Nearly all Black Knoxville police officers say they face discrimination

Nearly every Black employee at the Knoxville Police Department has experienced discrimination, according to a new survey from a third-party organization, and not a single Black respondent thinks KPD’s process for promotion is fair.

Separately, a number of employees don’t feel respected by the organization's leaders and think the department has work to do on how it promotes people and communicates departmentwide changes.

Police Chief Paul Noel requested funding for an assessment – performed by 21CP Solutions – well before he took the oath of office in June. His goal was to get an unvarnished look at how officers and staffers felt about the department’s structure and morale.

Go deeper:Knoxville Chief Paul Noel named his leadership team. They all look the same.

The assessment consisted of a departmentwide survey and focus groups with personnel, including both sworn officers and staffers. The survey was sent to employees in August. Some 97% of sworn officers and 94% of other personnel took part or all of the survey.

The results, which KPD released Thursday, are not surprising, Noel told Knox News. He called it a snapshot in time, and a baseline from which to build.

“It’s one thing to come in new to this job and say I expect to see this," he said. "I know we have accountability issues. I know we have diversity issues. I know we have communication issues. But to see it on paper and establish a baseline, that was the goal with this.

“Some of this is like we’re kicking ourselves with our own boot a little bit with the information, but you can’t start working on something if you don’t first recognize you have a problem and a direction to go in," he said.

When Noel arrived, the department had thinned staffing in its command structure because of resignations related to a series of internal investigations. Recent allegations of a racist culture didn't help, either.

These are challenges Noel inherited, many stemming from the department’s notably low number of Black officers: KPD has 15 Black officers out of 361. The police force as a whole is 4% Black, while the city's Black population is 17%.

Noel moved quickly this summer to fill leadership holes. When he announced his 12-member leadership team earlier this month, he got pushback on the fact that every member is white.

In an interview a few weeks ago, Noel told Knox News the low number of Black officers was “disgraceful,” and that he’s keenly aware of the problem and is set to address it. But it will take time, he warned.

To match the city's demographics, the department would have to hire 45 Black officers – without losing any current officers. The department's rookie recruiting class has no Black candidates.

Red flags among officers of color

Of the 452 respondents who answered all or some of the questions, 38 said they had been discriminated against by the organization because of their race. Twenty-five of them were white and 13 were Black, which represents nearly every Black employee in the department.

Separately, 22 people reported being discriminated against by their peers because of their race. Of those, 13 were white and nine were Black.

Eighty percent of all sworn staffers felt KPD was either “extremely” or “very” dedicated to diversity and inclusiveness. However, only 24% of Black personnel felt this way.

Noel wants to address these perceptions quickly, he told Knox News. The department needs to do a better job explaining cultural and diversity issues to all officers.

“The whole organization needs to recognize that we have a problem, right?" Noel said. "And I think one of the things that jumped out to me a little bit is that do all of our white officers recognize that we have a diversity problem in the first place?

"We absolutely need to do a better job of educating all of our employees, regardless of their race and sex, about diversity and equity inclusion in our organization."

In an exhaustive 2021 Knox News report, multiple Black officers said they dealt with racism from their peers. Most said they didn’t experience it overtly (though some did), but rather in areas such as hiring and promotions. The survey bears this out.

“(O)f the Black officers who had experience with the promotional process, zero reported perceiving it as fair, based on aspects of the process such as demographic disclosures on the test, subjective selection practices, and disparate outcomes,” the survey found.

Also, only 63% of respondents said they did not feel respected by KPD and only half felt like they had a voice within the organization, particularly on matters like shift length, promotions, equipment, and special assignments. Only 36% of Black respondents felt like they had a voice in the organization.

21CP suggested that KPD create formalized mentorship and leadership programs for officers from underrepresented populations. This would include officers who are Black, Latino, LGBTQ+, or women.

Noel said recruiting diverse officers is a top priority and KPD will conduct a full evaluation of its hiring processes.

How officers perceive their ability to report problems

More than three-quarters of department members reported feeling like there is an avenue for reporting issues with a colleague or supervisor within the department, though some said the process was applied inconsistently or they faced a risk of retribution.

This, too, has been shown in Knox News reporting. Officer DionDré Jackson and a group of officers reported a white colleague had engaged in racist harassment of Jackson only to have multiple layers of the command structure ignore the complaint, all the way up to former Deputy Chief Kenny Miller.

Separately, in 2019 Knox News reported that a department whistleblower, Lt. Travis Brasfield, was removed from his position and later resigned after he said he was retaliated against.

How officers perceive the process for promotions

Many officers in the survey and most of the focus group members reported feeling that promotions and assignments were not given based on qualifications, but rather things like friendships, personal preferences, and demographics. Only half said the department’s promotional process was fair.

Plenty of positive feedback, too

Not all the results were bad. Over 90% of respondents said they feel respected by their colleagues and the most common answer in focus groups about why employees stayed at KPD was “the people.”

Nearly 80% of respondents agreed that KPD provides resources for physical well-being and 82% said the same about emotional well-being resources.

“It’s encouraging that employees widely feel respected by their peers and perceived that the people within the department are a strength of the organization, which reaffirms what I have experienced in my first four months on the job,” Noel said in an emailed statement separate from his one-on-one interview Thursday with Knox News.

“It’s also encouraging that our people feel that we generally dedicate sufficient resources to the well-being of employees. We still have a lot of room for improvement in those areas, but that says to me that we are on the right track.”

How we got here

The East Tennessee Foundation, a local civic nonprofit that builds charitable resources, donated the $40,250 needed to pay for the assessment.

21CP Solutions is a Chicago-based police consulting agency that was founded by former members of President Barack Obama’s Task Force on 21st-Century Policing. Many of the organization’s leaders are former leaders of the Police Executive Research Forum, the organization Knoxville hired to help search for a new chief earlier this year.

Christine Cole is a consultant who does work for 21CP. She said these types of surveys often are done because they're required as part of training or discipline. But that's not the case in Knoxville, and that caught Cole's attention.

“One thing that strikes me as a standout is this is something Noel decided he wanted to do to learn more about the department ... I think it takes a lot of courage because you don’t know what the answers are going to be,” she said.

She suggested that KPD perform another survey in the next two years, giving enough time for new strategies to take root. Noel said he would work to find the funding for a follow-up assessment.

Editor's note: This story has been updated to correct the number of Black officers who reported being discriminated by their peers.

Tyler Whetstone is an investigative reporter focused on accountability journalism
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This article originally appeared on Knoxville News Sentinel: Nearly all Black Knoxville police officers say they face discrimination