By Wesley Young
Winston-Salem Journal
KERNERSVILLE, N.C. — Kernersville Police Chief Ken Gamble knows he needs to hire more minority police officers. So does Carl Robbins, the police chief in Mooresville.
With black and Hispanic populations rising, and becoming increasingly suburban, law-enforcement leaders in towns near North Carolina’s larger cities say they have an uphill climb in attracting minority officers.
Kernersville came under fire this spring when Forsyth County Commissioner Walter Marshall, who is black, advocated that the school system end its contracts with Kernersville to police schools because the town has no black officers.
“I hope Kernersville can move on and do what is right and be inclusive in their employment practices,” Marshall said, adding that he’s not trying to put the town in a bad light.
“They are supposed to be such a progressive town, and I have friends that are moving out to retirement homes there,” Marshall said. “They do a good job of planning and are doing some good things.”
Gamble said that in an ideal world, someone could look at members of the Kernersville police force and see the diversity of the community reflected there.
“Your service force should look like your service population,” Gamble said. “We are looking for different ways to recruit the people we want. Unfortunately, my positions are frozen, and I can’t hire anybody.”
Blacks and Hispanics have risen from 16 percent of Kernersville’s population in 2000 to 22 percent as of the 2010 Census.
Among the town’s force of 65 sworn officers, one is Hispanic, one is an American Indian and four are white females. The rest are white males.
Gamble would dispute any claims that his officers treat people unfairly.
“All of our officers go through training in how to deal with different people, different cultures and people with disabilities,” he said. “We understand that not everyone is the same. In this job, 90 percent of it is your people skills. If you can’t interact with people, you are not going to be a successful officer.”
Some blacks in Kernersville tell a different story. James Jackson, whose barbershop is in Kernersville, said the town has a reputation as a “tough town on blacks.” He thinks the town police conduct more traffic checks in minority neighborhoods than warranted.
“I would feel a little better to have someone who resembles me stopping me sometimes,” Jackson said. He added he doesn’t sense racism in the town in general, but the lack of police officers “kind of sends an overtone of racism.”
One of Jackson’s customers, Thomas McCray, who is black, said police stopped him one night after following him as he drove home in his black truck. The officer told McCray he was looking for a black suspect who was supposed to be driving a black truck.
“That could be anybody,” McCray said. He doesn’t think the officer should have stopped him.
Rosa Jones, a black woman who has lived in Kernersville for many years, said she has never felt that the town was anything but “warm and receptive” to blacks. She said she didn’t know why the police force doesn’t have black officers, but added that “when it comes to keeping schools safe, the color of the individual would not matter.”
Police Chief Carl W. Robbins in Mooresville, north of Charlotte, said towns near the state’s larger cities have a tough time recruiting black officers.
“There is so much competition for diversity out there,” Robbins said. “We don’t have any blacks. That is really very difficult. We have not been criticized, but I have tried to be in front of that because we need more diversity.”
Chiefs in such places as Kernersville and Mooresville say they have to compete with larger cities that offer greater opportunities for advancement.
“We are close to Charlotte, and they obviously pay more,” Robbins said. “Everybody from the federal agencies down to local cities wants to be diverse, so we are competing with all the other law-enforcement agencies for good candidates.”
Kernersville is in the middle of Winston-Salem, High Point and Greensboro.
Towns its size don’t typically have a police academy program that can recruit potential officers and give them training so they can earn their certification. Smaller towns and cities often rely on hiring people who already have certification. And the vast majority of those officers, Robbins said, are white.
“You start with a small number (of minorities) to begin with and, in a lot of times, you don’t have people to choose from,” he said.
George Erwin Jr., the former sheriff of Henderson County, said he managed to hire three Hispanic officers to do policing before he retired in 2006. Recruiting minority candidates involved a lot of interaction in the community, he said. Erwin, who is white, mentored a young black child, was president of a club for boys and girls, and took part in father-son events in the Hispanic community.
“We did everything we could to recruit,” Erwin said. “Sometimes when we would find people, they did not have their citizenship. I helped one of my employees get her U.S. citizenship. Another officer came here as a very young child, and no one ever told him how to get his citizenship. We got his citizenship for him.”
Now, Erwin is the executive director of the N.C. Association of Chiefs of Police. He said law-enforcement leaders have to find ways to break down the walls of mistrust between police and minorities.
“What I think you do is build up relationships, because that is what life is about,” Erwin said.
Gamble said Kernersville is looking for better ways to get the word out that the town is looking for minority officers. But he has no jobs to offer at present.
“I’ve got approval to hire people as trainees and send them through rookie school,” Gamble said. “We have that flexibility. Unfortunately, I have frozen positions and I can’t hire.