- [Narrator] This is a production of WEDU PBS, Tampa St. Petersburg, Sarasota.

(bright music) Premier Eye Care was a leader in national managed eyecare with 4 million insured members nationwide through its network of optometrists, ophthalmologists and specialists recognized for best practices and delivery of care, associate engagement and commitment to the community.

Premier Eye Care was proud to support, That's all I'm saying, with Ernest Hooper.

For more information, go to PremierEyeCare.net.

(tense music) (lively music) - It's been more than a year since the death of George Floyd, the protests that followed and calls for police reform.

While attention is being given to systemic racism, today's African-American law enforcement officers are challenged to address that racism and the egregious behavior of fellow officers.

Some call them sellouts for being police officers but at the same time, these officers grapple with the risk of being treated unfairly while they're off duty and in civilian clothes.

On this episode, we'll discuss the challenges of today's black law enforcement officers and the ways departments are tackling diversity.

We start with a look back at history.

Leon Jackson is the only surviving member of the courageous 12.

A group of St. Petersburg police officers, who in 1965, dared to challenge the city's racist regulations.

He's a man who overcame segregation but now watches a new generation deal with the 21st century version of racial strife in America.

- When I first came on the police department, the people in the street gave me that name, baby face.

(Leon chuckles) I came on the police department, October 3rd, 1963 and that's when I found out the police department was not totally integrated.

We African-American police officers we could only investigate complaints from African-American citizens.

We could only arrest African-American citizens.

We could not work in a white neighborhood.

We could not investigate complaints from white citizens.

We could not even arrest whites during that time.

However, the white police officers had unlimited authority.

They can work all over the city.

They can investigate complaints with all its citizens.

They could arrest everybody.

- [Ernest] In 1965, just a year after the civil rights act was passed, 12 of the departments, 15 African-American police officers filed a lawsuit, they wanted the same treatment as her fellow white officers.

- We had two meetings with the chief of police to discuss the racial attitude that was against us at the police department.

We requested a third meeting with the chief and at that point he refused to meet with us anymore.

So that told us straight then that the city would not gonna change in our favor.

- Weren't you worried about losing your job, filing a lawsuit against your own employer?

- We had to make a change.

Remember we paved the way we were the Jackie Robinson of police integration.

- [Ernest] Victory came two years later when the us circuit court ruled in favor of the 12 officers.

- We felt that we had accomplished our mission to change the racism at the St Petersburg police department.

This lawsuit did not only help African-Americans in law enforcement, it helped African African-Americans to get jobs in city hall, it helped African-Americans to get jobs in the county building, it helped African Americans to get jobs in the court system.

It helped African-Americans to get jobs on the fire department.

- Did you realize it would be so impactful when you first filed the lawsuit?

- No, I did never dream that it would be that impactful.

- What was that first day like when you could patrol a white neighborhood?

- Didn't know how to get the snail out of Shore Acres, I had asked the white police officers, how you get the snail out of Shore Acres?

But then again, I had broke the barrier.

- And it had to be something to be assigned one of the most affluent areas in the city of St. Petersburg.

- It felt that there were more educated white that would accept me better.

- That's my theory about it.

- [Ernest] Yeah.

More than 50 years after he and his colleagues broke the color barrier, today's police officers regardless of their race, face a new level of scrutiny and a new set of challenges.

- The police officer now are living in a different atmosphere than when I was on the police department.

They Are doing something bad to our people and they know that they can get away with it, see.

They feel that they're gonna be protected because people gonna have a bad attitude to our police officers.

- [Ernest] The courageous 12 have been recognized by St. Petersburg city council and with a memorial at the St. Pete police department.

As the last surviving member, Mr. Jackson has written a book about the experience to ensure their legacy lives on.

- It's my responsibility to carry the banner on for those 11 other officers that are gone.

That lawsuit happened right in St. Petersburg, Florida.

Where we 12 African-American police officers had the nerve to file a lawsuit knowing we could have been fired, we could have lost our jobs but we stood our ground and we did not back down.

- Leon Jackson paved the way for Tampa Bay's African-American law enforcement officers but there are still challenges.

Coming up by joining the force was the only way to enact change for one local officer and what departments are doing to reestablish trust in their communities.

(bright music) You've heard the saying, be the change you wanna see in the world.

For one local Sheriff's Major joining the force was the way to make a difference in his community, both internally and externally.

It hasn't been easy but he finds pockets of hope every time he puts on his uniform.

