Sir Robert Peel he’s a British British
prime minister and those of us in law
enforcement really kind of look at him
as a leader of modern law enforcement
now this is in the 1800s he wrote some
principles for policing in a democracy
now if I read them to you right now you
would doubt they were written in the
1800s you would think they were written
yesterday his principles were so good
we’re still using them today and the big
idea from Sir Robert Peel is simply this
the police or the community and the
community are the police that it is a
partnership that we are inseparable that
we are the same now keep that concept in
mind and I’m going to tell you about a
conversation that I had with a local
grandmother that took me in the
department that I lead on quite a
journey of self-discovery so over here
and a half ago I met this community
event and I’m talking with this
grandmother now I don’t like I really
don’t know she was a grandmother I
didn’t like ask for the identification
of her grandchildren you know that would
be a little ridiculous but I mean like
the personality of a grandmother right
she had the gray hair and the kind eyes
and she was just really nice for having
this great conversation I thought to
myself man if we were at her house she’d
be bringing out homemade cookies right
you know like that kind of conversation
and then suddenly unexpectedly she
started complaining about a nearby
Police Department she says they’re
unprofessional and they’re they’re big
and they’re mean and they treat people
badly and then she begins to tell me the
story about her family that lives in
this town and how they were mistreated
by this police department well the
conversation that was an unexpected turn
I was a little shocked but I recovered
and I said hey I know the guy that runs
that department he’s a buddy of mine
let’s go talk to him let’s tell him what
your concerns are and then this grandma
I blame her all for this she started
this thing she said here’s what she says
she says I know him too and he’s a great
guy
and he’s doing a great job and
I would never bother him with my petty
concerns right so I let it go with that
but now I’m driving back to Carthage and
I’m thinking wait a minute so there’s
their grandmother’s and Carthage that
are unhappy with our services and
they’re never going to tell me right I’m
never gonna know
so then kind of like I have a tendency
to do took it a little far right I’m
seeing a guy and he’s walking to his job
at the poultry plant I’m thinking well
he’s probably got kids I wonder what he
thinks of our services right and I see
the lady next to me and she’s got her
her kids in a car seat and I’m like I
wonder what she thinks of our services
if we’re keeping her kids safe and I’m
thinking about high school kids and
business leaders and I’m realizing that
I kind of think I know but I really
don’t know what anybody in our community
thinks of our police department I mean I
really don’t know well for a moment in
just a moment I wondered if it mattered
but of course I realized that actually
it matters police are in the community
you see the headlines they’re in the
headlines all the time we’re always
under fire we’re always being criticized
and one of the things were always being
criticized for is what not having a good
enough relationship with our community
not having community trust
so I’m sitting here wondering if I have
a good enough relationship with my our
community if I have community trust so I
went on a quest I was gonna figure it
out I was gonna hear the voices in our
in our community and I was gonna find
out what they thought of us so I
employed the help of my friend Jack Jack
is retired from the Kansas City Police
Department he works for a company called
urban juror and kind of what he does is
kind of think differently about things
and so I said to him I said hey I don’t
know what anybody in our community
thinks about us and I remember at one
point he says okay come on Greg surely
you know what somebody thinks about you
and I said yeah I got a couple but
buddy’s their own businesses and I got
the people that call once a week and
yell at me complaining those are the
people that I know what they think about
really you know anybody else it’s a
guess what they think about our
department so we went back and forth
really for a couple of months and the
simple question that we kept coming back
to you is how
I know what the average person in
Carthage thinks of our services how
could I know that so we did what for a
conservative government based police
department it’s pretty radical here’s
what we did we decided that we were
gonna survey everybody and that part’s
not that radical but immediately so you
got a traffic ticket from us you could
immediately take a survey about what
that experience was like you get
arrested for DWI
you give survey you beat your wife and
get arrested you get a survey right I
mean everybody gets a survey crime
victims get a survey everybody that we
deal with for any reason gets a survey
now I will say this that that I
personally did not think it was that
radical the deal right I really don’t
think was that big a deal but it really
was like my friends people that I
trusted they were like I cannot believe
that you were going to do this they told
me they said chief you don’t want to ask
these questions you don’t want to know
they told me that you know you’re all
you’re doing by handing out the survey
is you’re asking people to complain and
if you ask them to complain they’re
going to here’s one of my favorite ones
come on man if you don’t know you don’t
have to deal with it right that was the
I really appreciated that advice I got
the I got the hey the media is gonna
hear about this survey they’re gonna run
through results or results gonna be bad
it’s gonna be bad for you here’s one of
my favorites if you care what people who
got arrested think you were truly a hug
a thug chief I really really enjoyed
that one but here’s the one right here’s
the one that by the way none of those
scared me that’s just the normal fear
that you have when you’re about to hand
out a survey so none of that bothered me
here’s the one that bothered me and it
came from one of our own people
they said chief we got this thing
figured out with the community we do a
Christmas party for 300 kids every year
we are involved in the Polar Plunge for
Special Olympics we have our own
designated community policing officer
that does community projects
throughout the community all year long
like our guys will go to a call that
starts out as a disturbance and we’re
literally helping people move I mean
like lifting their stuff helping them
move right we go to calls where toys are
stolen and the officers will go with
their own money and they’ll replace
those toys right I mean he’s like we
have this down what happens if the
surveys are bad then what do we do right
what does that mean does it mean that
what we’re doing isn’t working
and and frankly that scared me a little
bit because I thought you know we’re
doing all this stuff what if the surveys
are bad what if it means isn’t it’s not
working well what do I do well I didn’t
turn out that way so here’s our survey
results here’s how they turned out and I
will tell you that I’m very very excited
about these survey results I know maybe
some of you can’t read them in full but
94 percent of our population took the
survey this is over 500 surveys that we
got back 94 percent were comfortable
with with us in some way we kind of had
them rate the different levels of
comfortableness 94% we’re comfortable
