City of Bloomington, MN Q & A with BPD, 18 Sep 2020

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From YouTube: Q&A with BPD: Community engagement and MAC

Description

In this episode of Q&A with BPD, Chief Jeff Potts answers your questions about how the Bloomington Police Department builds community relationships and explains what the Multicultural Advisory Committee does.

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Hi everyone, my name, is jeff potts and I am the bloomington police chief. We have been getting a lot of questions.

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Over the last few months about how the bloomington police department.

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Operates about some many questions about the bloomington.

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Police department, we are very excited that there's a lot of interest.

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In the community about the bloomington police department, so as a bloomington.

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Police chief, I am committed to increasing communication.

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And transparency with our community and I look forward to using this forum.

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To answer your questions.

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We've actually received a lot of interest in our community engagement work recently. This is the work where we ask our officers to go out and interact with the community in a non-enforcement setting, and this is so. This is in addition to their normal.

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Patrol work or investigative work, we ask them to do that. Work very professionally.

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We ask them to do that, work without prejudice or bias, and we think that.

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Helps build community, but we really think community engagement.

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Work is, is our most effective way to build stronger relationships in the.

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Community and we call that work community engagement, we've added several new programs to our community engagement.

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Menu, we actually have a section in our performance appraisal for.

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Every officer that evaluates them on how effective.

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They are and how much time they spend doing community engagement work. So, let's talk about some of our community engagement programs. Community engagement.

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Programming consists of community conversations with the police.

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Department, where any resident, who wants to attend and discuss current events.

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In policing are welcome, we do coffee with a cop.

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This is a program where there is no agenda. We invite the community members.

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To come out and just have a conversation with police officers.

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They can ask questions about anything that they have on their mind.

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Gives an opportunity for the officers to answer those questions.

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And really start to build a relationship with our members of our community.

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We do safe summer nights, which is a a program that is a community cookout.

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Where residents come together to share a meal play, games and socialize with.

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Officers, we do an annual citizens academy where.

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Residents meet weekly for 10 weeks to learn about every.

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Aspect of the police department. We also have a new program.

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That was initiated by one of our patrol officers. It's called ask an officer.

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In this program, our officers come directly to people's homes or.

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Place of business and it's an opportunity for people to ask police.

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Officers any question they would like or express concerns about the work of.

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The police department- this is a program again initiated by one of our patrol officers, to help build positive relationships in our community.

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Bpd is also a member of the hennepin county.

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Joint community police partnership program: this is a program that helps the.

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Police department build relationships within the community, particularly within our immigrant refugee and underrepresented communities.

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One of the primary components of the joint community police partnership.

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Program is the development and management of the.

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Multicultural advisory committee: we call that the mac, the mac- is a.

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Group of individuals who serve as advisors to the police department.

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We rely on them to review policy, provide guidance or suggestions on those.

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Policies we meet with the mac on a monthly basis.

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To build relationships again with our mac.

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Members who are also able to then help us build relationships.

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In the community mac members are individuals who either work.

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Live or worship in the city of bloomington, and we feel it is very.

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Important to build these relationships so that those individuals can help us.

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Communicate with our community, but also it also offers our community some.

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Leaders or advisors that they can talk to to bring information.

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Back to the police department, the mac member is critically important to the.

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Success in building partnerships with our community here at the bloomington police department and we're very proud and happy to have those members serving alongside the bloomington police department. Mac members have participated in new.

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Officer interviews that their perspective is very important.

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In those new officer interviews, mac members have also.

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Helped us with our recruiting efforts for uh the.

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Bloomington police department- and we again we are very thankful for the work.

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Of the mac, if you'd like to learn more about the mac, please visit our website. Well, thanks for sending these questions.

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And giving us an opportunity to answer them for you here today.

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We look forward to doing this again in the future. It's either going to be.

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Myself or other members of the bloomington police department staff that will be here to answer those questions, so please send us whatever you have.

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If you have questions, please send them to the email address below.

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And we will work to answer those questions. Additionally, if you have.

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Feedback for the bloomington police department on what we're doing well or concerns that you have. You can certainly send those to the web link.

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Below to wrap up here today, again, we are.

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Committed to communicating with our community in an open and transparent way,.

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We look forward to doing additional videos in the future where we have an opportunity to answer your questions or address your concerns.

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And the bloomington police department will continue to do that into the future.

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Please stay safe and stay healthy.