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The Community Solidarity Response Network Addresses Toledo’s
Pubic Safety Partnership
Sojourner’s Truth Staff
On Wednesday, May 16, 2018
about four dozen citizens were pulled together by the
Community Solidarity Response Network and the American Civil
Liberties Union of Ohio to voice their concerns about the
National Public Safety Partnership and its goal of reducing
violent crime.
It’s a goal that was
treated by skepticism by organizers such as Ruth Leonard who
noted that the 1980’s War on Drugs “turned into an
opportunity to incarcerate black men and women, especially
black men, at an exorbitant rate.”
Toledo is one of 12 cities
around the nation that the Department of Justice selected
last year to participate in the partnership which has been
implemented on a federal level to assist local law
enforcement in fighting violent crime. According to Toledo
Police Department Mike Troendle, who was one of about a half
dozen TPD officers in attendance at the event, the federal
partnership is in the first of three phases, which are
spread over three years. The elements of the first phase,
which will last until this autumn are a violent crime
assessment, a major crime assessment and a technical
assessment. Phase one is an examination of where high-crime
areas are and whether local police are effective in dealing
with that crime.
CSRN and the ACLU have
asked Toledo’s elected officials to pull out of the
partnership, but barring that action, the groups want to
keep Toledoans informed of what the partnership entails and
make sure that a dialogue between local law enforcement and
citizens is maintained.
“The common goal is that
all of us want to feel safe. Too often we’ve seen the idea
of safety be used by governments to take away peoples’
rights, we’ve seen that time and again,” said Emma Keeshin
of the ACLU of Ohio. “We’re afraid that the National Public
Safety Partnership is designed to make only some people feel
safe.”
During Wednesday’s
meeting, the organizers asked the attendees to break into
groups – six in all – and discuss within the groups, their
thoughts on four questions: What does safety look like to
you? When have you felt the most safe? What would help you
be involved in making Toledo safer? What do you need from
(city officials, Toledo police, your neighbors) to feel
safe?
While Troendle expressed a
view that the program will be basically color blind, the
participants expressed concerns that law enforcement
officers need to be trained to deal with diverse
populations.
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