www.sppdrecruiting.org<\/a>) states, \u201cIf you want a career in service and you want to serve with purpose, there\u2019s no better place to do that than the city of St. Paul,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI think we\u2019ve got to get out there and do a better job interfacing with the community and making \u2018real\u2019 connections. So, if you\u2019re going to be a police officer, it doesn\u2019t mean your first city job will be in the police department. Maybe working with Parks and Recreation or City Works will give a candidate the type of general preparation that will help them qualify to be a good officer,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWhat we really want is a city full of employees that are from St. Paul, who perhaps live here, and understand the city they are committed to serve. That doesn\u2019t mean that anyone who wasn\u2019t born here, or lives here wouldn\u2019t make a good officer. The real challenge is having to work more closely with our community residents. And that\u2019s about transparency, being honest when a police officer makes a mistake. It\u2019s a balancing act. We must be trustworthy and accountable, but we must also make sure we\u2019re not closing the door of interest to viable future officers. And that door must be opened to community stakeholders, legacy institutions, and residents who know and understand their history and the importance of relationships and coalitions,\u201d Henry said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThere is a process. Are you a part of that process? Is the process fair? That\u2019s really what we want to make sure the community believes,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe are not \u2018the\u2019 police department. We are \u2018your\u2019 police department,\u201d Henry said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIf we earn our stripes, perhaps we can get people like Al McFarlane, other community and religious leaders, and organizations like the NAACP to help us recruit potential candidates a lot more successfully than has been done in the past.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Henry said community activists, scholars, and leaders can come together to impact decisions. \u201cWhen my good friend, Yusef Mgeni was one of the vice presidents for the St. Paul chapter of the NAACP, I was doing the police body-worn camera program. A big part of that was that the law covering body cameras was written in 1981. It was government data. So many technological changes occurred by the time 2015 and 2016 rolled around. The law that the NAACP was advocating or pieces of it were things the SPPD agreed with. In fact, I was the liaison working with Mgeni. We testified separately from every other law enforcement lobbyist group in the state. Many changed their minds about policy and collective power after seeing the two of us work together. It was clear that \u2018we\u2019 are the police, and \u2018you\u2019 are the public was no longer applicable in the current climate of transparency and transformation.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Mgeni added that the legislature has the final say in terms of policies affecting law enforcement departments across the state. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe NAACP was one of a coalition of about 26 national organizations that put together a document entitled \u201cPrinciples for Body Camera Policies. We lobbied in the state legislature to prevent officers or members of law enforcement from reviewing body camera footage, both audio and video, prior to their first interview or prior to making a statement about an incident which was captured on a body camera. Within the conference committee, it was decided that each local law enforcement agency could create its own body camera policy provided it did not supersede the state policy. There are 800 different municipalities and law enforcement entities in the state of Minnesota. And as a result, and Minneapolis is the interesting exception — most departments either require or allow their law enforcement employees to review body camera policy before being interviewed or before writing their initial report or making a statement. Minneapolis is the one notable exception, and I never thought that Minneapolis would be on point in terms of a body camera policy, that could serve as a model for the state,\u201d Mgeni said, offering kudos to Minneapolis for having such a policy because if you look at the Hennepin County Sheriff’s Department, they use facial recognition. Someone could go to a civil, lawful protest, block party, or parade, have a body camera on them, and just rotate their body. civil, lawful protest or a parade or a block party or what have you, have the body camera on and just rotate their body.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The NAACP has had a good relationship with the SPPD dating back to 2001 when Corky Finney was the Chief. We came into an agreement that was negotiated with the assistance of the U.S. Justice Department, the NAACP and its representatives which included Hallie Q. Brown, the African American Leadership Council, the Interdenominational Black Ministerial Alliance, the city attorney\u2019s office, the mayor\u2019s office, and the chief of police. For almost three years, an addendum to the 2001 agreement has been negotiated due to the addition of body cameras, military equipment, and greater technological means of communication, outreach, and data sharing. An agreement was signed a few months ago by the NAACP, the police department, and the City of St. Paul, Mgeni said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Axel Henry, the newly appointed St. Paul police chief, is said to be just what the citizens of the city and state ordered. Henry\u2019s reputation leans toward the highest respect for his personal and professional journeys, his family, and being a firm believer in fairness, honesty, hard work, innovation, and equality across the board. \u201cI\u2019ve […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"off","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[422,1935,1946,1945],"class_list":["post-2976","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-naacp","tag-police","tag-sppd","tag-st-paul-police-department","et-doesnt-have-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2976","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2976"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2976\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2978,"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2976\/revisions\/2978"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2976"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2976"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2976"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}