Community leaders came together Wednesday in Grayslake to identify and attempt to solve race-related issues facing Lake County.
As the nation continues to grapple with recent shootings of black men and police officers, David Northern Sr., executive director and CEO of the Lake County Housing Authority, said he wanted the county to address race-related issues before anything happens here. With the help of U.S. Rep. Bob Dold, he assembled a committee of law enforcement, elected officials, education leaders, community organizations and religious leaders.
The vast majority of the group expressed thoughts that the most important issue to address was trust. Some blamed social media for the mistrust of police, while others blamed people making generalizations. What most agreed on, though, was the need for education and outreach to help solve the problem.
Round Lake Beach police officers already read to third- and fourth-graders and participate in “hero day,” according to Police Chief David Hare. Hare thinks teaching children how to interact when they’re young is critical, because that is when they are most impressionable and can be most effective.
“Preschool’s so important, and the studies show the kids that start reading earlier will perform better down the road,” Hare said. “Well, if they start interacting with the police earlier, then they’re going to interact with them better when they get older, also.”
Hare wants to expand the efforts to the high school and start a program where the police department would participate in a traffic stop unit in driver education classes. Officers would pull students over so they could practice handling the situation before they receive their driver’s licenses and really get pulled over.
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Grayslake Police Chief Phillip Perlini wants to create a program that would bring police officers from his and neighboring departments and rotate them through area middle schools’ lunch hours. The officers would not have a set agenda to discuss but would instead answer any of the students’ questions.
“We want to have relationships with our citizens, and it’s hard for us to get out there,” Perlini said. “It’s hard to get out of the car, just walk and knock on somebody’s door and say, ‘Hi, how are you doing?’ So this is another way to do it.”
Anthony McIntyre, president of the nonprofit organization Switch Lanes, said he admires these educational efforts but thinks they can be truly successful only if they reach the community too. Students can learn in school that police officers are positive influences, he said, but they will disregard that information if they go home to parents who tell them otherwise.
McIntyre suggests police departments find ways to connect with residents through ways that unify them, such as playing basketball. He proposed getting police department teams to face community teams.
“It would build a great sense of understanding each other,” McIntyre said.
National attention has focused on relations between the African-American community and police officers, but locally, attention is also on relations between the Hispanic community and law enforcement.
Some immigrants living in the country without legal permission fear police officers because they think they could have them deported, according to Megan McKenna Mejia, executive director of Mano a Mano Family Resource Center. Some immigrants come from countries where law enforcement does not work for the people and therefore is not trusted.
To help solve this issue, Mano a Mano is working with the Round Lake Beach Police Department. Hare wants the department to learn about the community from the community, so Mano a Mano will facilitate opportunities to interact this fall.
“I think (getting the immigrant community and police officers is) the primary focus because when there’s trust in the community, it just functions better,” McKenna Mejia said. “You know, people feel more comfortable calling the police when they’ve been victimized, for example, or if they see something in their neighborhood.
“And so we have to set up that trust,” she added, “so people feel like the police work for them and that they’re partners in creating safe communities.”
According to Hare, having the community’s trust is vital for police officers to be able to perform their jobs. Sometimes, officers will have to act as a guardian and work with the community, Hare said, but other times they will have to act as a warrior and protect the community.
Hare added that situations might result in arresting someone or hurting someone like events in the national spotlight. If people trust police officers, he said, they will allow them to explain their actions.
“If you don’t trust me, you’re automatically going to think we did something wrong and we’re the bad guy,” Hare said. “And so we have to establish the trust. I wish that we didn’t have to — that bad things weren’t going to happen — but bad things happen.”
Wednesday was just the start of the discussion about the issues with race relations in Lake County and what actions organizations can and already are taking to address them. The group members decided to continue the effort and scheduled another meeting for Aug. 3.
Angelica LaVito is a freelance reporter for the News-Sun.