Interview with a Metropolitan Police OfficerDiversity training is important for law enforcement because, as this interview shows, it helps officers to be more comfortable, confident, and effective in dealing with diverse members of the community to defuse situations and keep them from escalating to a point where violence and force become necessary.
Summary of the Interview
The person I interviewed is a metropolitan police officer in the local city where I live. I know the individual from grade school days and have kept in contact with him over the years. Now that he is in law enforcement and directly involved in the criminal justice system, and also readily available for an interview, he seemed like the perfect candidate for this assignment.
The focus of the interview was on an incident that the officer was called to involving a domestic dispute between neighbors: on the one side of the dispute were two Caucasians, a male and a female in their twenties, and on the other side were three African Americans in their twenties, two females and one male. The interview included a discussion of race, gender and sexual orientation, as the Caucasian male identified as a homosexual. The dispute was over a parking space in front of an apartment complex: the Caucasians and the African Americans were fighting over who was in the space first and the two cars unwilling to back off ending up colliding. The argument threatened to escalate especially when the community gathered around to watch and film and the people involved in the incident turned on the approaching officer who was sent by the dispatcher to the scene of the incident. The officer called for back-up upon arrival but was able to defuse the situation by directing the two parties to separate so that he could hear both sides of the story, calm both sides and proceed to directing both sides to an agreeable solution that did not involve anyone going to jail and all parties shaking hands and apologizing.
Critical Analysis and Reflection
As Hosner and Gomila (2008) point out, “Community policing is a philosophy that promotes organizational...
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