Other U.S. cities are about to learn something from Arlington police and teens

The U.S. Justice Department is using a film featuring the Arlington Police Department as a resource for police departments across the country.

The Justice Department’s Community Oriented Policing Services (C.O.P.S.) office worked with the non-profit organization Not In Our Town to produce a 36-page guidebook and 28-minute video titled, “Arlington, TX: A Community Policing Story.” It gives a glimpse into the department’s handling of a widely reported officer-involved shooting in 2015 and a series of other tragic events.

Arlington Police Chief Will Johnson said he was proud that his department was spotlighted in the film. “But it also gives me a real compelling sense of urgency that we have much more to do,” he said. “And I’m more committed to continue to do it.”

The film shows how police engagement measures taken after controversial officer-involved shootings in 2015 around the country that included the deaths of 18-year-old Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, and 25-year-old Freddie Gray in Baltimore, Maryland, can have a positive effect on a community. The shootings in Missouri and Maryland underscored the differences in the way whites and minorities, particularly blacks, perceived police across the nation.

The film shows how police in Arlington are working to build trust in the community. It highlights the widely known National Night Out Against Crime event, but also shows officers having an open discussion with teens and their parents as part of the Mentoring Arlington Youth Program, a partnership with the Arlington Independent School District.

The officers in the film share their stories with the teens and their parents, who relate their experiences with police, and they all lock arms in a circle after their candid discussion.

“This circle right here unifies that we all have something in common,” one of the officers says. “Just remember when you approach an officer on the street or an officer approaches you on the street, we recognize the fact that you guys have families. And recognize the fact that we have families and we’re just humans.”

The film explores how Arlington police tried to build bridges and maintain the community’s trust in the tumultuous aftermath of the gang-related homicide of 18-year-old Carl Wilson and the death of 19-year-old Christian Taylor in an officer-involved shooting a few months later.

“This film is about the value of relationships because relationships will be tested in times of crisis,” Johnson said. “If you don’t have effective community policing before a critical incident, you’re certainly not going to be able to weather absolute challenges and stress that a similar critical incident might have.”

During the public outcry and protests that came after a grand jury declined to indict rookie Arlington officer Brad Miller in Taylor’s death, Johnson said he grieved with Taylor’s family.

“As a father myself, regardless of whether police action is lawful or not, I think as humans we ought to be able to separate those two discussions, and just have basic empathy for each other,” Johnson says in the film. “I was grieving with them.”

Miller was fired after an internal investigation into the shooting.

The film closes with Martin High School and its football team conducting a police appreciation rally after the slaying of five Dallas police officers in July 2016. Through the community policing efforts, the Arlington police had already built a mentoring relationship with the school’s football team and during that time of crisis for police the school and its students came together and offered their support.

The closing credits highlight that the mentoring program was awarded the 2016 Sutin Civic Imagination Award, which is given by the C.O.P.S. office to a law enforcement agency and community members whose innovative civic interactions have transformed public safety in their community.

“Spending time building relationships is important,” Johnson said afterward. “The value of policing is not X’s and O’s on a board. You have to care about people and the things that are important to them.”

This story was originally published August 15, 2018 at 6:33 PM with the headline "Other U.S. cities are about to learn something from Arlington police and teens."