Law enforcement proved to be a steady constant during Anthony Collins childhood and Tampa's College Hill neighborhood.

- It was not uncommon to come outside and the police have people prawned out in my backyard from vehicle pursuits, foot pursuits, it wasn't uncommon.

The helicopter in general wasn't uncommon, it was a very frequent occurrence.

- [Ernest] With a strict upbringing, he didn't have direct contact with police but he sometimes questioned the actions that he witnessed.

Mentors challenged him to do something about it.

- And they said, "Hey, you got no right to complain about anything if you don't put yourself in a position to affect change.

And the only way to affect change is to be a part of the solution."

That solution has led to a 17 year career with the Hillsborough County Sheriff's office.

Today.

Major Collins is a highly decorated officer commanding district five, one of the busiest in Hillsborough County.

Have you had any pushback from people in African-American community questioning your career choice?

- Some folks, typically it's the people who are kind of still in the phase of getting to know me, people who when they're in the process of building that relationship and they don't know you and they don't know, I had a family member who was arrested by the same agency I worked for, they don't know some of the issues that I dealt with growing up in the same community but once they get to break down those barriers and they say, "Man, maybe this guy gets it."

- [Ernest] Major Collins admits there's a difference in how he's treated when he's in and out of uniform.

- I could go to Walmart today in uniform and everybody's jumping over, falling over their feet to speak.

And I can go to the same Walmart tomorrow in plain clothes and I got 15 people looking at me like, they don't know what I'm gonna go do at the store other than other than spend money.

So, from a broader sense, I think those are some of the societal issues that we are seeing right now is, yeah, there is a difference when I'm in uniform versus when I'm out of uniform.

- [Ernest] Across the bay St. Petersburg police chief, Anthony Holloway also understands the challenges of being black and being blue.

- We all love this uniform, that's the reason why we became police officers, so, we try to honor both.

When I take this uniform off, I'm a black man.

When I have the uniform on, I'm a black man and I'm still a police officer.

Like you said, that that line is so fine because what happens is, the people in the community see you as a different way.

And sometimes when you're out there, people either see you as black or they see you as a police officer, they never put those two together.

- [Ernest] George Floyd's death last summer has brought a renewed scrutiny of law enforcement.

It's also highlighted the importance of improved community relationships and the need for law enforcement agencies to mirror the neighborhoods they serve.

- I'll just paraphrase something that Dr. King said, "We fear each other because we don't know each other."

A lot of times in the African-American community or the minority community, they only see an officer come into the community, take someone to jail, take a police report and leave.

Why not come into that community and sit down and have that conversation, so, you know me as a person not someone that when I come into their neighborhood something bad is gonna happen.

And the same thing with the officers, if they work in those communities they get the perception of everybody in that neighborhood's bad, they never get a chance to talk to the good people.

So, let's talk to the good people and that's what we're doing here now.

- Chief Holloway supports community policing, encouraging his officers to get to know the people in their patrol areas and he leads by example.

- [Holloway] If I can show the officers, I can get out of my car and go talk to people in the community, then they should be able to do it.

- [Emcee] Everybody clap your hands.

- [Ernest] With all of the demands of law enforcement both officers say, "Keeping up morale can be a challenge."

- The morale goes up and down, sometimes a lot officers and I felt it too myself that everybody's against us but when you go out there and talk those other 99%, you find out they're not against you they just want you to explain to them what's going on.

- Do you think we'll get to the point where the community is not demonizing law enforcement?

Where moms are telling kids trust police, trust law enforcement?

Can we get there?

- I think we can, I think it's gonna take some time.

I think each individual encounter each individual interaction with the community, it's how we change it.

- George Floyd's death led to congressional consideration and 21 states, including Florida have passed police reform bills in the past year.

Coming up a discussion on what reforms mean for law enforcement agencies and how attracting more men and women of color to the policing ranks could change the conversation.

(bright music) Being a law enforcement officer has always been a challenging profession.

Today officers have to be crime fighters and counselors.

They deal with the broken mental health system, calls to defund or reform their departments and an enormous level of scrutiny.

It's no surprise officers are leaving the profession in droves and replaced retiring officers is a struggle for many departments around the country.

Joining us to dive into this complex issue are Dan Slaughter, police chief for the City of Clearwater and the DeKalb County, Georgia police chief Mirtha Ramos who represents NOBLE, the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives.

Thanks for joining us today.

