The Tulsa Police Department expects a review of its community policing efforts will be done in mid-fall.
Nonprofit research firm CNA was chosen for the evaluation last year, and it is currently nearing release of an online survey and coordinating meetings with community stakeholders. Capt. Shellie Seibert is TPD's liaison to CNA. She told city councilors last week they are looking forward to receiving the report, but that won't be the end of the process.
"The issue is, how do we get the beat officer — the person that shows up for the 911 call — how do we get that person understanding what community policing is? Besides we have a unit of people who do events or go out, but we have to have that from the person who’s giving the service," Seibert said.
CNA is building on 77 community policing recommendations made for TPD in 2017.
The speed and process of the review, however, is frustrating Met Cares Foundation Director of Family and Community Engagement Greg Robinson. He told city councilors Chief Wendell Franklin has yet to meet with the organization, which worked with Tulsans to develop five community policing recommendations in 2019.
Robinson said that hurts Met Cares' reputation among people they work with.
"There were community people who gave up their evenings, gave up their afternoons, gave up their … intellectual property to put these together. They voted on the priorities of them. And, like, we can’t keep coming back to them saying, ‘Oh, meet with us about this,’ or, ‘Meet with us about that,’ if we haven’t shown what we were doing with what we met with them the first time," Robinson said.
Recommendations Met Cares worked with the community to develop include committing to end racial disparities in policing and building ranks that reflect Tulsa demographics on a 1-to-1 ratio.
