By Peter Mathews, Kentucky.com
RICHMOND, Kentucky - City officials and police agreed yesterday to set up a community-relations council and take other steps to improve the department’s troubled relations with residents.
Those relations have been strained since a racially charged incident May 30 in which a young black woman was body-slammed by a white police officer, and some angry bystanders were then pepper-sprayed. Seven people, all black, were arrested.
In the months since, Police Chief Robert Stephens has acknowledged the need to improve the department’s diversity and its relationships not just with blacks, but with all residents.
At the time of the incident, two of the department’s 60 officers were black. The department has already agreed to hire a recent Kentucky Police Corps graduate and plans to add more blacks to the force.
The city hired Aaron Thompson, an Eastern Kentucky University sociologist, as a mediator and held three forums in August and September in which residents discussed racial issues. More than 200 attended in all.
The unusual agreement signed yesterday would set up the council as a liaison between the department and the community, primarily to improve communication.
The agreement does not have the force of law. Officials said some or all of it could be enforced through a City Commission vote, but there was no discussion of when that might occur.
The department also acknowledged that minority residents feel “particularly vulnerable” to the use of force by officers.
“The RPD agrees that fear, based solely on the race or ethnicity of an individual, is never a reasonable basis to justify the use of force,” the memorandum said.
Officers will be required to fill out a report each time force is used, and a complaint form will be developed for citizens to report allegations of misconduct.
The department has begun a variety of training programs on the use of force, human rights, ethics, racial profiling, mediation tactics and other topics. Thompson, officials from the U.S. Justice Department, and others are conducting the training.
Mostly, senior police officials said, officers must get to know the public better. They haven’t always had time to do that in the past, but the department has added about 15 people in the last year and a half and hopes to add more.
The department also will step up efforts to get officers to volunteer in athletics or school programs.
“Instead of them knowing you as a police officer, they know you as a person,” Assistant Chief Wanda Singleton said.
The agreement is “truly a step in the right direction,” said City Commission member Rob-ert Blythe, who is also president of the local NAACP chapter.