Mark Farrall

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Farrall added that he couldn’t be more proud of how the officers handled themselves.

“We see these incidents around the country and what is so heartbreaking to me is we see the impact this anti-police sentiment is having on our officers,” he said. “Personally, it’s upsetting, knowing the character of the officers the way I do. What’s unfortunate is those incidents, although isolated, tend to paint the entire profession with a broad brush. But at the same time, we continue to hold ourselves to a high standard of professionalism.”

In fact, most of the things that local residents were demanding were already being done by the Newark Police Department.

The Newark Police Department was the first agency in Delaware to implement a fair and impartial policing program, which developed into what is currently known as Implicit Bias Training.

“That’s basically understanding bias can have an impact on what we perceive and on our actions,” Farrall said. “Our Implicit Bias Training developed into a partnership with the Anti- Defamation League, and they are hoping to use the program they developed with us as a national framework to teach law enforcement across the country.”

Another program that helps guide the moral structure of the department is called Active Bystander for Law Enforcement (ABLE). The point of focus here is that officers have a duty to intervene if they see a co-worker doing something inappropriate, such as improper use of force, etc.

“Our officers have a duty to intervene to stop that from happening,” he said. “It takes a lot of courage and our officers are well-trained to do that. We don’t have that kind of conduct often but it’s important to continually drive home the point of why that is so important.”

Farrall also touted the Crisis Intervention Training efforts which constitute a week-long program in partnership with NAMI, the National Alliance on Mental Illness. It’s a five- day course which is designed to recognize and assist those who are having mental health challenges. Some of the key points include how to talk to people and how to de-escalate situations.

“That is so critical because it’s such an important part of our job,” Farrall said. “A high percentage of the calls we get are people having mental health issues. We’re expanding that program. It’s a challenge. We’re getting as many officers into that program as we can.”

Farrall emphasized that although they are trained to deal with these tasks, they are not mental health clinicians.

He said, “Sometimes you’ll see unfortunate situations around the country where they are faced with situations that are really out of their wheelhouse, but there’s nobody else to call, so we feel it’s important that we train our officers as best we can to deal with these situations.”

As challenging as the mental health issues are, Farrall is optimistic about some of the current progress that is being made. “There are programs that are working, either through health agencies or law enforcement where they have people who are responders, who are not police, but who are well-trained in the mental health field.” Some of these programs are gaining momentum, just not on a national level yet.

“A sub-category of recruiting,” Farrall said, “is diversity, and the more diversity we have in our department, the more it will lead us to providing better service to our community. So the more people we have with various backgrounds and cultures, the better lens that we will be able to view issues from. We look to continue to build on that.”

Farrall cited the close relationship with the Newark chapter of the NAACP, which is led by President Freeman Williams.

“Our collaboration with them allows us to solicit their feedback on ways to improve our diversity within our agency,” Farrall said. “Their input is invaluable.”