Published in the Women's Democratic Club of Montgomery County's Newsletter
Policing in the Post-Ferguson World
SILVER
SPRING – A solid cadre of WDC members began filling the intimate corner room
this evening, trickling in to the sight of well-known friends and familiar
faces to those on the political circuit in Montgomery County. Lucy Freeman’s
famous chocolate chip oatmeal cookies fed small conversation among members of
the community and representatives of the Montgomery County Police Department (MCPD)
who had arrived for an event born of recent national tragedies.
The
evening was pulled together by the Education Committee to shed light on how
MCPD conducts its business, how it stacks up to its peers around the nation,
whether the incidents that spurred the #BlackLivesMatters movement could happen
closer to home in Montgomery County, and a slew of other issues that has been
in the public dialogue from firearm regulation to the war on drugs. The
audience’s personal familiarity with the police officers combined with its initial
applause in recognition of National Law Enforcement Week and in appreciation
for all that the police force does in Montgomery County indicated that Chief J.
Thomas Manger would be well received by this audience of Democratic activists
and elected officials.
Chief
Manger took the podium to begin his presentation with a basic overview of crime
statistics in Montgomery County but only after he acknowledged the importance
of meetings such as this to the very foundation of the legitimacy of any police
force, which he said is established by the trust and confidence of the
community it serves.
Montgomery
County is divided into six district stations, the busiest of which is the third
district, containing Silver Spring. Homicides, though still low for a
population of 1 million people, have slightly increased in the past year
because of gang related activity. Manger explained that there is a higher
incidence of violent crime in areas of higher population density and poverty,
while crime is inversely correlated with high school graduation rates and rates
of MCPS students on Free And Reduced Meals (FARM). Reflecting the audience’s apparent
warmth towards the police force, Manger mentioned that the public generally has
a high level of trust and confidence in Montgomery County’s police force.
And
here Manger began to take a subtly defensive tone as he made the case that when
force of any kind is used by a police officer, in more cases than not it is
warranted and is legal, even if it does not play well on the 24-hour news
cycle. In those cases when force is not warranted, Manger spoke to the 30-40
police officers who he has fired over the course of his 12 year tenure thus far
as Chief of Police in Montgomery County. And to reiterate his commitment to
being accountable to the public he pointed to the body camera that he had
installed on his chest, and which will be department wide among all 1,000 MCPD
officers within the next month, and said that the evidence will bear him out,
supporting his case that his officers are operating within the rule of law. Said
Manger, “Cameras will be our best friend and will show how difficult this job
is and will show that our cops are doing the right thing.”
Continuing
on with the argument that his is an accountable police force, Manger directed
the audience to an annual use of force report published on the MCPD website
that documents the amount of times force was used and how many people were
injured the use of that force in the previous year. He acknowledged that of the
40 officer-involved shootings in the past 12 years, 13 of those incidents were
fatal to the targets. Manger was quick to point out that all individuals who
were shot by MCPD officers were armed, mostly with guns but occasionally with
knives, and that after each incident independent legal reviews of the cases
were conducted.
Manger
presented a compassionate and professional police department that uses force
only sparingly and when warranted, more frequently de-escalating conflicts than
precipitating confrontations. He showed a video of a police officer risking his
life to save an unconscious citizen from a burning car and stressed his creed
of service, which he presented as a form of the Hippocratic Oath to do no harm,
by even providing justification for the militarization of police, which he
explained allowed his officers to retrieve an injured, trampled man in the
Baltimore City riots of 2015 who would not have been reached by EMS crews were
it not for the armored vehicle that was at his disposal last year.
The
common theme of the importance of having the police force reflect and respect
the community, and vice versa, thread itself throughout the conversation.
Manger spoke to his efforts to increase the demographic diversity of his police
force, having tripled the number of Latino officers in the past decade, stating
that the “goal of every police department should be to reflect the diversity of
its community.” He said that the department has lately been focusing its efforts
on connecting with youth in the community. He wryly observed that the “average
age of this crowd is a little bit above 18,” eliciting a few chuckles from the audience.
Captain
Plazinski, Director of the MCPD Training Academy, then spoke about the rigorous
and continuous training that officers undergo that prepare officers to interact
with the community, to deal with drug overdoses (heroin and heroin look-alike
drug overdoses in particular have been rapidly increasing throughout Maryland
lately), to avoid situations where deadly force might become necessary, and to
interact with those who have mental illnesses. The relationship between the
community and the police force is valued at such a premium that for those who
would like to learn more about what the MCPD encounters on a daily basis the
force offers hands on policing experience with both a Citizens Police Academy
and a Citizen Ride-Along in a patrol car with a police officer.
The
MCPD clearly has its hands outstretched to the Montgomery County community it
serves, and in a room full of Democratic activists committed to public service
those hands seem to be warmly received.