While the St. Louis County Police Department says it is making an effort to educate the public on use of force policy and give people a chance to provide input on revisions soon to be put in place, community leaders don’t see that effort as the most efficient use of time when it comes to ending police violence.
The department recently hosted two webinars last week. These webinars were meant to “guide the public through the current policy and then take comments about potential changes.”
Lt. Colby Dolly has been with the St. Louis County Police Department for 20 years and is responsible for research, policy and analysis within the department. He organized and has hosted the webinars, a format that came about due to the coronavirus. He may continue holding webinars due to an increase in accessibility for people.
John Chasnoff, co-chair of the Coalition Against Police Crimes and Repression, said he understands the need for accessibility, but doesn’t feel it’s the best way to solicit community comment.
“I think there needs to be some kind of counter presentation or a presentation from a different point of view,” he said, adding that he thinks the webinar format has a vacuum effect on the dialogue that occurs.
“What I’ve seen in the past is that community members have very real, lived experiences around these policies and how they are affected by them, and so they’ll often see what’s wrong with the policy,” Chasnoff said. “But they’re not policy experts, they haven’t talked through all the various policy alternatives. And so, when presented with an opportunity that’s more or less in a vacuum, the kind of feedback that you get in a forum like that is not always the most productive.”
Dolly said he understands that criticism, but has hope that people will make their voices heard. He also expressed his belief that changing these policies has potential to get police officers to think differently and act differently.
“People could have said anything critical of the police today and I’m not going to stop them from saying that,” Dolly said.
Dolly’s colleague, Sgt. Benjamin Granda, added he did not agree with Chasnoff’s vacuum comment.
“I would respectfully disagree with that. Today’s a perfect example on how it’s happening more publicly than ever before,” he said. “I don’t know how we might have made access to this dialogue any easier than we have today. We are taking that input, pairing it with case law, best practices, input, to continually improve.”
Blake Strode, Arch City Defenders executive director, was not aware of these specific webinars when asked, but expressed concerns in their effectiveness in ending police brutality.
Strode said the problem is the violence perpetrated by police against people, particularly against disenfranchised communities, during police interactions.
“So what I think we need to do is find ways to reduce policing in all of our lives,” Strode said.
St. Louis County Officer Shanette Hall agreed, noting there are a number of different things that need to be addressed when it comes to reducing police violence.
“I think it would be important for police officers to evaluate or re-evaluate the use of force policy, however it is extremely important, if not more important, to discuss de-escalation as much as possible,” said Hall, who is also a member of the Ethical Society of Police.
Hall said that while Missouri’s Peace Officer Standards and Training Commission has voted to require annual one-hour training sessions on de-escalation techniques and recognizing implicit bias for law enforcement, there’s more that needs to be done.
“People are becoming more involved and we have to get to the point where we reimagine what the police look like. I know we have the slogan ‘defund the police,’ but we really are at a point where we need to reimagine what policing looks like and what is most beneficial for communities.”
Strode added that he wants to see both county and city police departments scaled down, while other resources such as drug intervention specialists, mental health professions, emergency response and peer support see an increase in funding and involvement within the community.
“That’s why we’ve been really focused on building a better collective understanding, why we need to think more holistically through a lens of community well-being and community health that means shifting our reliance and our response from police to other resources.”
