Mint Hill police work to bridge gap between officers and community

MINT HILL, N.C. — A local police department is taking a proactive step after protests against police across the country.

Mint Hill officers hit the streets everyday aiming to serve others, but Tuesday they became students during a training to help mend that divide between police and the community.

The training focused on implicit bias, effective communication and teaching officers how to be approachable.

>>In the video at the top of the page, how the training will help improve community-police relations in our area and the push for similar programs to be mandatory statewide.

Statement from the Attorney General’s Office:

The Task Force on Racial Equity in Criminal Justice has made some provisional recommendations in this space. AG Stein is co-chairing that task force and more info is here: www.ncdoj.gov/trec

Those recommendations include:

• Maintaining a relationship between the Task Force and the Justice Academy to make changes to curriculum for Basic Law Enforcement Training (BLET) as well as all other aspects of training. The Task Force also will recommend the creation of a new position at the Justice Academy to help focus on incorporating these ideas into existing trainings and creating new ones.
• The Task Force will work with the Joint IST Committee to suggest training topics for in-service training and to suggest additional mandatory training to be completed yearly. On the table for consideration are ethics, mental health, community interactions, implicit bias/racial equity training, use of force, and duty to intervene.
• As well as other more specific recommendations around these issues and training.

In addition to the task force work, the current BLET curriculum covers bias training in the ‘Communication Skills’ topic block. The BLET curriculum is currently being revised, and this section will be expanded, as it will be foundational content for multiple topics within the program. We also have addressed bias in the mandated in-service training program. Topics such as Juvenile Minority Sensitivity Training (annual) and Equality in Policing (2018) have addressed implicit bias. This month the Justice Academy released updated training on implicit bias, which is available online for all NC officers. Bias is also discussed in our Leadership Institute, which is optional for leaders.

I am not aware of any agencies that are rewarded or recognized for their training, but I do know that Burlington PD recognizes officers for efforts in de-escalation.

NCDOJ keeps track of officers completing mandatory in-service training. I’m not aware of any records related to individual agencies' training."

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