Photo by: Josie Heimsoth/Journal-World

Many people attended a second half-day workshop as part of the Strengthening Police and Community Partnerships program hosted by Lawrence Police Department and Department of Justice facilitators on Saturday, August 3, 2024.

To create better understanding between the Lawrence Police Department and the community it serves, Lawrence will need to talk about misunderstandings—about what the police do, about how they are perceived, and about how the community may feel.

It was a spinoff from Saturday’s police-community relations workshop, the second of two facilitated by the Department of Justice as part of LPD’s program to strengthen police-community partnerships. This one focused on brainstorming solutions to the problems identified in the previous one, and the biggest problem LPD and DOJ pointed to was a perceived them vs. us mentality between people and police.

Photo by: Josie Heimsoth/Journal-World

Officers Anthony Harvey and Katrice Woods present their solutions to the barrier to a perceived gap between people and the police on Saturday 3 August 2024.

LPD Officer Anthony Harvey said Saturday that officers can go a long way toward solving it by thinking about the community and putting themselves in another person’s shoes when responding to a difficult, stressful situation.

“Being able to empathize and feel how the community member is feeling during these traumatic events, whether it’s a high-priority call or just a normal routine call for the officer, is so important,” Harvey said.

Harvey was one of several dozen people — officers, advocates and other community members — who broke into small groups to discuss how to get past specific barriers between police and the people of Lawrence.

In total, the DOJ facilitators identified nine major barriers from the concerns expressed by the public at last weekend’s session. Apart from the us-and-them mentality, another was a perceived lack of transparency and accountability in the LPD.

Lois Orth-Lopes, a former Lawrence Public Schools teacher, said her group proposed incorporating additional steps for approval of police policy changes and wanted LPD to host events to educate the community about how the department works.

“If the police could have information sessions with different non-profits and the community, that will help increase the number of people who understand the role of the police and many other things,” Orth-Lopes said.

Harvey, for his part, said some community members were already interested in learning more about how officers were trained and how they could help shape LPD’s police conduct policies and procedures.

Participants also discussed something that can fuel the misconceptions about policing — social media.

Aris Grady, whose father, Myrone Grady, is with the Lawrence Police Department, addressed how social media can be extremely polarizing and one-sided. Many social media users are victims of “rage baiting,” which is interacting with posts that elicit an emotional response and continuing to interact with similar ones. Aris Grady said this can make it difficult for people to see both sides of a story, and this is important with people and LPD.

Photo by: Josie Heimsoth/Journal-World

Community members brainstormed solutions to the barriers from the first workshop part of the program to strengthen police and community partnerships on Saturday 3 August 2024.

“You are responsible for what you consume in the media, and not just for consuming data that confirms what you already believe,” she said. “It’s important to separate our local police department from national narratives.”

The other barriers identified were to effectively address conversations about mental health; lack of cultural inclusion and understanding; the possibility of people being triggered by police uniforms or equipment; community members who do not communicate well with police officers; how officers respond in times of crisis; homelessness and management of public spaces; and staffing challenges.

After the presentations from the community members, everyone voted on the solutions they thought would make the most change and be the most feasible. DOJ facilitators will compile a report highlighting the best solutions, which will be shared with LPD and the community at a future date.

“We’re going to implement ideas from this, and I don’t want you to feel like your time is wasted,” said Police Chief Rich Lockhart. “If we don’t, I want you to hold us accountable. I want you to know that I’m committed to this work. This is your police department.”