Moorhead Police Chief David Ebinger said he is open to making himself and other police officials available to discuss problems and complaints with his department.
Ebinger told the Moorhead Human Rights Commission Tuesday night he and other department officials are working on better ways to handle complaints from residents who feel a police officer treated them unfairly.
"I think it's incumbent on me to make the department available to everyone," he said. "I hope the community understands that's our objective."
His appearance before the Human Rights Commission comes one month after board members requested information on the process for filing complaints. It also comes in the wake of requests by the Moorhead-based People Escaping Poverty Project to review data in a 2004 traffic-stop study kept by Moorhead police.
The study, conducted by Minnesota State University Moorhead professor Mark Hansel raised concerns about racial profiling during police traffic stops, but does not prove it occurs.
Hansel completed a similar study that was released in 2003. It found that blacks and Latinos were stopped, searched and arrested more often than whites during traffic stops.
PEPP and Human Rights Commission members say data from the studies is crucial in addressing residents' complaints.
"If a citizen is unhappy (with the circumstances of getting stopped by police), we want to know 'what's the process when someone is stopped,' " said Human Rights Commissioner Del Rae Williams.
"Many of the people here today are greatly interested in racial equality and, as a result of the data, find it is a troubling issue in our community," PEPP board member Cindy Shawcross said. She suggested to the Human Rights Commission that community forums on the study data is one solution in discussing the issue.
Ebinger told the commission his department has started providing paper and online complaint forms for both English and Spanish speakers. Once the department receives the complaint, "you will be contacted by a police supervisor," he said.
He also said patrol officers' cars are equipped with a dashboard surveillance camera system that is activated when the officer turns on the emergency lights. Vehicles for police supervisors and unmarked patrol vehicles do not have the same surveillance system, he said.
Ebinger said the department has one officer who speaks Spanish and is paying for a clerical worker to take Spanish classes.
He encouraged the commission to refer any community members to him who are familiar with cultural barriers so he can include them in department training activities. "If someone wants to familiarize us with a specific culture, we are open to that."
Shawcross said she was pleased by the information shared by Ebinger and the brief discussion she had with him after the meeting. "I was so impressed … We are at an agreement that we need more dialogue."
Williams believes future dialogue with police officials on the study will be beneficial. "This is the first stop – in my mind," she said of the meeting. "We want to get the community aware of this."
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