with us in some way and almost 85
percent gave us the highest marks that
we could get now was I happy about that
yes by the way when they took this
survey they could take it in English or
in Spanish and like I said it was any
electronic device so they could
literally take it immediately was I
happy with those results yes but I’m
just gonna be honest with you I wasn’t
surprised if you had asked me where I
thought we were at that’s about what I
would have guessed so now you’re saying
look he accomplished nothing right but
no that’s right that is actually not
true at all so here’s what happened as a
result of this survey I now have some
evidence
I now have proof that what we are doing
is working some of some of the other
side benefits of this we’re amazing it’s
through the comments section we figured
out that there are some of our officers
that are really doing exceptional work
they were really going above and beyond
doing way more than what we expected of
them and we didn’t know it we knew it by
reading the comments from the survey the
other thing that was a very strange side
effect of this I got a lot of people say
well just because you’re brave
enough to ask then you must have a great
Department right I mean just that
transparency of being brave enough to
ask how are we doing we got a lot of
benefit from that which I didn’t expect
that that was amazing
now were some of the doubters correct
sure they were right we there are some
stuff that we needed to change that was
the whole point so here’s what we would
do we want it we obviously wanted to
have some ground rules for this right
so here were the two ground rules when
we got a bad survey back we were gonna
let the officer know about that survey
but we really weren’t gonna we didn’t
want it to be like a discipline or
reward thing right because it seems
counterintuitive that the officer you
know I am here because I’m mad at you
okay here’s a survey right it really
didn’t seem like that was like really
the wisest thing to do we just want to
give a survey survey to everybody so it
was really about the department as a
whole so one of the things that we did
is if we got a negative survey we
matched it up with body cam all our
officers wear body cams we tried to keep
it as anonymous as possible but we just
watch the call and we ask the question
was there anything that we should have
done differently is there anything that
we could have done better to serve our
community better and you know what there
were times where it was obvious we
needed to do some things differently
and we actually changed some things we
did some things the actual question that
we asked is we knew that we wanted the
survey to be returned properly we you
know like people hate fill out surveys
right we knew that we knew that we
weren’t going to get a big response so
we only at we’re only going to ask one
question because we knew we only had the
you know we wanted to take that
opportunity and get that feedback so the
question that we asked them was based on
the contact that you just had with
members of the Carthage Police
Department how comfortable would you be
with us serving your family or friends
in the future because right isn’t that
all what it’s about
so we also learned some other things not
only did we change some things that we
needed to change but we learned this as
well we we were reminded that some
people are just nervous just because
they’re talking to the police
right and they would put really good
things in the comments and then they
would put they were still uncomfortable
right and that’s important for us to
remember that
sometimes it’s just being face-to-face
with the police officer makes you
uncomfortable weren’t you know some of
the other things that we learned is some
people gave us very high comments but
put uncomfortable because they said the
situation that they were in that caused
them to call us made them uncomfortable
right this makes sense right they were
uncomfortable regardless of whatever we
did they were uncomfortable to start
with and then finally we learned that
there are just some people that just
don’t like us right they just didn’t
they aren’t going to like us and one
positive comment it’s not got are one
positive event with them it’s not going
to change that that we need to work on
those relationships and continue to make
those contacts positive so that they can
get a different idea about what being
dealing with the police is like so where
are we going with this right what’s
what’s the bottom line on this well law
enforcement leaders I’m talking to you
I’m not criticizing you because I was
the chief of this department for ten
years and I didn’t know what our
community thought about us right so I’m
not criticizing you but I’m challenging
you do you actually know what your
community thinks about you or do you
just think you know because if you don’t
actually know you need to figure it out
I mean if you could find out a couple of
things that you could do that would
change the way your community looked at
you that would change that relationship
and improve it wouldn’t you want to do
that why wouldn’t you want to do that
law enforcement and the community it’s a
partnership right and it’s not us versus
them it’s a partnership and so if you
can improve on that partnership you
should do that because I think sometimes
police in the United States we need to
do a better job of that that’s something
that we definitely need to improve on
but I would also challenge you in the
audience as well if you’re sitting here
today and you’re thinking well you know
what does this mean to me see it’s a
partnership us and you you also have an
obligation to bring your concerns to the
police department to get involved with
your community and to get involved with
your department griping about your
Police Department at the grocery store
are posting it to social media that’s
okay but it doesn’t do anything it
doesn’t change anything right you have
an obligation to share if you don’t
think your partner
with your Police Department is truly a
partnership and you have an obligation
to try to change that now I know some of
you are probably thinking yeah I’ll go
down there and they’re not gonna listen
to me and they’re gonna send me away and
they’re gonna ignore you well let me
tell you the environment that law
enforcement leaders are in we know that
our leadership is based it is founded
upon our relationship with the community
if we don’t have a good relationship we
can’t be effective leaders we also know
that part of our obligation is to police
ourselves so I can almost guarantee you
that if you go down to your local police
department sheriff’s office whoever
serves you and you say have some
concerns I want to talk to a supervisor
they’re not going to talk to you but
they’re gonna welcome you I get almost
guarantee that that’s gonna happen most
of the law enforcement leaders that I
work with lead with integrity and
principle and they’re servant leaders
they wanted either right thing now you
may also now be thinking yeah but I’ve
tried that it doesn’t work they’re not
gonna listen to me look this is a
partnership this does not you know just
because you don’t think they’ll listen
does not alleviate your responsibility
to make your community better and let
your Police Department know what
concerns you have because you see we
need your help we can’t do it without
your help because the police
or the community and the community or
the police and if that’s not happening
this thing called policing is not going
to work thank you very much [Applause]