Events

The 2019 Outstanding Alumni Award winner is Harold Love ’08, ’13, owner and licensed professional counselor of Harold J. Love & Associates. Find out what the “Siena Effect” has done for him! #SHU100

Friday, July 28, 2017

LANSING, Mi – Gov. Rick Snyder today announced the appointments of Therese Empie of White Late and Harold Love of Clarkston, as well as the reappointment of LuAnn Hurd of Hudson to the Michigan Board of Counseling.

The nine-member board assists the Michigan Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs with the licensing and oversight of more than 9,000 counselors in Michigan.

“I am confident these individuals will use their collective experience to serve this board well and oversee the counseling profession in Michigan,” Snyder said.

Appointments:

Empie is a policy advisor in the Executive Office of Governor Rick Snyder. She holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of Michigan and a master of public policy from the University of Michigan Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy. She will represent the general public and replace Sara Kruse.

Love is owner of Harold J Love, PLLC., and is a clinical and police therapist, with a concentration in critical stress management, crisis intervention, individual psychotherapy, and pre-employment psychological evaluations. He holds a bachelor’s degree and master’s degree from Siena Heights University. He will represent those engaged primarily in the administration of counseling services and replace Tracey Galgoci.

Reappointment:

Hurd is a behavioral intervention specialist with Addison Community Schools, and is co-owner and family therapist at Creative Counseling Center. She holds a bachelor’s degree from Sienna Heights University and a master’s degree from Michigan State University. She will continue to represent individuals providing counseling techniques, behavior modification techniques or preventative techniques to clients.

Members will serve four-year terms expiring June 30, 2021. Their appointments are subject to the advice and consent of the Senate.

For more information, visit Michigan.gov.

WINX CHICAGO 2017 – Live talk on Police / Community Relations and Cultural Competency

Harold Love, Retired Captain, Michigan Department of State Police

As police officers, we are vested with an awesome amount of power and authority that must be used responsibly. In order to truly serve the public—while respecting and protecting its constitutional rights—we must proactively take steps to understand and respect various cultures within the communities we serve.

As an African-American man growing up in a large Midwestern city, I had many contacts with the local police, very few of which were positive. During my high school years in the late 1970s and early 1980s, I learned that the police were not our friends and that I should avoid contact with them on the streets, regardless of the fact that I was not doing anything wrong. I frequently witnessed older boys in the neighborhood being “roughed up” or taken away by police officers for standing on street corners, sometimes mere feet from their own front doors.

I saw that my actions prior to an initial contact with an officer sometimes had no bearing on how the officer would treat me. When I was 16, I had just driven away from the local playground with a friend after playing football when we were stopped by two young African-American police officers. Nervous and wanting to be respectful and compliant, I placed my hands on the steering wheel as the officers approached. One officer approached my window, used profanity, and ordered us out of the vehicle. They searched my vehicle for about 10 minutes before giving us back our licenses and driving away. When we returned to my vehicle, we discovered that its contents were strewn about and, in some cases, damaged. My perception of police officers was extremely negative for years after that incident.

As I grew into adulthood, however, I began to experience more positive interactions with police officers, both African-American and not. I remember one instance when my brother had parked his vehicle on the street facing the wrong way during a neighborhood game of horseshoes. Two local officers stopped and inquired about the owner of the vehicle. After speaking with my brother and confirming that it was his car and that he would move it, they stayed to play us in a game of horseshoes. After we won the game and my brother moved his car, they shook our hands and left the area laughing. I learned that the negative experiences I had with police officers in the past were with unprofessional individuals who happened to be police officers and that not all officers were bad. I also learned that officers can sometimes use their discretion in how they respond to nonemergency situations and that they can choose to handle a situation with positive interaction and respect.

This change in my perception of the police, along with the influence of certain police officers, led me to join the Michigan State Police in 1988. I wanted to improve the relationship between law enforcement and the community and positively change the perceptions of others who might have had negative experiences with police officers in the past. I vowed to always make a conscious effort to treat all persons with dignity and respect, even when I had to arrest or use physical force on them.

