Greensboro police Chief Ken Miller led his fourth community meeting on Monday, this time for the central patrol division at the Greensboro Historical Museum.
Many of the points in the chief's presentation had been made in previous meetings. A couple statements stuck out, to my ear.
“Ole Asheboro is a neighborhood that cries out for help," the chief said, making the argument that shoring up public safety in struggling neighborhoods benefits the city as a whole.
“With police in minority neighborhoods, it’s never a matter of if, but a matter of when there’s conflict,” he said, adding that being able to articulate the department’s core values will be beneficial in bridging perceived differences with minority communities when tensions arise.
“We want to stand up community watches," he said. "They are very effective.”
Miller discussed his effort to reorganize the department to have a balance of proactive “strike teams” and reactive personnel on hand to respond to calls for service.
He said he wants to prioritize the patrol function within the department.
“Patrol doesn’t work for the detective corps," he said. "The detective corps essentially works in support of patrol.”
The chief caught himself misspeaking about the number of officers employed by the Greensboro Police Department, citing 1,600 — a number closer to the staffing for the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department, where Miller was previously employed. The Greensboro Police Department employs about 640 officers. Given the number of times he referred to GPD staff as "you" and used the pronoun "I," I wondered if he was missing his old job already.
Charles Cherry and Joseph Pryor, two former officers who were fired from the department over the summer, did not attend this meeting and their names did not come up, although District 3 Councilman Zack Matheny seemed to be anxiously scanning the crowd for people who might disrupt the program.
I’m quoting the chief at length because while his remarks largely covered old ground, the substance is in the nuance.
“I will tell you that the disciplinary process changes that we’re making are not because of what you read in the paper over the summer and through the fall. They’re being made because — this process in this department is a process I am very familiar with and it is a process I have never liked. I have worked under this process and I’ve served time — it sounds like a sentence; it kind of was — in internal affairs. And I evaluated other processes out there.
“What happens in this process that the department currently uses is that the chief makes a disciplinary recommendation when someone violates a conduct rule — meaning a sustained complaint, a sustained allegation of misconduct. And I apply discipline. And then I basically put that out to the employee and say, ‘Here’s my discipline. I am sustaining it.’ Now, there’s an investigation that goes on that gives you all the documented information I need to make that decision, but I haven’t really heard from the employee beyond the employee's statement. I make a decision and then I tell the employee: ‘If you’re okay with it, sign here. And if not, you can request a hearing. And, by the way, that hearing is chaired by me.’
“If I already told the employee that I think they’re guilty of misconduct and now I’m telling them, ‘But if you want us to hear your side of it, just go ahead and ask for a hearing,’ that’s pretty intimidating.
"It meets all the tests of due process. It’s fair under the law. Other departments utilize the same process. I think departments primarily engage in those because it’s efficient and they can go through the burdensome task of managing discipline in their organization more efficiently. I’m less concerned about efficiency on that side because I want to balance the employee-management relationships that we have. And I want employees to have an opportunity to be heard before we make a decision so we can understand the facts that unfold for that employee in a context that he or she acted the way they did.”
Given the recent controversy over city council’s decision to impose a curfew on teenagers downtown, one might have expected residents in the central patrol division to have a lot of questions and comments about it. They didn’t. (A handful of business owners and restaurant workers on the Elm Street corridor did raise the issue with council during a briefing on Tuesday, and they were overwhelmingly opposed.)
Questions to the chief hit on more prosaic topics; enforcement of the city’s noise ordinance, identification of stolen jewelry and the relative merits of various approaches to home security were some.
Two additional community meetings have been scheduled. The first takes place at Pearce Elementary, located at 2006 Pleasant Ridge Road, on Dec. 9 at 6:30 p.m. The second takes place at the Warnersville Recreation Center, located at 601 Doak St., on Dec. 16 at 6:30 p.m.
NOTE: The date of the community meeting at Warnersville Community Center was inaccurately reported. The information has subsequently been corrected.
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