Changing industry

Police chief says law enforcement has changed since the death of George Floyd

By Christopher Braunschweig Newton News

Although the murder of George Floyd occurred almost two years ago and more than 260 miles away from Newton, it had a profound impact on many local police departments and the industry of law enforcement as a whole, police chief Rob Burdess said, and at the very least provided opportunities to reevaluate.

Speci cally, law enforcement o cials took a closer look at their policies and procedures, as well as how police engage with their community. Burdess said o cers were given a chance to earn a greater understanding of the needs of their communities while also provide context into o cers’ actions.

It’s not like the Newton Police Department — or any police station in the United States — had a choice in the matter. e public demanded answers, and it showed in the amount of demonstrations, protests and riots condemning police brutality, particularly against people of color.

Newton experienced its own demonstration on June 1, 2020, in the town square. People were watching from roo ops, from the front door of their local business, from their passing cars. Burdess was there, standing and kneeling alongside the protestors. e chief condemned the reckless use of force against Floyd.

Other cities across the country did not have the same experience as Newton, which ended peacefully. Rumors of “busloads of protestors” from outside of the state mysteriously did not show up. Burdess had many frank conversations with citizens and demonstrators that night. ose same conversations persisted throughout the next year. Burdess said the national narrative pushed those discussions in Newton, but the police department itself was never targeted to correct any unjust behavior. O cers were able to learn a lot from the community through those conversations, and vice versa.

“It’s easy to take what’s said at the national level and try to do a broad brushstroke that all law enforcement agencies do something in a certain manner, and I think that was being done to a certain extent,” Burdess said. “In fact, every law enforcement agency operates a little bit di erently.”

Newton Police Department was able to answer those questions and explain how o cers are expected to handle or react to certain situations, or why they are di erent than perhaps other agencies or individuals. Floyd’s murder opened up broader dialogue, more challenging dialogue.

It goes beyond Black or White, Burdess said. O entimes it is about citizens not feeling heard, or they have not developed a sense of trust with their local law enforcement. at is a problem. O cers want and need the community to trust them in order to do the best job possible and keep people safe, Burdess said.

“If there’s some trust missing there, how do we bridge that gap? at mutual understanding of issues and concerns is pretty important,” he said. “ ose in-depth conversations don’t happen o en in our world. And you have to be intentional about it. We took some of those steps to have conversations.”

Newton o cers would frequently have one-on-one conversations or small group talks with neighborhoods. Some people in the community have had bad experiences with law enforcement, or they sympathize with those did. Burdess said it is the police department’s responsibility to be a part of those talks.

“It’s not Black versus White or law enforcement versus minority groups,” he said. “I think the opportunity was there to open up a conversation bigger than just race. Again, there’s

CONTINUED FROM 7

more than just the minority groups who feel they haven’t been treated well by law enforcement in general.”

‘NO OFFICER WANTS TO USE FORCE’

People demanded change from their police departments following Floyd’s murder, which Burdess described as an “outlier” in terms of the use of force incidents others have seen across the country in recent years. It was pretty cut-and-dry, he said, that the o cers’ actions were improper and caused a death.

Whereas, many of the other use-of-force incidents that the public sees are “a little less cutand-dry,” Burdess said.

“ ey go through investigations and o entimes we see the o cers are found to not be at fault,” he added. “I think residents and citizens in general o entimes don’t understand. ey saw a death of a citizen and they just don’t understand why the o cers weren’t held accountable.” at is the education piece o cers have to keep coming back to. Police have a lot of discretion to make decisions in their day-to-day jobs, but they work under the guidance of federal, state and local laws. Although some actions may seem improper on video footage, Burdess said people aren’t getting the full picture.

Burdess encourages individuals to step back a little bit and not only put themselves in the shoes of the person involved in the use-of-force incident, but also the o cer. e police chief did admit there are o cers who make mistakes or cross the line.

“But we’ve seen historically of the millions of contacts of cers have with citizens every year across the country, less than half of 1 percent of all those incidents result in some type of use of force,” Burdess said. “…And the number of those uses of force that are actually improper is just a tiny, minute number.”

Typically, those are the incidents Burdess claimed the public sees on TV most o en. e national narrative also drew criticisms toward police training. But o cers are training constantly, Burdess argued, for use-of-force incidents and deescalation and keeping up on the latest case law and tactics, among others.

“No o cer wants to use force,” Burdess said. “No o cer straps on their gun belt and puts on their badge at the beginning of shi and says, ‘I want to go out and use force tonight.’ Nobody does that. It’s actually the last thing they want to do is put themselves or somebody else in harm’s way.”

Sometimes o cers have to use force to control a situation or keep the public as a whole safe, and Burdess said when they’re doing that they’re trying to keep the o ender safe, too. e o cer is not always right, but they have to be reasonable with what they’re doing.

“And when they’re not, it’s my responsibility — and the responsibility of law enforcement leaders across the country — to hold their o cers responsible when they are out of line,” Burdess said.

