Hello City Council,
I’d like to say thank you for affirming your commitment to reimagining public safety this past week. I remain firm in my belief that we need to engage our community in this conversation before moving forward with any relevant changes, and I appreciate that you committed to that as well.
I thought Councilmember Mueller, Mayor Combs, and the police chief brought up some interesting points in their support of the service level enhancements. I'd like to take a moment to address some of what was said to that effect. I believe the chief introduced the notion of the CSOs as an option for unarmed emergency response. As I recall, this was Councilmember Mueller's primary motive in pushing for the positions to be added back. I am, on the one hand, encouraged by such an open discussion of unarmed emergency response in our city. But on the other hand, I am wary of narrowing our critical reflection on policing to the use of firearms. Police violence involving firearms is just one part of a larger history of policing as a contributor towards the segregation and oppression of communities of color. I personally feel very supportive of our city increasing its options for unarmed emergency response. But I cannot support these options being provided by the police department, and I believe it would be a mistake for us to move in that direction. I agree with Councilmember Mueller that this is an urgent need for our city. And for me, this need serves as motivation to start our community conversations about public safety as soon as possible.
I also believe the idea was put forth that the CSO positions are important towards community engagement and building community trust in policing. I'd like to push back against that notion as well. If the community is distrustful towards our police department, I don't believe it's fair or right to then reward the police department with more staff and a higher budget to combat said distrust. That would seem to be positing the police department as the means of solving a problem that it has itself caused. Instead, I believe we should, once again, engage the community in this conversation and solicit all of our input on what community distrust of police means, why it exists, why it persists, and what we should do about it.
Thank you again for the time and energy you've devoted to this issue. I imagine it may not always seem as concrete and achievable as some of the city's other work priorities and projects. But I remain firm in my belief that this work will enable our city to be a safer, more equitable place in the future.
Best,
Kevin Gallagher
