Opinion/Esserman: Lessons learned in 25 years as a police chief
Dean Esserman serves as the senior counselor of the National Policing Institute. He is the former police chief of Providence, New Haven, Stamford and the New York State MTA Metro North.
Crime and violence have been on the rise again across the country and the role of police is being challenged.
After more than 25 years as a chief, there’s much I wish I knew then that I know now.
Lesson #1: The strength of the relationship between a police officer and the community is intimate and personal.
My first lesson took place in New Haven, Connecticut, in the early 1990s. I was a new chief and we had recently adopted a community policing paradigm, which included additional training for officers and foot patrols.
One day, an officer who was walking the beat alone because his partner had called out sick, was knocked down while trying to stop an assault. Within minutes, other officers were on the scene. That may sound routine, but the officer didn’t have the chance to call for assistance. He had fallen on his radio and broke it. The call for assistance came from someone in the community.
The next day, an elderly woman took two buses to my office to tell me, face-to-face, to never take "her officers" out of the community.
Lesson learned: Being police does not confer legitimacy and respect from your community. It’s individual cops who cultivate that trust in the uniform and the badge. Relationships are the bedrock of good policing. Only then will an elderly lady tell you those officers are "her police." That woman will never know, but my short meeting with her actually taught me a lesson.
Lesson #2: People talk to who they know and trust.
Fast forward to 2003 and the Providence Police Department. This department, too, had embraced community policing. New officers were required to walk a beat with a partner for a year before being assigned to a car. One afternoon a rookie officer told me the story of how he waved to the same woman each day as she sat on her front porch. One day she called the officers over to her stoop and told them about being assaulted three months earlier. The officer asked why she hadn’t said anything three months ago. She replied, “I didn’t know you then, officer.”
Those words became a teachable moment. Most people are not comfortable talking to strangers, let alone confiding in them, even if they’re wearing a uniform. People talk to who they know, and most often they do not know their police. Some will confide in a family member, a neighbor, a priest, or a roommate before they will call 911.
Lesson #3: Compassion and respect must guide the relationship between police and the public.
While this lesson stared me in the face throughout my career, it was no more evident than in 2020 when George Floyd was murdered by a Minneapolis police officer.
Compassion and respect for all people, even those who treat police badly or are under arrest, must be the guiding principles that we teach, reflect and reward every day. Bearing witness to behavior that violates these values, even by a fellow police officer, without intervening, is unacceptable.
American communities need and want their police. If police are to regain and maintain legitimacy, we must be guided by the shared values of dignity, respect, integrity, compassion and, last of all, courage — physical courage, but moral courage as well.
The vast majority of police officers and chiefs honor their oath with dignity, respect, integrity, compassion and courage. They are embraced by their communities once they develop bonds of friendship and trust.
The Providence Police are doing it right.
This article originally appeared on The Providence Journal: Opinion/Esserman: Lessons learned in 25 years as a police chief
