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Hey police, we can do better!

By Chief Joseph A. Roark - Pelham NH Police Department | Jun 20, 2020

I like everyone else in the country watched in utter disbelief of the abhorrent killing of George Floyd at the hands of then Minneapolis Police Officer Derek Chauvin that fateful day in May. George Floyd’s unnecessary death went against everything that I, and all the police officers I know for that matter, believe in and want for the communities we protect and serve.

I have been a police officer in New Hampshire for almost 24 years. In fact, I was one of the estimated 100,000 police officers hired within the United States through then President Clinton’s original “Community Oriented Policing”/COP grants. My generation of officers know no other style of policing other than community-based policing and yet somehow it seems we are still falling short of some of our community’s expectations.

The resulting ferocity of the country’s unrest caused by George Floyd’s death was alarming but predictable. This is not the first time I have worked through a period of anti-police sentiment inflicted upon ourselves as law enforcement officers by at best questionable and at worst racially biased police actions.

It is my opinion that we as police officers in Granite State conduct ourselves in a consistently professional manner with overwhelmingly public support. The results of our efforts speak for themselves as New Hampshire is consistently ranked as one of the safest states in the country.

However, New Hampshire law enforcement we can do an even better job policing our communities. The focus of much of our current training is officer safety orientated. The mantra to our newest officers in training is often some iteration of “there are no routine calls”, “anyone can be a threat”, or “never let your guard down”. This advice is grounded within a real-world basis however the resulting ingrained hypervigilance must be balanced by the golden rule of treating others as you want to be treated.

While the hue and cry by some members of the public to defund the police seems ill advised and extreme their call for a decrease in officious and insensitive policing is warranted. We cannot accomplish our main goal of community care taking until we firmly establish ourselves within the community rather than as detached overseeing referees.

More of our academy and in-service training must be devoted to people skills. These people skills should include mediation, conflict resolution and de-escalation techniques. Like many professions the most successful police officers are the ones who have mastered their interpersonal skills. Once our officers are more comfortable relating to the citizens they serve collaboration towards community problem solving will undoubtedly follow.

As the father of modern policing Sir Robert Peel so famously wrote back in 1829, “The police are the public and public are the police; the police being only members of the public who are paid to give full time attention to duties which are incumbent on every citizen in the interests of community welfare and existence.” In order for us as police officers to regain the confidence of all segments of our communities we must embrace this ideal and remember that we are the people and not apart from the people.

Respectfully, insensitive than

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