MORE EMPHASIS ON

ACCOUNTABILITY & EQUIPMENT

O cers have been participating in deescalation training years before Floyd was murdered. Burdess said the issue was politicized in the wake of his death, but it also was put in to Iowa law requiring deescalation training every year for law enforcement agencies throughout the state.

“It’s been done at least since the beginning of when I became a police o cer 25 years ago, but I know deescalation has been done years before that,” Burdess said, noting more emphasis has been placed on the training and tactic. “It’s what we do every day. We deescalate situations.”

Deescalation is one piece of an entire assessment of an incident, too.

If a person is swinging a samurai sword at people, endangering themselves and others, there probably is not much time for a conversation. e o cers have to act. In contrast, there may be other instances where in the past o cers acted too quickly, and perhaps there was time for a less hostile interaction. at is where police o cers have to focus their training. Rushing into a situation like a bunch of cowboys to try and solve the problem, might not be the best solution. If o cers can ease in and evaluate as they go, judgements become more focused and proper. Which is ideal for incidents involving mental illness.

“ at hasn’t necessarily been as a result of George Floyd. at’s kind of been the mantra for the past decade with many of the mental health struggles we’ve been seeing in our local communities,” Burdess said. “Resources for mental health have been pretty scarce,

CHANGING • 9

The following businesses would like to thank all law enforcement offi cers for their bravery

REG Newton

Optimae

www.maytagdairyfarms.com or call 641-792-1133

Thank you for all you do throughout the year!

L I F E S E R V I C E S

SM-NE5186095-0513

1730 1st Ave E Newton, IA 50208 P: 641-787-9133 | F: 641-787-9135 At your side. On your side. SM-NE364220-0513

CONTINUED FROM 8

not only in Iowa but across the country.”

Accountability of police actions has also been given more emphasis these past few years. Equipment like body cameras help in that regard. Newton Police Department has been wearing body cameras for a number of years. Burdess said they are amazing tools and he wishes he had them when he started.

When he was first hired as a police officer, Burdess had incar cameras hooked into the dashboard of a patrol vehicle. Officers wore microphones on their belt. But unless the officer was standing in front of their police car, the footage didn’t capture every action. Body cameras do.

“Body cameras are a great accountability tool,” Burdess said. “We use them extensively in a number of ways, but the biggest one we use it for is to evaluate incidents and see how we can improve. So every one of the use-of-force incidents that we do … is reviewed by a supervisor and use-of-force instructor.”

This piece of technology — which Burdess says is an unbiased witness — makes sure officers are complying with department policy and the rights given to citizens through the Constitution, and it also gives a broader scope of whether their use of force complied with the law.

By reviewing footage, the police department can improve its procedures and tactics.

Maybe less force could be used. Or, in some cases, maybe more force could be used. Burdess said a byproduct of the Floyd incident is there have been circumstances where officers are hesitant to use force, not wanting to be “the next YouTube video,” or the next officer arrested for using force.

“That’s in their mind. So when they don’t use the appropriate amount of force, they’re actually putting themselves and the public in danger. That is something we have seen as an industry,” Burdess said. “That’s scary. And officers have died across the country because of it.”

RECRUITMENT STRUGGLES A

WORRYING TREND

There is an overarching sense of liability now that maybe was not there before, Burdess said, and it may be having an affect on police recruitment. Officers are thinking about the personal ramifications of intervening or are second guessing themselves in certain situations.

Burdess does understand the personal liability piece. But despite what some narratives say, he said it is an officer’s job to keep the public safe. Doing that is difficult when there are not enough viable applicants to hire for the job. Burdess doesn’t sugarcoat it. Recruiting numbers have been “horrible.”

Out of nine applicants the Newton Police Department received, four met the minimum standards and were invited to test. Four showed up to the test. Three failed some form of the process. Which left the department with one candidate. That’s not an uncommon situation.

“We are fortunate enough here in Newton that our retention rate has been pretty good recently,” Burdess said. “We’ve been able to find that diamond in the rough over our past few hiring processes, but that’s not the same experience many agencies are having around the country and around the state.”

As a result of smaller candidate pools, departments may be hiring people they would not have before. That does not necessarily mean they are bad, Burdess noted, it just means they are hiring new officers with less education, training or experience than they have before.

“And they may be overlooking some past behaviors that somebody’s had in their background that they may not have looked past before,” Burdess said. “Is that concerning? It could be. There’s a concern there. There’s also a hesitancy for officers to step into supervisory positions, or even positions like mine.”

The spotlight. The extra responsibility. The liability. Officers do not want all that. Bur-

dess noted Iowa police stations are not yet in a crisis point, but there are some states and large metro areas that have reached that point.

Although finding a large pool of qualified applicants is a challenge, the Newton Police Department is making headway with its recruitment. For starters, the police station is the most diverse it has ever been. Newton has two Hispanic officers, one Asian officer and two female officers on staff.

Across the country, there are more people of color and more women applying to become police officers, which Burdess said is encouraging.