In the wake of so many high profile cases where unarmed blacks have died in the hands of law enforcement, elected officials and advocates have called for police reform from having unarmed civilians handled nonviolent situations to changing how officers are trained to ending choke holes, what reforms, if any, do you think need to be implemented?

We'll start with you Chief Ramos.

- Well, I definitely think there should be some form of reform.

Definitely, we all need to have body-worn cameras that way capture our daily interaction with the public, sometimes it helps the dispose concerns that are brought to your attention, so body-worn cameras are definitely useful.

Use of force, should definitely be reformed into better training emphasis on deescalation.

And I'm also a fan of having civilians answer low level cost per service.

I believe officers are going from call to call and when you go from a domestic high emotional call to now having to go to a low level call, sometimes it's a little bit of a challenge.

So to have civilians answering those type of calls will definitely help officers do their job a little bit better and take the stress off of them in their day-to-day activities.

I also feel like we need to have mandated deescalation protocols, where you can behave a certain way doesn't mean that you should.

So we have to provide options to our officers rather than saying, if this happens, you can go up to this level, there should be alternatives that are provided to the officers.

But above all, I think we need to emphasize on accountability.

We can create all the reforms that we want but if we don't hold our officers accountable, we're gonna continue to be in the same boat that we are today.

- Chief Slaughter, what do you think?

What reforms would you like to see?

- Well, all the ones that Chief Ramos mentioned, I'm completely supportive of.

I think those are really great ideas.

What I would mention in addition to that is in this profession, I think you have to be in a continual process of reform.

We never should be in a spot where a bad incident happens and now we're launching into reforms.

We should be continually looking at our patterns and practices and our training and our policies and trying to be in a process of continuous improvement.

I think moving forward, I think that some of the reforms that are gonna become emerging best practices are continuing to expand co-responder teams or the use of civilians in some very low level calls and use our resources more wisely in that space but also just expanding our scenario-based training with the advancements in technology for the virtual interactive training which will give that officer immediate feedback if he's properly deescalating a situation and I think that kind of affirmation or reinforcing behavior is a very valuable training tool and I think you'll see us be able to take full advantage of that moving forward.

- Oh, those suggestions from both of you sound great.

So, it's important to have law enforcement agencies that reflect the demographic makeup of the communities they serve.

How difficult is it to recruit officers of color, given the heightened sense of mistrust among some black community members?

- Well, I'll take that first.

So for us, we've been very fortunate here in the DeKalb County and our police department actually mirrors our demographics in the community, but it has become more difficult to recruit across the board but we have been fortunate that we mirror our community.

- Chief Slaughter?

- Yeah, we're pretty close to mirroring our community.

Clearwater is about nine to 10% African-American with regard to that particular demographic but I will admit it's been a significant challenge and what I'd like to be able to do better at that we tend to struggle is even with those numbers being what they are, they aren't necessarily people from the Clearwater community.

So, I would like to see African-Americans from Clearwater and try to enhance the ability to onboard them to this profession.

But quite honestly, Mr.Hooper, it has been a challenge because many of my African-American officers, they see a little more abuse verbally from the community that the criminal element that they may deal with in some of those communities and so trying to get them to kind of go back into their home community and deal with that it's been a challenge and it's certainly a extremely competitive atmosphere down here as many chiefs will probably have the same issue from just competing for some of those minority candidates, if there is a minority candidate that meets the requirements, there's a good chance they're gonna get hired if we can get them, we just need to really encourage them.

And I think we're doing it a lot in the space on the public side or the government side, this is where I think we have to challenge our community to take a very active role in promoting this as a good profession that people can go in and make a big difference.

I love Chief Dan Brown when he was in Texas before going to Chicago, when he kind of just said, "We're hiring."

And I think that kind of challenged the community to kind of come out and play an active role in making your community better.

- Yeah.

Certainly the community can help in a number of ways.

So let me ask you this, we just spoke to two black officers about the challenges they face in terms of building and growing trust with their community, what can agency leaders do to help those officers who walk that fine line between dedication to their respective agencies and wanting to serve the community?

Chief Slaughter, we'll start with you this time.

- Well, I think from our perspective, we try to really support a heavily engaged workforce with the community.

And so certainly we would try to foster that kind of support to any officer that wanted to kind of just be an active participant.

And we do that through stressing the value an the importance of non enforcement, positive interaction in the communities of the greatest need.

