In this clip, a Black man and Black woman police officer dialogue on new leadership in the police department. They reflect on what the interim chief of police might be able to do in his time especially considering his emphasis on community engagement. One of the officers observes the political aspect of policing and how often officers, the people doing the actual work, are never included in any dialogue or approaches or plans to improve anything. Instead, they have been traditionally kept out of the loop until the last minute and then overworked. He would rather have officers be more included because they are at the ground level making the connections, while leadership is too far removed.
We’re not brought in on the initial part of this stuff when this broke out and the all of a sudden with just one day without any warning it’s like “hey we need you guys to start doing this and by the way we need some feedback in two days on you following up on this stuff.” And that’s not really a plan.