Counterpoint: The best way to establish ‘trust in policing’

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Since the murder of George Floyd in 2020, we have engaged in much discussion and many actions aimed at instituting substantive reform in the manner in which police officers do their jobs. Unfortunately, judging from recently reported events both in Minnesota and nationally, these discussions and actions have not resulted in a significant level of improvement.

So, the question remains: What needs to be done in order to achieve a level of police performance that will gain the confidence, support and trust of the people who depend on law enforcement officers to “serve and protect” in an appropriate and consistent manner?

Four chiefs of police in Hennepin County (“The Sonya Massey case and trust in policing,” Aug. 2) offered a suggestion. The chiefs commit that “as leaders in law enforcement, it is our collective responsibility to ensure that those entrusted with the power to enforce the law are properly trained, that we do our job to thoroughly vet the men and women we hire in our departments, and that those who wear the badge are both capable and compassionate.”

The chiefs are absolutely correct in stating that hiring and training are critical tasks. However, they omit any mention of another critical element of accomplishing their objective. An element that is perhaps the most important responsibility of leaders in law enforcement. That element is the task of performance management.

Performance management is the supervision process required to ensure proper behavior and enforce officer accountability relative to training, policies and procedures. It includes such actions as monitoring, evaluation, and the application of rewards and punishments. All three elements must be consistently and conscientiously utilized. And only the Chief Law Enforcement Executive (CLEO) — in other words, the chief of police, sheriff or State Patrol chief — can execute that responsibility.

As examples of the critical nature of effective management as the means to ensure proper officer performance, consider two recent incidents in Minnesota. First, on Jan. 3, a Star Tribune article described the actions of a Corcoran police officer who had six cases dismissed by a Hennepin County judge. After his sixth dismissal in February 2020, the officer told the judge, in open court, that he had no plans to change his policing tactics. He said, “No, because I disagreed with the findings of those orders. So no, I didn’t. I do things exactly the same as I always have.” What action has the chief taken relating to this officer?

The second example is that of a Minnesota state trooper who is currently charged with multiple crimes related to a crash on May 18 that resulted in a fatality. He was driving his State Patrol vehicle at high speeds, without his lights or siren, when the collision occurred. His file shows that he was involved in four crashes before the fatal wreck, and was suspended for a day in two of the crashes and reprimanded in writing for the other two. How effective were the activities relating to hiring and training? And more concerning, why were the management interventions so minimal?

These two examples are illustrative of the result of ineffective supervision and disciplinary action by senior management of the organization. They are also illustrative of the difficulty in attempting to impose control of law enforcement officers from sources that are external from the CLEO. If an officer has the audacity to tell a judge, in open court, that he doesn’t need to do what she tells him to, why would he obey legislation with which he disagrees? And, equally significant, if officers are not held accountable for exhibiting poor judgment and tactics in the “routine” execution of their duties, then the potential for tragic outcomes is dramatically increased when they encounter truly “high-risk and high-pressure situations.”

In closing, higher levels of accountability must be focused on the performance of the senior management of our law enforcement agencies relative to the hiring, the training and especially the management of the officers under their command. The buck stops with them!

Michael Jordan was commissioner of the Minnesota Department of Public Safety from 1992-1996.