It’s the day after Christmas and things are pretty quiet. There are no meetings scheduled until January 5, so we have over a week of no new business. This will hopefully give me a chance to go back and look at some older meetings that may still be of interest.
The Appleton Police Community Advisory Board met on 12/07/2020. It was mainly focused on a presentation and discussion about Use of Force by the APD which I hope to post about on Sunday or Monday.
But first let’s give a quick shout out to Chief Thomas’ new beard.
Prior to the presentation Chief Thomas mentioned that the APD had just opened up the recruitment process. They have a new recruitment video out focusing on their female officers. They’ll also be putting one out focused on their POC officers and one about officers who transferred from other agencies to APD. They’re really trying to reach out to a wider pool of diverse candidates–African American, Hispanic, Southeast Asian, females, and those with a diversity of life experiences.
They have 4 new officers starting in January which include one female, one African American male, and one hispanic male. Two will go to the police academy, and 2 of them will go straight to patrol.
Chief Thomas also followed up on a discussion that had happened at a previous Community Advisory Board meeting regarding diversity in leadership. He talked to some APD officers about why they aren’t interested in leadership or supervisor roles, and he learned that that choice came down to personal preference. A lot of people, especially nowadays, are not interested in becoming supervisors or bosses. He pointed out that it’s very challenging right now to be involved in law enforcement administration.
40% of APD’s command staff is female. They have POC in all of their specialist units–K9, Investigation, Behavioral Health, and School Resource. They’re spread around in departments and are really enjoying what they’re doing now. At some point Chief Thomas hopes some of these individuals will think about moving into leadership roles, but right now they like what they’re doing.
He mentioned that Governor Evers and Assembly Speaker Robin Vos put together a task force on Racial Disparity in the State of WI. It will be chaired by Rep. Jim Steineke (R-Kaukauna) and Rep. Sheila Stubbs (D-Madison). From the press release: “The special committee will focus on racial disparities, educational opportunities, public safety, and police policies and standards.”
There was also a meeting in Green Bay the week before the Community Advisory Board meeting that was focused on racial disparity in law enforcement. Chief Thomas was able to speak at that meeting for a couple hours and take questions. The attendees were specifically interested in Community Engagement (which the CAB discussed during their October meeting: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SRFXEfN-m-w) and the Use of Force process (which was the subject of that 12/07 CAB meeting.)
As I said, I hope to give a rundown of the Use of Force presentation in the next day or two. I thought it was very informative.
You can view the full 12/07/2020 APD Community Advisory Board meeting here: https://youtu.be/fSybteUGAGg
Be the first to reply