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Instead, those who would have been his new superiors shut
their eyes to the verifiable measured results of Diggs’
performance in order to mask their own insatiable passion
for domination.
I
had a very candid conversation with the former police chief
in the final days of his service to the citizens of Toledo
to discuss his legacy and the future of public safety in
Toledo. This is the second and final part of our discussion.
Perryman:
Please, talk for a moment, about the importance of having a
police chief who has a good relationship with the community.
Diggs:
If there’s one important position in any city
administration, is that of the police chief. When you have
a police chief that has the confidence of the community you
can move forward in a lot of different areas and on
different issues. That is very, very important because, when
most of your officers are assigned to areas where
individuals of color live, you’re going to have a
disproportionate amount of minority contact. And it’s
important that the community has trust in that police chief
because there’s always going to be things said or
perceptions made. So they need to have confidence that this
chief is going to do the right thing.
As I told you before
numerous times, I’m a law man, I don’t tolerate gun
violence, I don’t tolerate gang violence. However, I know
the situations and circumstances that we have in today’s
world. We cannot arrest ourselves out of these situations.
And I have to be just as focused and just as aggressive to
divert the at-risk kids and youth out of the criminal
justice system and put them into a positive environment,
enroll them in positive programs and have proactive
enforcement strategies so they can have productive lives.
That’s why when we had 535
officers, the lowest staffing level in the history of the
police department; I still expanded my Police Athletic
League. That’s why I expanded the police probation team;
even though I had this short staff situation.
Perryman:
Probation team?
Diggs:
Yes. We divert kids that are involved in juvenile
delinquency from the court if we set parameters for them to
perform tasks, under a contract with their parents and with
the schools. We work with them on their schoolwork and a
whole agenda of things and when they complete them the
juvenile court will wipe their record clean. So it’s a
diversion program that we have.
That’s why I also allowed
Officer Flo Wormely to continue her STRIVE program, another
diversion program to get at risk youths into positive
environments. I continued the Mountain Mentoring program
where I have officers take kids up to the mountains to a
retreat and give them self-confidence to help build other
skills. We developed a prison-visit program, once again,
taking at risk youths to prisons and allowing the inmates to
talk to them and discuss things to put them back on the
right track.
I joined forces with Judge
Denise Cubbon in her Juvenile Alternative Detention
Intervention Program (JADIP). When we pick youth up for
juvenile delinquency, we can now take them to an assessment
center, drop the kid off and assessors will determine
whether the kid should be continued in detention, require
counseling, psychiatric help or mental health intervention.
That means my officers can just drop that kid off, drop off
the report and get back on the streets.
I can go on and on and on.
But what I’m trying to emphasize is that, it’s important to
do proactive things out there in the community that help
turn some of the youths around.
We also had 26 different
initiatives under my watch that we were working on with the
university. The one that’s saddened me most is Dr. Morris
Jenkins, before he left, had this thing set up where I was
going to be able to send two officers to grad school to work
on their master’s degree free of charge and they were
African-American officers. These are the type things you can
do as chief and that make it important for the community to
have a police chief they trust.
Perryman:
What do you think the consequences will be of your leaving?
Diggs:
As far as?
Perryman:
I was thinking of the collateral damage inflicted upon the
community as a result of your leaving.
Diggs:
What I’m hoping is if I move on, [Toledo Mayor D. Michael
Collins] will let someone else come in and do the best they
can do for the betterment of the community. I would hope
they keep the Diggs plan because the Diggs plan works, I
demonstrated that. But hopefully if I step back, maybe the
next chief will be allowed to come in and do the things that
need to be done. At least that’s what I would hope.
Perryman:
If that were not the case, what would the consequences be?
Diggs:
Well I don’t know, I really don’t.
Perryman:
If you remove someone who is very sensitive to the community
and has a working knowledge of its needs and you replace
them with someone who doesn’t have that, what could happen?
Diggs:
It could be negative.
Perryman:
Can you elaborate?
Diggs:
I don’t want to elaborate. Because the thing is, I don’t
want anything that I do to appear to be vindictive or appear
to be negative. That’s water under the damn for me now. I
want to be the chief here; I was not allowed to be the chief
here. It’s time for me to move on. But that doesn’t mean I
want bad things to happen for this community. Hopefully
positive things will come forth.
Perryman:
Would you consider coming back under a different scenario?
Diggs:
Yes, absolutely! It’s got to be under a different scenario,
but yeah absolutely.
Perryman:
So you wouldn’t just walk away and say I’m never coming
back?
