The article “Seven Steps to Adjust an Officer’s Attitude” by WNYC News discusses a new NYPD training program that encourages officers to have respectful encounters with the public. They have created seven steps to help foster positive interaction with the public:
- Whenever possible, introduce yourself. Provide name & rank.
- Actively listen to people you’re encountering.
- Keep an open mind about the information you’re receiving.
- Be patient with the people you’re serving.
- Know the resources that are available to help people with their problems.
- Make every reasonable effort to address the needs of people asking for help.
- Whenever possible, make sure every encounter ends on a positive note.
However, after my friend was robbed recently, our experience with the NYPD proved that just a list of steps alone does not necessarily foster positive community interaction. Below, is a summary of what happened, as well as specific examples where the NYPD’s behavior fell short of these guidelines:
It all started when my friend got in a car accident. Right after the accident, my friends ran away from the scene due to the group of people trying to rob them. In order to avoid having his phone and wallet stolen, my friend quickly hid his stuff in a jacket behind the bushes of an apartment building. This might not have been the smartest decision, but in a moment of panic he thought this was his best option.
Keep an open mind about the information you’re receiving.
However, when they returned to the scene, the NYPD officers did not believe that they were being jumped, and they blamed them for leaving the scene. If the NYPD would have kept an open mind, instead of just judging before knowing the situation, they would realize that if my friends’ intentions were to “hit and run,” why would they have gone back to the incident site? After being questioned for three long hours, my friend returned to the apartment where he had hidden his things at around 4 a.m. The jacket was there, the wallet was there, but the phone was missing.
My friend’s $800 phone had been stolen.
With the help of the app “Find my iPhone,” we tracked his phone to a car near the incident site. He walked there, got a picture of the license plate number where his phone was, and returned to the police station seeking help to rescue his phone.
But help is not what he got. Instead, he was asked questions about the night that had left him with an injured knee and a bleeding lip. Not being able to deal with another three hours of questioning, he left the police station to take matters into his own hands.
Whenever possible, introduce yourself. Provide name & rank.
Actively listen to people you’re encountering.
I went to help him figure out other options to rescue his phone. First, we went to the apartment building office to see if we could access the cameras in front of the building. They said that in order to access them we would have to file a police report. So we returned to the police station again. We spoke to an officer who explained the situation to another officer, and the officer banged on the glass window and said, “You guys come here.” Never before have I been spoken to with such hostility. We walked over and his exact words were, “We don’t file reports for your stupid mistakes.”
We walked out of the station with no report, no phone, no sleep and no help. Is this how the NYPD trains officers to deal with the public? Clearly, these seven steps were not implemented. And this was only one story, one night, one accident, and one phone. What about the others who seek the help of the police and do not receive it? Clearly the seven steps have not done their job to foster a better relationship with the NYPD and the communities it serves, and if the NYPD is serious about improving its relationship to the communities it serves, it needs to make sure its officers are taking these recommendations seriously.
