Derby Police Chief Gerald Narowski was the first to admit it — he has some work to do.
During a discussion about race and policing Wednesday night in Ansonia, Derby High School senior Chester Dockery Jr. rose to address Narowski, explaining why some students have “hatred toward the cops.”
“We don’t even know who you are,” Dockery said.
When police come to the high school, he said, it’s usually only to respond to a problem. And they usually have a demonstrably easier time interacting with white kids.
“But the minorities, we don’t even know you guys as much,” Dockery said. “So we don’t know if you really care about us like how you say you do.”
The chief’s assessment was immediate: not good enough.
“We’re not doing a good job if that’s how you feel, because we care about everybody.” Narowski told Dockery. “I work for you. I answer to you. So we have to do a better job on that if we’re not reaching out to you.”
The back-and-forth encapsulated Wednesday’s forum as a whole — a frank discussion and a good “first step,” as Greg Johnson, President of the Ansonia NAACP, put it.
“I look forward to the second step,” he went on.
Johnson said the next step will involve following up with police about several issues raised Wednesday during the two-hour forum, which attracted about 60 people to the Doyle Senior Center on Main Street.
’We Have Some Problems’
The discussion was moderated by Diane Stroman of TEAM, Inc.
Johnson began the discussion by noting that the lower Naugatuck Valley is relatively quiet in terms of police-community tension — at least compared to similar communities across the country where large-scale demonstrations against acts of police violence have occurred.
But that doesn’t mean everything’s great.
“We have been lucky here in the Valley that our situations haven’t escalated to some of the towns similar to the Valley towns,” Johnson said.
“What goes on in New Haven doesn’t go on in Ansonia,” he went on. “What goes on in Bridgeport doesn’t happen in Shelton. Their problems are not always our problems. But we have some problems.”
The most obvious — a lack of diversity within police departments themselves.
Solutions?
Seymour Police Chief Michael Metzler said his department is “trying like crazy” to attract more minority applicants.
Narowski said that police jobs used to attract 700 to 800 applicants. Now they consider 200 lucky.
“We’re trying to diversify, but we’re not getting the applicants,” he said.
Ansonia Police Chief Kevin Hale said a few years ago he and Bob Goldson, an Ansonia police commissioner, “pleaded” with congregations at five local churches to encourage African-Americans to apply to police department openings.
“It didn’t help,” Hale said, challenging everyone in the room to help fix the problem. “We can’t do it alone.”
Hale said Ansonia cops had more success when they held forums during classes at Ansonia High School last year where they invited students to ask questions they had about policing.
“I think we did five sessions, and in every one of those sessions, every one of those kids was late for their next class because the teachers said ‘No, we’re going to keep going and we’ll give them a pass to their next class,’” Hale recalled.
One idea endorsed by seemingly everyone in attendance Wednesday — a return of the popular Police Athletic League in which police coach kids in sports and serve as mentors.
That is, if the funding can be found for it.
About half of those in attendance Wednesday were either public officials or leaders of local nonprofits and community groups.
Even U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal dropped in to note how “immensely proud” he was of the Valley’s historically welcoming stance to immigrant and minority populations.
Common ground will be easier to find as a result, he said.
Metzler said one thing all police departments should do to gain more trust from the communities they protect — be open.
“I think we’ve all come up a little short in terms of letting people know what we’re doing,” the Seymour chief said. “We need to be more transparent on everything we’re doing.”
Johnson said after Wednesday’s forum that the most important thing to come out of it remains to be seen — “the followup.”
He said he hopes to schedule another forum in the coming weeks to continue the discussion started Wednesday.
“I’ll have conversations with the chiefs later, maybe move it to a different town just to have more community members involved, and go from there,” Johnson said.
