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The panel, hosted over Zoom.
Both Pastor Ulysses Youngblood and Officer Alan Luna have had negative experiences with police. Both have tried to turn those experiences into ways to improve policing.
“When my son went to college, he was racially profiled” said Pastor Youngblood, “It wasn’t pretty at all. Our family was extraordinarily worried.”
Officer Luna agreed. “When I came from the Dominican Republic to New York, I noticed that Hispanic communities held a deep mistrust,” he said. At first, he thought it was because of policing in these communities’ home countries, where officers “are often corrupt.” But one day, he realized the roots existed in New York, too. “When I was younger, I had a negative experience with the NYPD,” he said. “It made me dislike the police.”
Poster advertising the event
Pastor Youngblood and Officer Luna joined other people from the Valley in a “community conversation” Thursday night aimed at building “equity, justice and compassion for all” across the police-community divide. The online panel came together to discuss race and policing.
Pastor Youngblood chairs the Valley MLK Committee, which hosted the forum. The panel included police officers — Ansonia Chief Andy Cota, Officer Michael Barry, Officer Luna, and Officer Shawn Mendenhall — and local activists Maliqa Mosley-Williams and Breon Sanders. Moderators collected questions from the public before the event, but attendees could still put questions in the ‘Chat’ feature.
One question asked about mistrust and disconnect between the public and police.
“This is a historical issue, not just one that began in 2019 and 2020,” said Chief Cota. “Mistreatment and as a result, mistrust, goes back many years.” To heal this mistrust, he added, os a slow process that required building meaningful relationships with local communities.
“I always tell my officers, when you’re in the neighborhood don’t just roll up with your windows closed and sit inside,” Chief Cota said. “You need to get out of the car and talk to people.”
“It starts with one person at a time,” added Officer Luna. “You need to be transparent about how you can help people: what do you have, what you need? Here are the resources I have.” Police, he argued, should be the channel that connects people to services, such as housing and food stamps. “It’s hard to do that when people don’t trust us,” he said.
Besides police efforts to increase trust, panelists also emphasized the public’s role in building trust.
“After what happened to my son, I could have taken that message to believe all officers are bad, I could have built a stereotype in my brain,” said Pastor Youngblood. Soon after, however, his son-in-law became a police officer in Connecticut.
“My son in law is an excellent police officer,” he said. “And it made me understand both sides of the coin.” Putting that stereotype aside, he said, is what has allowed him to work for change.
