York gets community policing officer

Lt. Dale Edwards smiles and slows the patrol car down as he pulls up to an older woman he recognizes walking through Pecan Circle.

“This is what it’s all about,” he says.

He rolls down the window on the police cruiser and asks the woman, Martha Miller, how she’s doing.

“It’s cold,” she says.

“You need to get some thicker clothes instead of running around here half naked,” Edwards jokes with her. They laugh and spend a minute or so catching up.

“I’ll catch you later, baby girl. I love you,” Edwards says.

“I love you too,” Miller says.

Pecan Circle was a high-crime area years ago, Edwards said. It was the kind of neighborhood where groups of people would scatter at the sight of a patrol car. While on night shifts, he and his sergeant later started parking at a nearby business and walking into the neighborhood. They worked with the housing supervisor to start addressing some of the crime issues.

Edwards, a 17-year veteran of the York Police Department, has been moved to a new position in the agency in which he will oversee community policing. The position was made possible by a grant through the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office of Community Oriented Policing Services. York was one of six agencies in South Carolina to receive a portion of $2.8 million in grants from the federal office.

‘It’s like going to the same doctor’

In his new position, Edwards is responsible for handling and attending community events, organizing the Thanksgiving and Christmas meal drives and holiday gift drive, and training other officers in community policing. The move also puts another officer on the street in Edwards’ former patrol position.

“Basically, what I am is a liaison between the police department and the community,” he said, comparing his job to visiting a doctor. “You go to a doctor’s office and you see a different doctor every time you go, how comfortable are you with that doctor? If you’ve got the same officers in the same community, it’s like going to the same doctor.”

The concept of community-oriented policing is nothing new. Since 1995, the Department of Justice has given out more than $14 billion to advance community policing programs, including grants awarded to more than 13,000 law enforcement agencies. The Rock Hill Police Department has several outreach initiatives to get officers interacting with community members, and last summer the department assigned a community service officer to the downtown area. In North Carolina, the Charlotte-Mecklenburg police chief is requesting more officers from the city to shift the department toward community-based policing and solutions for increasing crime problems.

“The whole idea would be to get an officer out where the community members get used to seeing a particular officer on a routine basis,” said Scott Wolfe, an assistant professor of criminology and criminal justice at the University of South Carolina. “It’s not just a patrol car that they see but it’s a particular person they know by name.”

The purpose behind these approaches is for officers to establish rapport and relationships with certain communities, Wolfe said. After that foundation is laid and trust built, communities and law enforcement can work together to attack crime proactively.

“They’re working with the community so the community members can tell them what they see as problems,” Wolfe said. “Over time, the community is learning how to better police itself. The police can’t be there all the time.”

Gauging the success of community policing

While there is academic research affirming the value of community-police partnerships, Wolfe said it’s difficult to gauge the success of community policing strategies because so many factors could be influencing crime rates and numbers. If an agency seriously adopts such a program, he says, it will conduct community outreach and surveys to collect data on the public’s perception of its police.

“You’ll actually see an uptick in calls for service,” he said, adding that this may give the appearance that crime is increasing when it’s not. “They’re more trusting of police, they’re more willing to pick up the phone and call for help.”

Departments and cities of different sizes have not only different challenges but also different strategies for implementing community policing practices. Wolfe said some larger departments have smaller hubs and offices in certain communities.

“The whole idea of community policing is that your policing has to be tailored to your specific jurisdiction and the communities in your jurisdiction,” he said. “From a police and philosophy standpoint, it’s difficult to have a ‘one size fits all.’”

‘Get out and talk to these folks’

Edwards acknowledges “there’s no golden book on community policing,” and said they’re seeing what works and what doesn’t with other agencies while coming up with ideas of their own. One thing he wants to do is get housing property owners and managers together to exchange information about tenants who cause problems. He wants eventually to pull incident reports each week and deliver those to property managers who may not be aware of incidents involving their tenants.

“If you look back at how policing was here in York 50 years ago, you only had two officers on shift. One stayed on Main Street all day,” Edwards said. “I was more or less born and raised here – everybody knows me. These new guys, they get that rookie mindset of, ‘Oh, let’s stop cars, let’s stop cars.’ There’s more to life than just stopping cars. You need to get out and talk to these folks.”

That’s what Edwards did Tuesday on the way out of Pecan Circle when he saw Keirra Sherer walking to her car.

“I need my hug, baby. I ain’t seen you in so long,” he yells while getting out of the patrol car. Sherer was involved in one of Edwards’ cases on patrol years ago, and – speaking to her like she was his daughter – they talked about the choices she was making and where her life was going.

“When I was down and out, he came to me and told me, ‘Keirra, you need to get out of this. You can do better,’” Sherer said. “And I was like, ‘You know what, Dale? I can. I can.’”

Sherer got out of a bad relationship, started taking classes and has worked her way up to a management position at a York fast-food restaurant. She and Edwards shared a few more laughs and hugs while talking about their new jobs.

“Dale, I’m so proud of you,” she said.

“I’m proud of you,” Edwards responded.

This story was originally published January 17, 2016 at 3:51 PM with the headline "York gets community policing officer."