By Michael Hill
Correspondent
The organizers stated the goal right off the top.
“Healing from implicit bias and its implications for policing. Healing from racial profiling,” said Richard Smith, President of the NJ NAACP.
The New Jersey NAACP partnered with the state attorney general and the State Police Chiefs Association to offer a training session in “fair and impartial policing” – science-based and aimed at the state’s police chiefs and executives.
“It really does start with the individual. There has to be self-reflection,” said Noble Wray.
Retired Madison, WI Police Chief Wray travels the country training law enforcers in closed-door sessions about biases based on ethnicity, skin color, gender and more. He used Susan Boyle to show how judges underestimated her talent based solely on looks. The example resonated with the new president of the State Police Chiefs Association.
“How I can make a change when it seems as if all of humanity has these biases. So, it’s somewhat confusing, but very provocative,” said Christopher Wagner, Denville Police Chief.
“Just because all human beings have it, that doesn’t mean you should not deal with it,” Wray said.
“As a cop, maybe sometimes we need to just slow down and maybe ignore that initial reaction and process a little further before we jump to conclusions,” said Wagner.
Chief Wray says that’s the goal. He offered several other examples and tools in his 5-plus hours of training that had some rolling their eyes.
“The fact that policing as a profession is at a crossroads means that they should take note,” said Wray.
Chief Wray usually has about 20 officers in his sessions. This one drew six times that and the attorney general says he thinks deadly encounters in Ferguson, Staten Island, Baltimore and South Carolina have something to do with it.
“It says that there is a realization that to be an effective law enforcement organization there must be positive, respectful, dignified and constructive interaction with the community,” said New Jersey Acting Attorney General John Hoffman.
“In order for all of this to be successful, we were all in need of a check up,” said Smith.
Several offered their takeaways.
“We all have to examine ourselves to see how our biases impact what we do on a daily basis,” said Cumberland County Prosecutor, Jennifer Webb-McRae.
“We all have paradigms of how we view the world and that’s our map for the world. If our map’s wrong then we’re going to go nowhere fast,” said Ridgewood Police Chief John Ward.
“It’s like, you know, there’s an elephant in the room, right? The first step to addressing that elephant is to acknowledge, ‘Hey! there’s an elephant in the room.’ I think today is a step in the right direction to do that,” said Newark Police Chief Anthony Campos.
Chief Wagner says his Denville department is small, but the big takeaway, according to Wray: “Just be more aware of your initial reaction and thought and observation of people.”
Later this month, Chief Wray goes to south Jersey to train officers at the invitation of Cape May County Prosecutor Robert Taylor, because all agree that implicit biases can have grave consequences on encounters as routine as a traffic stop.