In my early years as a trooper, I worked in rural communities and found that developing professional relationships with members of various community organizations—attending their events and responding to requests for special appearances and speaking engagements—fosters a level of mutual trust and understanding that is extremely valuable during critical incidents, civil disturbances, and criminal investigations. Police officers are better equipped to resolve issues if relationships have already been established with community leaders and representatives. Many officers, commanders, and agency heads contend that we represent the law and that the public can either obey it or face the consequences. However, I can tell you from my own experiences

as a young man and a law enforcement official that this approach is short-sighted. Officers are called upon to handle many issues that cannot be resolved simply by enforcing laws and making arrests. By regularly and proactively connecting with residents and community stakeholders, police can foster a spirit of cooperation with the public that leads to healthier families, safer streets, and stronger communities.

This article, written by Harold J. Love is part of the new guidebooks aimed to help police officers connect with diverse communities. Download the complete guidebook here.

Sixty-three police officers and other policing experts provide promising and actionable community policing practices to increase trust building

NEW YORK, NY – The Vera Institute of Justice today released three guidebooks aimed at fostering community policing strategies and building trust with diverse communities. The release was announced by Attorney General Loretta Lynch at the launch of the second phase of her national Community Policing Tour at the Doral Police Department in Miami-Dade County, highlighting the first pillar of President Obama’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing’srecommendations: building trust and legitimacy.

Designed to help police officers working with communities of people of differing races, religions, cultures, and languages, and written with support from the Department of Justice’s Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS), the complete series—titled Police Perspectives Guidebook Series: Building Trust in a Diverse Nation—comes at a time when many law enforcement agencies are struggling to meaningfully engage with increasingly diverse communities, particularly those where relationships with the police are strained.

“Building trust in the justice system is an essential part of a nationwide conversation about criminal justice reform,” said Nicholas Turner, president of the Vera Institute of Justice. “It is imperative that we restore trust between law enforcement, who are the gatekeepers to our justice system, and the communities they serve. Fortunately, as these guidebooks vividly illustrate, there are indeed police leaders that aim to bridge the gap between police and diverse communities. We are pleased to be able to highlight their work to help make the promise of community policing a reality in every community.”

The guidebooks’ primary authors and contributors are police officers, many of whom are officers of color, and their writing is informed by personal experiences. The content—delivered in formats such as checklists, Q&As, and tips from the field—is designed so that the authors’ experiences and expertise can be easily applied by their policing peers around the country for on-the-ground interactions with community members.

“Recent high-profile, tragic events have called attention to the importance of law enforcement serving their communities in a way that they want and need to be treated,” said Susan Shah, chief of staff at the Vera Institute of Justice and project lead. “These guides shine a spotlight on successful community policing practices across the nation, giving police officers concrete strategies to build trust with the people they serve, foster open communication with local leaders, and work jointly with the community in co-producing public safety.”

The first guidebook in the series, How to Increase Cultural Understanding, provides a brief historical perspective of American policing, tips on delivering community-informed services and maximizing collaboration with communities of color, strategies for building trust with communities after contentious incidents, guidance on addressing trauma, and a variety of other practices.

The second guidebook, How to Serve Diverse Communities, offers specialized approaches that can be helpful in reaching groups—such as youth, immigrants, and refugees, and transgender individuals—that have unique public safety needs, are highly vulnerable, or have historically had strained relationships with police.

The third guidebook, How to Support Trust Building in Your Agency, is targeted to police leaders seeking to integrate a community policing philosophy into all police roles, build institutional capacity and knowledge that promotes trust-building with diverse communities, and ensure that their agency is representative of the diverse communities they serve.

• Specific strategies covered throughout the guidebook series include:
• Special considerations for working in immigrant, refugee, and transgender communities;
• Trust-building strategies to consider before and after a contentious incident;
• Establishing teen-police dialogue workshops to engage and build trust with young people;
• Rethinking Compstat as a community engagement strategy; and
• Recruiting a diverse workforce of officers who can serve as in-house resources and cultural “brokers” to assist with trust-building efforts.

This guidebook is the latest publication from Vera and COPS to address community policing in diverse communities. Previous guides include Uniting Communities Post-9/11—aimed at helping local law enforcement agencies negotiate the barriers that exist between them and Arab, Middle Eastern, Muslim, and South Asian (AMEMSA) communities—and Engaging Police in Immigrant Communities: Promising Practices From the Field. COPS is also supporting Veraand the Police Foundation in Compstat 2.0, a new initiative that will develop an updated model for Compstat systems to better institutionalize community policing practices.

Conversation with ACLU of WXYZ regarding ACLU app for recording police conduct – Detroit

Topic: Building Relationships with Communities of Color.

Download the podcast here.

Michigan’s Big Show – Interview on Right to Work Protest at the Capitol – Lansing