Cleveland Spruill If you were to draft a 50/10 plan to address mental health awareness within the police force what does that look like? Well, first let me say that, um, I think a simple 50/10 plan--the model that they have looked at nationally--does not make sense, will not work, and is not something that I would support. Uh, you can't just arbitrarily say we're going to cut a police department in half, uh, to put money in funding elsewhere and expect that you're not going to, uh, welcome a state of lawlessness of less safe community--a community where criminals and people who are committing violence and selling drugs feel comfortable. But the average citizen is law abiding, not a criminal. And so I can't support a 50/10 plan, because it's an arbitrary knee jerk reaction. That's the first thing. The second thing is our people in our community. I've been out in Athens and I've talked to people. And when I'm talking to people, they're not saying they want to cut funds to our police department. In most cases, they're saying we need more police officers. “Where are you at? We want you to open up the center in Nellie B. We want you to be out in the community.” Well, that's what I'm hearing from citizens. They're not saying “Cut police funding.” And don't get me wrong--drug abuse, drug addiction, mental health issues, social issues? Absolutely. We need to put more resources into our community to try to help those people and get them resources. So, I'm not suggesting that we shouldn't do that. We should, but it's not one or the other; you can do that without cutting funding to the police department. And, in fact, we've been working toward that endeavor since 2015 with the Jerry NeSmith behavioral health co-responder team. Our program here in Athens Clarke County is getting regional, local, and national attention because of the successes that we're having. Expanding on a program that's already been very effective is important to me in that regard. We try every year, during budget time, to go back into our budget and see what opportunities are there to reduce spending and give something up for the sake of other things that we don't have. My question is this: if we cut the police department, who are you going to call? You can't call a social worker because somebody just shot at you, or because someone burglarized your house. And so there's a need for police officers there. We had six thousand property crimes and three thousand two hundred crimes against persons in Athens/Clarke County last year, and more than four hundred aggravated assaults. So If we're going to defund any aspect of the police power, fifty percent is way out of whack. But each year I'm willing to sit down with the manager and commission and say, “Here's where I think we need resources.”
Chief of the Athens Police Department
I think what you noticed when you were watching the developmental task force was a lack of voice and a lack of involvement from the police department. And that was because, after a certain period of time, they were just not willing to take input, with advice or guidance from the police department. And if the police department is going to be an integral part of this thing, that's absolutely necessary. That's the first thing. The second thing is there are some people who just don't have a very positive outlook on the police department--men and women in here. What I can say to you is that the more you get to know the men and women of the Athens/Clarke County police department, the more you will appreciate the very difficult and dangerous job they do and how compassionate they are and how they love their community and the work that they're doing. You will come to appreciate it. And that's what I felt was lacking in this whole thing, where it's almost as if these officers are doing something wrong and we need to take control and fix it. That's not what this thing is about. This is about us getting together, having dialogue, communicating about what the issues and concerns are and working together to improve it because there's always room to improve. If I'm going to end on one thing, what I would end on is this: come to some of those trainings--crisis intervention, training fair, and impartial policing training. I'll send you a link to let you know when they take place. Come on into some of that training to see how hard we're trying to meet the expectations of the community that we serve.
What does a 38% poverty rate mean for Athens? Is the expectation of poverty related crime in Athens reasonable? I think Athens, in a sense, is very much like other communities and then, sometimes, very unlike other communities. Here's what I mean, unlike most other communities, urban communities across the nation, you're going to have pockets of poverty mostly forgotten communities. These communities suffer from a larger proportion of poverty, crime, violence, and drugs. You know the communities that I'm talking about; you don’t even have to state names. And so the focus has got to be on helping those communities, getting help to those communities. I was proud of Athens last year when our board put together a prosperity project--where they put millions of dollars towards trying to say, “We're going to push some money into those communities to try to begin to address those long standing systemic and social issues in those communities.” But I'll tell you what does trouble me sometimes. If you’re driving around on game day, you see tailgating, drinking, partying, and all the energy that's being put into that stuff. It is easy to forget that right around the corner What did you learn from the developmental task force? you have extreme poverty--38%, right there. There's a need How could interaction have been better? for opportunities to understand this dichotomy that exists . HIGHLIGHT
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