For many of us, watching cartoons as a kid is a great memory. Seeing the bad guys ignite long fuses leading to powder kegs and an eventual explosion was exciting, but relatively harmless. However, those of us experienced in law enforcement know that a real powder keg explosion would not be entertaining. But, in 2018, there is a fuse lit to a figurative powder keg that could explode and damage all police officers individually, professionally, and societally. In this situation, the lit fuse is a lack of mutual understanding or an unwillingness to relate to another for whom they really are. People decide to stick with their own perceptions, inexperience, labels, and misconceptions instead of trying to appreciate or empathize with other people. These strongly held stereotypes lead to discomfort, hatred, bullying, discrimination, depression, anger, suicide, homicide, and mass murder. It really doesn’t matter what specific group is targeted or where it occurs; the result is all too familiar to too many people in too many places.

Extinguishing the Fuse

A Washington State sheriff in Mason County decided he wanted to damp out the fuse in his community. To do so, Sheriff Casey Salisbury reached out to the Seattle Police Department (SPD)—whose dynamic attempts to reduce community unrest are well known—to change the culture within his agency and bring healing and understanding to his community before a crisis occurred. In early 2017, Sheriff Salisbury asked for the SPD’s assistance in holding a Community Outreach Training Conference. He was asking for assistance in training and educating his office and community, from a very rural region of Washington, which has not been traditionally known as a bastion of diversity. As the sheriff said to the SPD community liaison officer,

We don’t have as much diversity as Seattle, but we have people who live, vacation, and travel through my county who are perceived as being different, and sometimes treated poorly. I might get some heat, or even not get re-elected by talking about this kind of stuff down here, but that’s OK. It’s the right thing to do because the reality of this is that diversity doesn’t stop at the county line.¹

After enthusiastically agreeing to assist Sheriff Salisbury, the SPD assembled its team of experienced and knowledgeable speakers for the training conference. This team consisted of an African American SPD captain, a gay SPD officer, a Vietnamese member of the Department of Justice’s (DOJ’s) Community Relations Service, a Biased Crimes detective from SPD, a transgender King County sheriff’s deputy, and an employee of the Washington State Criminal Justice Training Commission. The point of this conference was to start a conversation and to share information that most participants hadn’t known before. The information shared at this training was not the typical bureaucratic diatribe and sound bites that many community meetings seem to devolve into. Instead, to be effective, the conference was designed to be an educational forum based on compassionate information, involving real people and real conversations about very real personal experiences. Some of these stories were very painful and uncomfortable for many in the room to hear. There was only one chance to get this training right, and Sheriff Salisbury was taking a personal and professional risk by presenting this information to a traditionally conservative community.

Community Outreach Training Conference

On the morning of March 9, 2017, a gathering of sheriff and deputies, police chiefs and officers, judges, prosecutors, community members, and members of the news media assembled for the community outreach event. It was interesting to see Seattle police officers and command staff assembling at a tribal casino 80 miles from their jurisdiction, casually conversing with rural law enforcement officials, politicians, local community members, students, and retirees. Likewise, the transgender teammate, a veteran King County deputy in full uniform, was talking with his counterparts from Mason County, who were completely unaware of his transgender identity. Except for the purpose of being a conference training, most of those in attendance would never have a reason to meet. The room was full of individuals with a mixture of life experiences, personal journeys, tragedies, and a thirst for knowledge, with a tinge of the apprehension and anxiety that come with learning something new. When the training began, the audience didn’t fully know what to expect, other than that they would be hearing from people they may have unknowingly been exposed to in their small slice of the world. The officers in the audience undoubtedly thought they could relate to other officers, but sharing one’s vulnerabilities, insecurities, and stories of discrimination are not traditionally spoken of in this profession.

Once everyone was assembled, the team members shared their stories.

The audience was clearly impacted by the SPD captain who talked about his youth as black child in the 1950s and 60s in a Seattle where segregated communities and neighborhoods were standard.

The audience heard from a gay SPD veteran officer who talked about how revealing his sexual preference during the early 1980s likely would have ended his career; the discrimination and bullying he would have experienced, as well as the likely danger of not being backed up by other officers on calls if they knew of his sexual orientation.

Those in attendance were dismayed by stories from the Vietnamese DOJ official who was forced to protect Ku Klux Klan members and others who advocated the elimination of his race from this earth as part of his service to his community.

Equally impactful were the words of the SPD’s Bias Crimes detective, whose work entails investigating the horrific events surrounding biased crimes and the lifelong trauma and depression these experiences have on victims.

The last two speakers were perhaps the most enlightening. When the transgender deputy took the stage, the room fell silent. Many people in the audience undoubtedly had a stereotyped image in their mind of transgender people, and they were forced to realize that their preconceptions did not match reality. The audience members were looking at a uniformed cop that looked just like every other police officer to them. The deputy began to tell his personal story about the struggles he had faced with not being comfortable with the sex he was born into; the depression and suicidal thoughts these struggles caused; and the fears of potentially losing his family, friends, and profession for revealing his secret. His firsthand revelations were sobering for all in the room.

The final speaker was the employee of the Washington State Criminal Justice Training Commission. Like the transgender officer, his experience wasn’t apparent at first glance. His story began with sharing the happiness and love he had for his family, and the audience was clearly touched by the level of adoration this man had for his son. Then, the speaker revealed that his teenage son had hung himself because he had been bullied and made fun of at school for being gay.

Aside from the sniffles coming from the veteran cops and community members in the room, the room was silent. Everyone present recognized that his child could have been their child; just like they realized the black captain, the gay cop, the Asian DOJ speaker, or the transgender deputy were all people they could relate to, despite their differences from one another. Those in the audience could relate to these stories and experiences—and thus to the people who lived them—simply because they took the time to come to the conference, to get out of their comfort zone, and to listen.

The audience walked away from this conference with a new understanding of the importance of empathy. Most realized the trauma and pain that comes from treating people differently and the unintended and tragic consequences that can accompany such pain. Those who spoke and shared their experiences considered themselves lucky to be able to do so—many never get that opportunity.

The Outcome

Looking back a year later, Sheriff Salisbury thought that his decision to help his community achieve understanding was the right thing to do, and the community outreach training had changed his life and the lives of many in his community for the better.

Naturally, not all community members agreed. As his son pointed out with brutal honesty, “Dad, you know there’s people in this town who hate you for doing this.” However, the sheriff also took strength from an equally honest comment from a longtime resident: “Thank you, Sheriff, for recognizing all people are of value.”² In the end, the numerous letters, emails, phone calls and conversations that followed the event were overwhelmingly positive. In general, the community was reassured that the outside world would not categorize Mason County as being intolerant or unaccepting of people because of their differences. This conference training began a new conversation for a community that wanted to try to be current in a new era. For those determined enough to plan, host, and attend this event, it was viewed as a new beginning and a cultural shift of the region’s rural enclaves.

Conclusion

This type of community connection can have a significant, positive impact with the residents of any jurisdiction: large or small, urban or rural. Community outreach by law enforcement is fluid—it has no boundaries as to what will work—and most of all—an outreach effort of any sort doesn’t hurt. It is encouraging that many current law enforcement personnel recognize that their agencies have not always been part of the solution in regard to diversity or community outreach, and they want that to change. The dynamics of the changing world have made jurisdictional policing boundaries less relevant and have made it critically important for police agencies large and small to share resources, expertise, and vision for community outreach in order to help the field as a whole.

Change is coming. Better it come from within.♦

Notes:

¹ Casey Salisbury (sheriff, Mason County, Washington, Sheriff’s Office), telephone call, 2017.
² Casey Salisbury, telephone call, April 2018.