“We’ve got more minority officers working now than we ever have in the history of the department,” Burdess said. “… We’ve seen some positive results of that. One of our newest officers, Officer Garcia, actually is very fluent in Spanish. He has helped in a number of incidents where communication was a significant issue.”

Having a more diverse police department helps when building relationships with communities of color. Burdess said Newton takes a more “all-encompassing approach” for community engagement, which is partly why the department created the community engagement officer position in 2021.

“Not only do we have to engage with minority members of our community, but our entire community needs that consistent engagement,” Burdess said. “We need to hear all of the voices. Although the minority community is an important voice, we kind of went at it as a bigger picture approach.”

Working to keep up with every population in the community needs to be intentional. It has been a weakness of law enforcement agencies nationwide, Burdess said. They have been so busy doing police work that what inevitably gets lost is that intentional relationship building piece.

WHAT IS KEEPING

OFFICERS FROM GIVING UP?

With all this extra stress being put on law enforcement agencies, Burdess said he tries to think back on his purpose as a police officer. Despite the negativity that is out there, Burdess is glad the community has his back. They want to be safe and have a high quality of life. It’s a big job to keep the public safe.

“It’s a pretty big honor that we’re entrusted to keep our community safe,” he said. “That’s what I always go back to is that. It is easy to get caught up in the national conversation and the beating down of law enforcement and the finger pointing. We’re part of huge system. We’re at the bottom of that, the start of that.”

As a whole, the criminal justice system is not great, Burdess added. There are problems. Many of the supports and institutions outside law enforcement are not great either, with Burdess noting the struggles of mental health and social service providers. Despite individuals’ access to those resources, the police show up.

“If we can make a situation a little bit better, that’s our goal,” Burdess said. “That’s why we keep coming back.”

Burdess said his purpose as the chief of police in Newton is to make sure his staff have the resources and support needed to do their job, keep the community safe and ensure the public has trust and faith in officers, no matter what the situation is.

“I’m pleased with this community and their support for us. That’s been one of the best things that I’ve seen working here. Despite negativity that happens every day in this world, we have a very supportive community that wants their law enforcement here,” Burdess said. “They want them to police. We need to.”

Some want more. Some want less. Either way, officers adapt to their community’s needs.

“That’s part of community policing, right? Not every police department polices the same around the country,” Burdess said. “They police how they need to police based on community dynamics, community feedbacks, community direction. We’re pretty fortunate where we’re at.”

,, ,, No officer wants to use force.

— Newton Police Chief Rob Burdess

Why law enforcement is essential for the community

Much news has been dominated by events few people will not soon forget. Unprecedented and stressful circumstances can contribute to spirited debates and uncertainty about the future. Complicated situations can a ect people in many ways, but the public may be wise to take some cues on how to navigate challenging situations from the professionals who routinely nd themselves confronting adversity.

Law enforcement o cers who don the uniform each and every day routinely put others rst in the name of public safety. According to the National Law Enforcement Memorial Fund, there are now more than 800,000 sworn law enforcement o cers serving in the United States, which is the highest gure ever. O cers o en step up to serve despite the risks associated with working in law enforcement. A total of 1,627 law enforcement o cers died in the line of duty over the past 10 years. ere were 135 law enforcement o cers killed in the line of duty in 2019 alone.

Law enforcement personnel serve many important roles in the communities they serve. Here’s a closer look at the integral roles of police and other law enforcement personnel.

Law enforcement is an essential component of orderly, safe and supportive communities. Recognizing and respecting the important role law enforcement o cials play is a great way to show them how much their e orts and sacri ces are appreciated.

— Metro Creative

• Maintain law and order: The police force is made up of many different departments with the collective goal of maintaining law and order. Traffi c police are responsible for enforcing the rules of the road and minimizing the chance of accidents. Other departments canvas the streets ensuring that residents’ civil liberties are not being compromised.

• Save lives: Whether they’re preventing a life-threatening crime or administering emergency medical care at a car accident until an ambulance can arrive, law enforcement offi cers save lives every day.

• Assist in adverse situations and provide crisis support: Police offi cers often fi ll the role of counselor or friend to people who fi nd themselves in diffi cult situations. An offi cer can play a part in helping people make better life choices in the future. Training in situational de-escalation also means police offi cers are capable of defusing diffi cult situations before they snowball into serious, potentially life-threatening confrontations.

• Investigate crimes: Police are the fi rst people to respond when crimes have been committed. These individuals investigate the situation and fi nd the perpetrator.

• Foster strong communities: Law enforcement offi cers share a unique solidarity with other offi cers, peers, community leaders, and even medical professionals, which helps to create a strong fabric for a community. Offi cers frequently have each other’s backs as well as the respect and support of the public for putting their lives on the line.

The following businesses would like to thank all law enforcement offi cers for their bravery

NEWTON’S ONLY LOCALLY OWNED FULL SERVICE BANK FOR OVER 80 YEARS.

Shaped by our Past, focused on Your Future. focused on Your Future.

THANK YOU FOR SERVING OUR COMMUNITY

Thank You!

For all your service to our community! For All Your Insurance Needs