The Auburn Police Department and the Cayuga County Sheriff's Office don't want the public to shy away from talking about their performance and what they are doing, positively and negatively, for an upcoming police forum.
Both agencies have been working with community stakeholders — including Auburn officials, county officials, those from Cayuga County-area municipalities and social justice group leaders — to review police procedures, practices, strategies and more and create a plan to improve in order to promote trust, address systemic racial biases and meet community needs, as Auburn Police Chief Shawn Butler previously said.
A public Zoom meeting for the forum was held Dec. 15, while another public forum is set for 5 p.m. Jan. 6 through that same platform.
People are asked to register for the upcoming Zoom event. The link is available on a Facebook page for the event. Community members are also encouraged to participate in surveys for the APD and for the sheriff's office. Questions include how the agencies do in providing services to the community, what equality and social justice related to local community law enforcement means and how the agencies can improve their transparency and accountability. The surveys are anonymous but there are questions about a participant's gender, age and race.
Butler and Cayuga County Sheriff Brian Schenck said the process with different stakeholders has been encouraging, but they hope for more community participation. They both added they'd like more people to participate and expressed a desire for a good turnout for the virtual forum.
Butler said APD's survey has been out for over a month, and as of Wednesday, 316 responses have been received, compared to over 26,000 people who live in Auburn. Hearing people's thoughts and opinions is "the only way we're going to change as people feel that we need to change," he added.
The APD is aware, Butler said, of the conversations involving policing following events such as the protests over the summer after the death of George Floyd, a 46-year-old black man killed earlier this year by a former Minneapolis police officer, and they want to hear from people.
Butler said they want to hear from the city's "marginalized or the underserved community" and the community as a whole.
"But what I really want to change, and we have over the last several years, is change the culture of this warrior mentality and (come) back to the servant mentality where we can have compassion and empathy for the people we serve, in the situations where that demeanor is needed," he continued.
Additionally, Butler said he encourages officers to engage with community organizations such as the Harriet Tubman Center for Justice & Peace and the Auburn/Cayuga Branch of the NAACP and different social service outreach organizations, to learn more about different perspectives.
Butler implored people to participate in next week's forum to tell the agency what's it's doing right and wrong. If people aren't comfortable with giving their opinion that way, he hopes they take the survey.
Schenck said the APD and the sheriff's office have had interesting conversations with the various stakeholders as part of the process so far. There were three subgroups: police structure and training, community relations and crime prevention and alternatives to police response and procedural justice.
Schenck encourages people to communicate via his work email at sheriff@cayugacounty.us and his desk number, (315) 253- 4337. He added he wants people to contact him and "feel comfortable that when they reach out and give me feedback, whether it's good or bad, I want them to feel comfortable that I'm going to take that feedback and try to use that to make our sheriff's office better."
Ultimately, Schenck said he wants to hear what the sheriff's office can do "to ensure that we're providing law enforcement services that fit the needs of our community.
"I want to hear from as many people that we serve as possible with that feedback, and they can let us know how we're doing or give us ideas so that we can do our job better or tell us what areas need improvement so that we can start working on that," he said.
Staff writer Kelly Rocheleau can be reached at (315) 282-2243 or kelly.rocheleau@lee.net. Follow him on Twitter @KellyRocheleau.
