Boise needs to reset relations between police and residents for sake of public safety | Opinion

Boise, we need a reset button. The relationships between our city, our citizens and our police officers are broken.

The last few months we’ve been watching a bad play with three acts — our police chief was fired after allegations of serious misconduct, a former police captain spewed hateful and racist comments and then last month the director of Police Accountability was fired by the City Council. What all these incidents have in common is that they are distracting city leadership from our real job — improving the lives of Boiseans.

Boise residents know what will make our community safer: investing in good officers, community policing and crime prevention. We need to support our officers. They walk the beat, know our neighborhoods and are committed to our citizens. They put their lives at risk, and they need to be honored, not lambasted. Unfortunately, many of our officers don’t feel supported by city leadership. We need Boise officers to stay in Boise, not to leave for other nearby cities or Ada County.

Too many officers say poor leadership, lack of support from City Hall and little investment in the force are sending the message that public safety isn’t a priority. We need a police chief that has the trust of his or her staff. We are all grateful to Chief Ron Winegar for stepping into this role. We need a focus on what’s working like community policing. It works and we need more of it.

The ultimate goal of community policing is to prevent crime before it happens rather than responding to crime after it occurs. In community policing, officers focus on creating a safe community through building up community organizations and supporting families.

Most importantly, good community policing encourages residents to work in partnership with law enforcement to make their community a positive, safe place for people. When done right, community policing improves trust between law enforcement and residents, generates more accurate information about the experiences residents are having in their own communities, and creates opportunities for growth as residents and officers combine their efforts.

Unfortunately, only in Boise, do we talk about community policing and the importance of public safety, and yet the last Boise city budget didn’t add one new officer to our force. Good policing takes time, and the fact that as our city population has grown and not our police force is a failure.

We need policies that protect the public and give police a voice to expose bad actors. We’ve all seen horrible situations played out on national TV. But in Boise, we have a police force that has a 90 percent approval rating. Let’s keep that grade by ensuring our Office of Police Accountability has clear guidelines and more transparent communication with City Council. Police officers also need a way to report when the chain of command isn’t working. If we had both of these things, the bad play we’ve been watching could have been much different.