UWM hosted virtual presentations over the past two weeks from three chief of police finalists about building community through policing at an urban research university as one of the last steps in their search to replace Chief of Police Joe LeMire, who resigned in the spring.
During the hour-long presentations, the candidates talked about their experience in community building, and what practices they would implement at UWM to foster a better relationship between the campus community and the campus police department.
The first candidate interviewed was UW-Whitewater Chief of Police Matt Kiederlen. Kiederlen acknowledged that police have a history that isn’t spotless, and how recognizing that is important to change for the better.
“Police need to be a positive presence, unfortunately we have not embraced some of the errors that have been made in the past. We’re not willing to sometimes take a hard enough look at ourselves and to change how we do some things,” said Kiederlen. “But, I think that is more than possible and we have accomplished that in some ways at [UW-Whitewater].”
According to Kiederlen, people need to trust and believe in the police before a community can be built. Kiederlen also emphasized the importance of policing as opposed to law enforcement when it comes to building a safer and better community.
“Law enforcement is strictly that side of things where you’re issuing a citation, you’re arresting someone. Basically, the enforcement side of things,” said Kiederlen. “But the reality is the vast majority of what we do really revolves around policing which is the service aspects of our profession. Helping people, serving people and doing the right thing.”
Dave Salazar, a captain with district two of the Milwaukee Police Department, was the second candidate to present. According to Salazar, it is important for police to develop the proper culture to build a community.
“The culture I want to see here at this agency is the culture of guardianship,” said Salazar. “I truly believe that police in America need to be the guardians of the community that they serve. That is something I truly believe in my heart, and practice on a daily basis.”
Part of being a guardian is being accountable, delivering service in a just way and embracing the concepts of diversity, according to Salazar.
“The concepts of equity and inclusion are important as well,” said Salazar. “The equity of being able to support students to make sure that they’re getting the resources they need to be successful in the university experience, and also that they feel like they’re an included piece of this community, and that community is welcoming and supportive to them.”
Heather Wurth, a former Milwaukee Police Department captain and current manager of safety and security for Direct Supply, was the final candidate interviewed. According to Wurth, listening to those demanding change and adhering to “best practices” are just part of how to build trust with the community.
“We really need to emphasize that it is incumbent upon law enforcement to create a foundation, to build a foundation, upon which trust and legitimacy can be part of the relationships,” said Wurth. “They need to be recognized and valued as a legitimate authority.”
To do this, officers need not only provide a valuable service to their community, but value the individuals in the community as well, according to Wurth.
“We have to connect with students, we have to connect with them where they’re at. We have to meet them where their beliefs are…where they are in their education and we have to inspire them to get involved and encourage them to share their ideas,” said Wurth. “Because that’s how we grow…that’s how we collaborate to have a successful future.”
After going into detail how they would build a foundation of community through policing the candidates were also asked how they would build trust with members of the BIPOC and LGBTQ+ communities.
Wurth cited her experience as Milwaukee Police Departments LGBTQ liaison, her work in Milwaukee’s Walkers Point neighborhood and being a member of that community herself.
“I recognized that [Walkers Point] was really underserved from the aspect of a police presence and rightfully so, most certainly when I was young, I didn’t trust the police either, so I understood where that mistrust was coming from, but we needed to be engaged,” said Wurth.
Wurth said she met with business owners and stakeholders in the neighborhood during and after her shift to engage with as many people as possible to build trust with that community. She shared what the goals of the police were to keep people safe in the area, and listened to what the community wanted as well.
“Where this really paid dividend was when the Pulse nightclub shooting happened in Orlando, Florida,” said Wurth. “We had already established a presence in that area so that when I increased patrols, especially during Pride weekend, we were welcomed because our motives were trusted.”
Like Wurth, Salazar also cited experience making direct efforts to engage those communities that are disenfranchised with authority as how to build trust between them and the police.
“A lot of communities that have had historical issues with police have a natural distrust of them,” said Salazar. “So, the onus is on myself to insist that myself and my team are actively engaged with those groups.”
According to Salazar, the community he currently works in is about 60-70% Hispanic and there has been a reluctance to contact police due to worries over immigration status preventing proper treatment by police. Salazar also recognized that there was a deficit in service and contact between the department and the LGBTQ+ community.
“I found the right [people] within my team that [were] willing to be my go-between between [those] communities and myself,” said Salazar. “Really that is the opportunity to bring the community in, in a controlled setting, in a non-crisis format to explain to them exactly what my motives are, exactly what I’m trying to do and that ultimately my intention is that the level of policing that they receive is the same as any other citizen.”
According to Kiederlen, officers must recognize the implicit biases they have. Kiederlen went through implicit bias training on a “whim” and said it “really, really opened [his] eyes to a broad spectrum of possibilities within policing and how we do it.”
“The instructor I had used Ms. Susan Boyle, I don’t know how many people may know who that is, but she was on Britain’s Got Talent and has an amazing voice,” said Kiederlen. “But Ms. Boyle may not be the most, shall we say, socially attractive individual. When she walked out on stage, I think a lot of people thought she was a joke … I remember that moment, the first time I saw the video of her, I went ‘oh my gosh this person, there is no way.’ Then you hear her sing and it’s like ‘oh my gosh it’s amazing.’”
According to Kiederlen, this goes hand-in-hand with aspects of race and sexual orientation. Officers need to recognize their biases so that they can confront them and move past them to avoid them affecting the outcome of an individual’s experience with a police officer.
Kiederlen had one officer while at UW-Whitewater who had been piling up complaints from BIPOC students, but none from white students. Kiederlen was able to identify this officer had an implicit bias against people of color through looking at the officer’s interaction with students of different races from body camera footage.
“He was scared of African American students. He had it in his skull that they were more dangerous than anybody else that he would potentially deal with,” said Kiederlen. “I looked at it and said ‘what do I have to address with this officer to get them past that? Where did that come? Why?’”
Kiederlen paired that campus police officer with a black police officer from Milwaukee for a month so that he could get an understanding of what his actions are causing. After spending a month together both on and off duty the campus police officer was able to confront his biases and change his actions.
“To solve problems of bias, to deal with those indicators we have to be open to new and outside the box ideas,” said Kiederlen.
All three candidates have different backgrounds and experience in law enforcement. But, they all agree that accessibility and accountability, of themselves and the department, is going to be instrumental in building relationships with underserved communities.
More information about the finalists and recordings of their presentations can be found here.