And so we try to really push that and stand behind that and give officers that discretionary time, that time to play that active role and not just being the person responding to the calls but being actively engaged, we branded it as a, "Park walk and talk program," that has here since my predecessor, chief Anthony Hallways, down to St. Pete now.

And it's been one of our opportunities to really just promote a heavily engaged community.

But the officers, they gotta wanna do it and we got encourage them to do it and we gotta support them when they do it.

And not just be focused on a person's performance based on their statistical numbers of arrest or taking reports but actually on the value that they provide to the community from all the totality of the circumstances.

- Chief Ramos, how much are you emphasizing those community connections and having your officers get out and connect with residents?

- What is that, is definitely one of my focuses right now.

So I think it starts at the top.

You have to let your officers know what the expectation is and you have to support what they wanna do as well.

You have to be able to give them the time to interact with those in their community.

Also we've created some units where you're able to just focus on the community 100% of the time where you're creating conversations, where you're developing a rapport, where you're able to connect with them, not only when needed but just in a simple conversation.

Sometimes you have to be in your community before you're needed, so that they can learn to trust you when they do need you.

- All right.

Well, we have about a minute left.

I wanna ask in terms of how these officers interact with their fellow officers, do agencies need to put an emphasis on cultural competency training to foster greater goodwill between fellow officers and the African-American community?

Chief Slaughter.

- I think that, we try to develop cultural competency by really having an expansion or our focus on contact theory.

I mentioned a few minutes ago about how we're just promoting those heavily engaged opportunities with the community.

And so the strategy or the theory we use is that by doing that, all of our officers will become more and more comfortable.

And this is kind of a strategy or a theory that had been promoted through some of the in implicit bias training that we had had and done.

I certainly support, kind of having focused units that their entire focus is doing community contacts, but with our size of agency, I found, we ended up becoming very overly dependent on a small core group of people that were doing that and so we really try to push it so that everybody is actively participating in this so that we don't necessarily develop a relationship with a few officers that it's truly with the entire department 'cause people don't trust organizations, they trust people.

- And we want those people to get to know us.

And that's essentially our focus.

- Chief Ramos, we have about 30 seconds left.

What do you think needs to be done in terms of training to foster that greater connection?

- Well, I think it all starts in the academy.

You have to learn about each other's differences so that when you're going out into these communities, you're not having any culture shocks.

So if you started off in the academy, you're working with each other, learning about each other's differences, I think when you come out into the community, you guys are functioning as one and it helps to work closer with the community 'cause you understand them a bit better.

- All right, Chief Dan Slaughter from the Clearwater police department, Chief Mirtha Ramos from the DeKalb County police department, thank you so much for joining us today, I really appreciate it.

Coming up, I'll share my final thoughts.

(bright music) I can't have a discussion about law enforcement, police reform or the challenges black officers endure without thinking of one of my closest friends, Reginald Lawyer served 31 years in the Tallahassee police department, making the city safer building relationships and even once pulling man from a fire.

He eventually rose to the rank of Lieutenant before retiring with honors.

But to me, he's still the guy I grew up with in Tallahassee's Griffin Heights neighborhood.

Every black officer and really every officer has friends and family who support and love them but that aspect can get lost when the broad brush of social justice paints every official as unworthy or uncaring, We are right to demand greater accountability of law enforcement.

The spade of unjust treatment against George Floyd, Breanna Taylor and Donald Green is more evident in the age of video and body cameras.

It demands that officers reach a new standard.

Unlike other professions, law enforcement requires some nearly perfect performance.

As comedian Chris Rock says, "Some jobs just can't have bad apples."

But it also requires us to remember these men and women and especially people of color who choose the service are human, their husbands and wives, fathers, and mothers, brothers and sisters who deserve support.

These are not contradictory thoughts.

We can set a high bar for officers and deputies and then assist them in rising above it.

We can challenge law enforcement leaders to bring about needed change and then ask, how can we help?

We can do both, we can blend appreciation and accountability.

And if these law enforcement agencies look demographically more like the communities they serve, that'll make this challenging task easier for all involved.

I'm Ernest Hooper and that's all I'm saying.

(upbeat music) - [Narrator] Premier Eye Care is a leader in national managed eyecare with four million insured members nationwide through its network of optometrists, ophthalmologists and specialists recognized for best practices and delivery of care, associate engagement and commitment to the community.

Premier Eye Care is proud to support, "That's all I'm saying," with Ernest Hooper.

For more information, go to PremierEyeCare.net.

(bright music)