CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Shattered glass littered Charlotte streets in the aftermath of heated, and at times, violent protests following the officer-involved shooting death of Keith Lamont Scott in September.
The damage to the city’s infrastructure served as a reminder of all that was broken In Charlotte -- including trust.
Amid the community’s unrest came repeated calls for transparency and accountability among police officers, with others demanding a culture change within the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department.
Sociology professor Dr. Melvin Herring is part of the consulting firm The Human Development Group, and helped design a law enforcement course in cultural competency, leading officers to examine their biases and knowledge of cultural knowledge and behaviors to bridge the gap of understanding between the communities they serve.
PDF: Overview of Cultural Competence Training
At the request of CMPD Chief Kerr Putney, Herring worked with officers identified as department leaders, directing them through 11 sessions over the course of a calendar year.
“My goal and my hope for them in just the first few sessions is to get them to deconstruct how they see the world,” Herring said.
Throughout the program, officers engaged in group activities as well as unfiltered, and at times, emotional discussions. By session five, the group explored the idea of privilege, power and oppression, which included dialogue on the topic “What is going on with Police Officers and Black Males?”
CMPD Capt. Jackie Bryley was among officers who completed the course, but was initially convinced she didn’t need it.
“Sometimes as an African-American officer you go in to certain diversity and cultural classes with kind of a little chip on your shoulder, like how are you going to teach me about diversity?” she said. “It humbled me a lot.”
Officers described a turning point in their experience with an exercise called, “What’s in the bag?”
Participants were instructed to bring a bag of their choice from home, and fill it with items representing who they are. From there, officers were tasked with determining which bag belonged to whom.
Bryley said no one got it right.
“Based off of just our own preconceived notions, we were trying to pick whose bag belongs to whom,” she told Channel 9.
Officers were also encouraged to explore the idea of implicit bias, helping them to identify their preconceived notions among various groups of people.
“By definition, they're there,” said Capt. Dave Johnson. “You just have to learn to recognize when you're having a moment of that.”
As part of the course, Herring said having officers identify their personal bias and cultural awareness is designed to have them use that knowledge to impact policy change within the department.
A process he admits will take time.
“You're talking about creating a paradigm shift within an organization and that is often times slow,” Herring said.
“We all think we're inclusive,” added CMPD Lt. David Robinson. “This class, however, shattered what we thought we were doing right and made it obvious that we weren’t even scratching the surface.”
“Nobody thinks that they need training to treat people fairly, and deal with them where they are,” added Johnson. “As police officers, we occupy a social location and we represent something to others that maybe we don't even see in ourselves.”
The first class of officers completed training before the Charlotte protests. The current class includes 23 people, including civilian staff, sergeants and lieutenants.