Monday afternoon, Columbus Police Chief Oscar Lewis sat down to an interview. But it wasn’t with suspects — it was with two students from Columbus High School who wanted to learn more about the police department.
Juniors Keara Williams and Kiyanna Curry have spent the last couple of months putting together a project advocating for awareness of police brutality and looking for ways to bridge gaps between good law enforcement officers and minority teens.
“What they were concerned about is how we change the perception of people thinking they’re unfairly treated by the police,” Lewis said. “I kind of explained to them that there are some people in law enforcement that are bad but all law enforcement is not bad.”
The two teens sat down with Lewis and one of their teachers, Becky Kinard, who is helping them with the project. The discussion covered topics from police use of body cameras, to how to interact with officers in the community.
The interview was one part of Williams’ and Curry’s project. Both students are part of the CHS chapter of Family, Career, and Community Leaders of America, a national club for students. They’ll present the project as part of statewide FCCLA competition in Jackson.
The project responds to the national conversation on racial profiling and police brutality. It’s easy to feel anger when another police shooting makes the national news, Williams said. She doesn’t want that anger to translate to anger toward all police officers — for herself or her classmates.
“I was filled with anger, hatred, resentment — not toward our police department but toward police in general,” Williams said. “Then I had to stop and think, ‘This is not my community. My community I know would not do this.’ And I had to sit back and go, ‘This is not all police.’ … We do have really good police officers especially here in Columbus.”
Project research
Williams and Curry began researching other cases of police shootings around the country. For Curry, the Ricky Ball case — where a white CPD officer shot and killed a black man who ran from a traffic stop in October 2015 — was a particular motivator.
“I’ve heard about the Ricky Ball case on the news, and I thought, ‘I really didn’t know about this,'” Curry said. “Once I got more research on other cases, … I got more open-minded (about telling people) this is a real issue and people should know about it.”
As part of the project, Williams and Curry surveyed students at CHS, asking whether they trusted and respected law enforcement, along with a handful of other questions about race.
The results surprised them — more than half the students said they had respect for law enforcement, while less than 100 said they didn’t trust law enforcement.
“Respect they say is there, but I think … they do feel like the police department has some racial (biases),” Kinard said.
Williams and Curry said they thought the results are due to portrayal of police in the national media — and probably, for a few students, their own experiences with police officers.
The results interested Lewis as well, who said he’d like to get a few copies of surveys to look over.
The surveys were just one aspect of the discussion.
“He was very open with them about his opinions and how he felt, and he was very open about wishing for better inroads in the community,” Kinard said. “You have to form relationships with people to have trust.”
Moving forward
Kinard said she, Lewis and the students discussed the possibility of reinstating programs that would bring police and students together, such as D.A.R.E., a national program that teaches students about resisting drugs.
Lewis said he didn’t get to speak with the students as long as he would have liked, but he would be interested in the future in finding ways to become more involved in local schools.
Williams was interested in Lewis’ take on the national issue of police brutality and his advice that students wait until the facts of a case come out and courts make decisions in individual cases of police shootings. He also advised them not to base their opinions about officers on other people’s experiences.
“He said it’s not good to already have an opinion without having a personal experience,” Williams said. “That kind of threw me for a loop.”
Curry was interested to learn about police department policies like the use of body cameras.
No matter how the students do in the FCCLA competition, they want to continue finding ways to connect the students with the Columbus Police Department and help bridge the trust gap.
“So many people don’t want to talk,” Williams said. “And when that doesn’t happen, they shut down. When that happens, you get (filled) with anger and hatred and resentment and then when that happens you have what happened in Dallas (where police officers died during a protest). … I don’t want it to go as far as that went.”
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Quality, in-depth journalism is essential to a healthy community. The Dispatch brings you the most complete reporting and insightful commentary in the Golden Triangle, but we need your help to continue our efforts. In the past week, our reporters have posted 34 articles to cdispatch.com. Please consider subscribing to our website for only $2.30 per week to help support local journalism and our community.
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