Police chief candidates detail community outreach
The concept of community-oriented policing dominated most of the final public forum with the three finalists vying to become Milwaukee’s next police chief.
The three candidates, all from outside the Milwaukee Police Department, participated Saturday in a three-hour, online forum hosted by the Fire and Police Commission.
About a third of the discussion centered on how each candidate would involve the community with policing efforts, underlining a desire for greater collaboration and involvement with a department that in recent years has been criticized for straying from that approach.
The three candidates are Malik Aziz, a major with the Dallas Police Department; Chris Davis, a deputy chief with the Portland (Ore.) Police Bureau; and Hoyt Mahaley, a supervisory special agent with the FBI.
The chosen candidate would replace former Chief Alfonso Morales, who was ousted by the commission earlier this year.
The Fire and Police Commission is working to name a new chief by Dec. 3.
Here are some highlights from each candidate’s remarks on community-oriented policing:
Hoyt Mahaley
Mahaley emphasized several times that as chief he would focus attention on engaging with youth. He expressed interest in creating a police-sponsored athletic league for kids and visiting schools regularly for recruitment purposes and to help build trust with police.
He said he wanted to create better pathways for vulnerable youth to avoid falling into the criminal justice system. He said building partnerships with the business community would be “essential” for developing that.
Mahaley also said he would prioritize building relationships with a range of organizations, from youth-centered groups such as the Boys & Girls Clubs, to clergy groups and crime-reduction organizations such as the Sojourner Family Peace Center.
“I’ll grab resources wherever I can get them to make that happen,” Mahaley said. “I want these young people, instead of seeing violence … I want them to see something better. My police department will be part of that solution.”
Chris Davis
Davis stressed the importance of sitting down with community leaders to arrive at a shared understanding of an issue and its proper solution, rather than imposing a police department’s understanding of an issue and solution onto a community.
To illustrate this, Davis described an episode from several years ago in which students at two high schools in a particular area of Portland were repeatedly having “really negative” encounters with officers. He said he worried this could one day escalate to police using force, so he consulted with a group of community leaders.
The solution they arrived at was to have clergy leaders walk the beat with officers, so youth would see the two together.
“We were able to show the youth at these two schools that the police and the authority figures and community leaders that they recognize as more legitimate than us … were on the same page,” Davis said. “It had a remarkable impact. It solved the problem.”
Malik Aziz
Aziz has also spoken about having a particular focus on engaging with youth. He also expressed an interest in creating an athletics league, as well as working with schools to ensure restorative justice practices are in place.
Aziz also spoke about how officers should take a more active role in referring troubled youth to nongovernmental organizations that can provide mentoring and education.
He said it’s important for police to solicit approval from the public on its strategies. He called policing a 50-50 partnership with the community.
“Now it’s more important than anything,” he said.