboard to this One CLE. We are One Cleveland. My colleagues at the end knew that during the recent NBA finals that was sort of a slogan for the Cavaliers; we're all in. We turned this One CLE. We're all in this together as one. (Laughter) MALE SPEAKER: Thank you Chief. Thank you for reminding me of Cleveland. MODERATOR: I like the rivalry. I'm glad you guys were separated. (Laughter) CHIEF CALVIN WILLIAMS: Well the Mayor turned this One CLE. We got all of our community stakeholders together and when the announcement was made in a real high profile criminal trial we had activists, police officers, clergy, community people all out together walking the streets of Cleveland, talking to groups in the streets of Cleveland and urging people to respect the One CLE, to come together as one Cleveland to make sure that we get to the root of the issues that we have and we get to them in a positive way. We had a positive outcome from that. [