Diggs:
Well, I can’t say that because I don’t know what life has to
offer. The thing that I am looking forward to is that you’ve
got to understand I spent my entire adult life to protect
and serve the citizens of this community. From the time I
graduated from college to now, I’ve done only one thing,
protect and serve this community. So now is an opportunity
for me to take a step back, refocus, see what I want to do,
see what things are out there about life, see what door I
may want to go through and take it from there.
But if I really want to be
the chief here, I can never tell you that after this, man
I’m gone and not coming back. I will always have to leave
that door open. If the situation is right and the community
says, ‘hey listen we want you to be our chief,’ and that’s
what it would have to be, then I would have no problem doing
that.
Perryman:
Let me take it a step further. What about a political office
in the future, perhaps as mayor?
Diggs:
(Laughter) No, I’m not a politician and I know I wouldn’t be
good at it. There are things I believe in and there are
things that I just won’t do and won’t accept. So no, you’ll
never see Derrick Diggs run for an elective office.
Perryman:
How were you able to raise the morale of your troops to
where, as you’ve indicated, it’s at its highest level?
Diggs:
It is at the highest level and I’m very surprised about that
because I’ve only been chief for a short period of time. But
what I’ve tried to do is set a level of expectation for our
officers and it’s very, very simple. I expect my officers to
be professional, first of all, to do their job. But not to
do your job the way you think you should do it, rather, to
do your job the way you’re supposed to do it. And I demand
that these officers be respectful and courteous to citizens
at all times.
I had to do some
restructuring and reassignments during my first 90 days.
Once that was done, we started setting goals, objectives and
timetables of what needed to happen and everything else fell
in place. I think one of the things that helped me is the
fact that I came up through the ranks, I’ve been here
30-some plus years. And so officers kind of know me and know
what I’m all about.
Another facet that helped
me is an open door policy. My officers know they can come in
and sit down with me and I try to keep the lines of
communication open. Any time they call me or they leave word
they’d like to talk to me, I try to make sure I contact them
within 24 hours. I try to do it within the same day, if
possible. I do not want them thinking that I’m trying to
avoid them or that their issue is not important to me.
And the other thing I try
to do is I try not to get ground up in the small stuff. If I
can live with some things and if it doesn’t go outside the
parameters of my core values, then let’s try to work it out.
Let’s save those major battles for the times that we really
need to put the gloves on. That way we all know that I’m
going to knock you out and we’re going to keep going. But
let’s not fight with some of this other stuff because in the
end, if people don’t feel safe in this community they’re not
going to live in this community. My job is to ensure that
people can live here, party here, get educated here and
raise a family here safely. Then the city can thrive.
Perryman:
So where do you go from here?
Diggs:
We’re going to go wherever life’s road takes me. Everyone’s
got all these ideas and rumors but I’m looking forward to
seeing where life is taking me. I’m looking forward to that.
There’s a bigger world than Toledo. So that’s the thing with
me, I’m not making any predictions. I’m just going to go
wherever the road of life takes me and take it from there.
Perryman:
It seems as though the more talent - for certain, the more
black talent we have locally - it seems as if those persons
are literally escorted or ushered out of the city. I do
know, that there’s a brain drain here in Toledo that has
always been. What do you think is at the root?
Diggs:
If you’re born in Toledo and you’re raised here, you can
answer that question very easily (laughter). And I know
folks, I’ve got a young son he’s still here but there are
other parents that have young kids, and they move out and
you go see them and they’re in places where they can grow
and develop and everything else. And they see that, they see
that hey I can do all these other things over here and so
they leave. Toledo is Toledo.
Perryman:
What is it about Toledo that stifles excellence and growth?
Diggs:
I really don’t have the answer but I do know that it’s a
Toledo thing, man. It’s sad, but the world’s bigger than
Toledo and you’ve got to understand that. And like I said,
for me, wherever the world takes me, that’s what I’m looking
at.
Perryman:
Well, you’ve certainly done great things here, but may God
bless you to be all you can be. Perhaps, outside of Toledo,
the sky will be the limit.
Diggs:
The thing is I spent 37 years here protecting and serving
and loved every minute of it, loved every minute of it. I
joined this police department not to be a hero, but to be
able to make a difference and to be able to protect and help
raise up all the little Derrick Diggs that are coming up. To
build their self-esteem and keep them away from some of the
negative things in life just like a lot of people did for me
so that one day they could be the police chief or a fire
chief or the mayor.
What’s out there? There’s
something there. And wherever I go, I’ll get into something.
That’s how I’m looking at it.
Contact Rev. Donald Perryman, D.Min, at
drdlperryman@centerofhopebaptist.org |
