Community organizer Joseph Frierson poses a line of questions to Chief Ken Miller.Ken Miller won applause and compliments from a group of east Greensboro residents and business owners who indicated in their comments that they are largely positive about his leadership since the new police chief was appointed in September.
“I’ve seen a difference in East Market Street since you’ve come here, and I commend you for that,” said Isa Abuzuaiter, who owns a gas station near NC A&T University.
About 60 people, roughly split between white and African-American and skewing elderly, attended the community meeting for the Eastern Patrol Division at Smith Senior Center. They also applauded Mayor Bill Knight, at-large Councilwoman Mary Rakestraw, District 2 Councilman Jim Kee and Assistant City Manager Michael Speedling when they were introduced.
The chief fielded questions about drug interdiction, and discussed the various ways drugs fuel crime. He addressed a plea from a woman who lives in an annexed area of Greensboro near McLeansville for more police patrols in her neighborhood. (“Greensboro is starting to get shaped like an octopus,” the chief said.) A description of the shape of the Eastern Patrol Division might be a monotone Jackson Pollock design with sprays arcing out into the Reedy Fork, McLeansville and Bass Chapel Road areas.
Miller responded to another citizen’s plea to get guns out of his neighborhood.
“I can’t stem the flow of weapons into any city,” the chief said. “The government can’t. They’ve even enacted bans on weapons of mass destruction, such as Chinese assault rifles. It didn’t work. All we can do is continue to police.”
Another resident asked the chief about street vendors, noting that she doesn’t like people to try to sell her food when she’s trying to go to an auto parts store. Miller noted that the issue does not really fall under the police department’s responsibilities. The Greensboro Legal Department is researching options for increasing regulation of street vendors. Kee said the matter is expected to come before council in coming months.
Tonight’s meeting largely followed the format of the previous engagement with residents in the Southern Patrol Division. Miller discussed plans to revamp the department’s disciplinary process, though in less detail than before.
The chief said, as an example, that when an officer is caught conducting an illegal search and seizure, discipline would depend on whether the officer knowingly violated the law or made a judgment error in good faith. He said it would be understandable though not technically legal if an officer were to break down a door under the hot pursuit doctrine if he saw someone running down the street with a TV but didn't specifically see the person enter the house. In contrast, the chief said he would not look kindly on an officer breaking down a known drug dealer's door without probable cause in the hope of finding drugs or weapons.
"You can never hijack the Constitution," the chief said. "And I won't allow my staff to do that. They're trained not to do that."
Miller and Lt. Mike Richey, acting commander for the Eastern Patrol Division, also discussed the department’s priority offender strategy. Miller said he and Assistant Chief Dwight Crotts plan to meet Guilford County Chief District Court Judge Joe Turner, District Attorney Doug Henderson and Wheaton Casey of pre-trial services to try to gain their support for keeping repeat offenders in jail until their trials come up.
Richey said the department has found that offenders charged with burglaries were bonding out and committing more crimes before their court dates. Richey said police recently arrested three individuals who were responsible for numerous burglaries. After the police went before a judge and obtained an order to deny bond, the number of burglaries in the area dramatically dropped, he said.
The lieutenant said that about three areas in the Eastern Patrol Division have experienced the highest number of residential burglaries: Phillips Avenue behind Claremont Courts public housing and the King’s Forest neighborhood; the area around Dudley High School; and the Lees Chapel Road area near Northwinds Apartments.
“I imagine in King’s Forest you’ve seen a lot of police cars,” he said.
In the past 40 days, the department has made 32 arrests for in-progress burglaries in the Eastern Patrol Division. Some of the arrests have resulted from proactive policing while others have come about because of residents making calls after observing suspicious activity.
“A neighbor will say, ‘This doesn’t look right: I sees a 15-year-old kid walking down the street, and it’s during school hours. It’s 90 degrees and he’s wearing a hoody,’” Richey said. “Someone sees feet hanging out of a window. It looks like someone is trying to get in a house. They hear a loud bang and suddenly the door is open. We get a call from someone saying, ‘I think my neighbor is getting robbed. Please send an officer over here.’”
Charles Cherry and Joseph Pryor, two former officers who were fired over the summer, attended the meeting. Having gone through a strained exchange with Cherry at a community meeting for the Southern Patrol Division a week earlier, Miller warned tonight that he would not discuss any past personnel decisions. Cherry and Pryor did not attempt to ask any questions tonight. Afterwards, Pryor said word had filtered out that they might be arrested if they tried to speak. Cherry, a former captain, was in charge of the Eastern Patrol Division until he was placed on administrative duty in June.
Some of the officers’ supporters did speak, but in general terms rather than about specifics of personnel decisions.
Lewis Brandon, a retired public school teacher and veteran of civil rights struggles in Greensboro dating back to 1960 said three reports – Trouble in Greensboro: A Report of an Open Meeting Concerning Disturbances at Dudley High School and North Carolina A&T State University, published in 1970; Black Perspective White Perspective, published in 1979; and the 2006 Greensboro Truth and Reconciliation Report – had recommended that Greensboro have a police review board with subpoena power.
Miller said he does not favor giving subpoena power to a police review board.
“You hold me accountable,” he said. “When you create an outside panel to decide matters of discipline, what you have done is effectively stripped me of my authority to match the responsibility you’ve given me.”
Miller went on to express the opinion that the complaint review committee currently in force is adequately equipped to provide an independent review.
“When they believe something’s wrong on a disposition, they challenge us on it,” he said. “I just handled my first one. They told me they didn’t think the disposition was right, and I agreed with them and reversed it. A complaint that was unfounded should have been exonerated.”
After the meeting, Miller said the appeal made by the complaint review committee did not make it clear whether the disposition should have been lighter or more severe; he just knew that they thought it was wrong.
Miller also responded to a question from Beloved Community Center community organizer Joseph Frierson about whether police administration is willing to learn from the past where it concerns social justice. The chief answered by discussing the 1979 Klan-Nazi shootings.
“The allegation was that the police department was conspicuously and deliberately absent from a conflict situation,” Miller said. “So, if there is anything for me to learn from past mistakes, my commitment to you and my commitment to everyone is that we will not be conspicuously or deliberately absent from conflict.”
Supporters of the ousted officers received some pushback from community leader Sharon Hightower, who asked after the chief received a rousing round of applause following his rebuff of Frierson: “Chief, what is your goal for this community and for this police department? Is it your goal to make sure we are safe, that I can go home and not have to worry about a gang following me? I can go home and not have to worry about my home, my taxpayer dollars being destroyed?”
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