BRATTLEBORO — For much of the past eight years, well before Ferguson and Baltimore were on all our minds, the leadership of the Brattleboro Police Department (BPD) was considering various approaches to officer education in unbiased policing.
New recruits attending the Vermont Police Academy participated in anti-bias policing workshops. In 2014, all BPD officers and dispatchers participated in a training provided by the Vermont Partnership for Fairness and Diversity.
This year, under Chief Michael Fitzgerald's leadership, the department is taking the bold step of investing in a member of the force to be regularly available to train all officers and others from neighboring police departments in these matters.
Chief Fitzgerald welcomes this commitment: “We have been proactive […] even before the unrest in this country, we have been aware of this need […] and we have gradually changed as a department over time.
“We need now to go to the next level,” he says. “Our department is solid enough that now we need to be the trainers.”
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Racially biased policing is a complex topic to work with and tackle head on. Never has it been more important to understand and change this practice if and where it exists.
The right opportunity arose when Chief Fitzgerald was asked to send a representative from his department in March to a statewide session of “Train the Trainer” program by Fair and Impartial Policing, organized by the Burlington Police Department.
He assigned Lt. Penny Witherbee to represent Brattleboro, and she was one of 26 officers from 10 police departments and the Vermont State Police to attend.
Lt. Witherbee reflects on her training experience:
“This was not the traditional curricula at all. We were shown that having a bias is normal and that often our biases are unconscious - we really can't deny them, they are there,” she says.
“As law enforcement officers, this understanding is huge. A good amount of time in the training was given for me to gain this awareness,” she added. “How did I learn my biases in the first place? What environment did I grow up in?”
As a means of understanding their potential racial biases, one particularly powerful training activity involved asking the training participants to make snap judgments in a difficult situation.
Lt. Witherbee describes the experience:
“Up on the screen, the trainers flashed a bunch of quick pictures of different types of people of varying gender, age, and racial backgrounds, each one holding an object. Sometimes, it was a cell phone or an apple, sometimes it was a gun. Using our quick thinking, we had to name the object.
“It was for us the ultimate test: if you got it wrong it could cost us our lives or we could take a life. We need to come from a positive vantage point. Being aware in this way helps me decide every day on the job: 'Am I acting on my bias or am I acting on the facts?'”
Lt. Witherbee has now not only successfully completed the training, but she also has been asked to assist with similar programs nationally and internationally. Her first step, however, is to offer regional trainings for officers and supervisors from her own department and other law enforcement agencies in the region.
To ensure regional participation, there will be no cost for the other law enforcement agencies to participate in the training. This is one way for Brattleboro's department to show gratitude for the many ways that regional departments help one another.
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For participating first-line recruit and patrol officers, Lt. Witherbee's training goal is for them to understand that even well-intentioned people have biases - both conscious and implicit.
She will share tools that assist them in the recognition of these biases and in creating an unbiased response in difficult situations. First-line supervisors will receive training in how to supervise and promote a fair and impartial policing perspective.
Identifying the appropriate supervisory response to biased policing can be challenging. Not only is biased behavior very difficult to prove through the traditional complaint review system but for officers whose biased behavior is not intentional or malicious, disciplinary action would be inappropriate.
Since in many instances there will only be indications and not proof, it will be important to convey when and how supervisors can intervene to stop what appears to be inappropriate conduct while keeping in mind the ambiguous nature of the evidence as well as the sensitive nature of the issue.
Supervisors who have participated in past trainings report acquiring new skills for identifying when bias might be manifesting in their subordinates - and new approaches for intervening to address concerns about this behavior.
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Providing this staff education is an important part of Chief Fitzgerald's larger community policing efforts.
“In Brattleboro, our ultimate objective is to gain the confidence and trust of the community,” he says. “We have a violent profession; if an officer is involved in a violent situation that is questioned, you don't want a feeling of conspiracy or cover-up. The community needs to know that the officer will be held accountable and the investigation will run its course.
“That's where I want to be. To get there, we have to accept we have biases; we also have to have frequent conversations in the community that take place on a regular basis. We are making time in our day to meet the community and get out of our cruisers.”
Various community policing activities have recently taken place:
• Monthly Coffee with a Cop conversations taking place at various locations (McDonalds, The Works, etc.)
• Youth/Police Dialogues at the Boys & Girls Club and at Brattleboro Union High School. Recently, the Brattleboro Police Benevolent Association gave one third of the funds its members raised to the AWARE student group at BUHS. That group supports students of color.
• Law enforcement presentations at the Brattleboro Citizens' Breakfast forums held at the Senior Center.
• Police representation at community meetings on homeless issues at The Works.
The Fair and Impartial Policing training experience gives an officer a new awareness and confidence at these events as well as on the beat.
Overall, the training increases the department's culture of respect for the integrity of law enforcement work. The events taking place in Ferguson, Baltimore, North Charleston, and Staten Island are deeply concerning to Chief Fitzgerald.
“I don't want to comment on the actions in those other police departments because I have no direct knowledge,” he says. “However, one officer that makes a mistake blackens the eye of every officer in the country.”
“There's not a person in our department that when they see the news wonders: Why? Why did it happen? There's a backlash of negativity from those events hundreds of miles away.
“You're talking about professionalism and trust - there is no one who wants it more than each of our officers.”