Conversation with Chief of Police, Michael Young

Okay, so you're the chief of police in the neighborhood. And I live. I live. I'm here. African American. I've got three children, and two of them are boys. And as my boys were getting bigger and taller and more independent in the neighborhood, I always had this fear that maybe a neighbor or someone in the neighborhood might mistake my boys for an intruder, letting them into our own home because it's a predominantly white neighborhood. Call the police. Misunderstanding escalate. So this was a fear that I had well before George Floyd. But you can imagine with the death of George Floyd, any fear that I had just exploded. And so I was compelled to reach out because I was frightened. I was not interested in saving the world through dialogue, one conversation at a time. I was a scared mom. So I sent you an email saying, I'm black, I live in the neighborhood, and I'm scared, and I'm a mom.

Yeah.

I'm just curious, what was your reaction or thought when you saw my email? When you received my email, what were you thinking?

You know, it's concerned mom. Here's a concerned mom reaching out to me, you know, and I have a daughter. I have a wife. I know how strongly she feels and understandable that there's maternal fear.

You saw me as a concerned mom, As a concerned parent. Being yourself, having a daughter. We spend maybe the first, I don't know, 20 or 30 minutes or so talking about our kids.

Yeah. Isn't that how most interactions go?

Yeah.

I mean, what do normal people talk about? They talk about their kids. You start getting to my age, you start talking about maladies, about getting new knees or hips or stuff like that. But, I mean, kids, let's talk. What we have in common, you know, we have so much more in common than we don't.

Did you. Were there any insights or aha moments that you took away from the conversation?

You know, the aha moments was just that you haven't had a chance to talk with police. You know, I mean, most people don't have an opportunity to talk to the police. I mean, you know, quick interaction with the citation or something. And, you know, especially in this community, citizen police interaction is pretty rare. You know, and the. The aha moment, it's just. It's just nice talking. You know, the aha moment was. I guess I'm not going to get yelled at.

You know, you talked about one of the things you take very seriously is the hiring process. Right, right. So those looking for quality candidates, you said that you really see that as your legacy.

One of the things I did here a couple years ago. A new officer is hired, and then there's a probationary period for like 12 months where you're trying to bring the officer up to speed. They've been through the academy, but classroom and actual application in the street are, you know, they're not different things. Two different things, but it's. We can all look good in the classrooms. What are you going to do once you're with the people on the street? And what we're noticing, not only rd part of other departments, is the not millennial bashing, but it takes them a little longer to get up to speed than before. And so we extended our probationary period up to 18 months now. And, you know, as important as the hiring process is, the field training process has become even more important. And what you have to do is you have to be willing to let a person go. You have to say, this job and your skill set is not a match. The days of the big dumb cop have been gone for about 20 years. And in the last several years, you can't just be average anymore. You really need exceptional people to be police officers. Because this is. I've been doing this for 39 years. This is the most challenging period I've seen in 39 years. That's why we gotta have. We need more conversations like this about. We need people talking. We need people talking, listening and not yelling and not defending. We gotta. Something's gotta change.

An aha moment for me that I think was really huge in terms of me being a concerned mom. Less concerned. And you talked about how you actively, you know, don't give a description of someone based on race. Right. So if there is. You gave an example of, like, we had an incident where somebody was stealing boxes off people's front doors packages, and you were very deliberate by not defining the person African American male. If it was, I don't know. Because you knew that the assumption could be that people would see an African American male and assume that's the package dealer. So you talked about, let's focus on the behaviors. If you see someone parking their car far away and walking around the block, that suspicious behavior and really trying to train citizens in the community on what's legit suspicious behavior versus suspicious behavior. Because the package that the person comes in. I had no idea that you were even spending time on that.

Oh, God, yeah.

That's really great for me to know. When you reflect on what happened in Kenosha, do you get it any. Perhaps any differently than you might have before years ago?

Not even that long ago. The cop take on last night, the shooting in Kenosha, the initial, the knee jerk right away was, well, the guy would have just cooperated. This one up happened. And, you know, the first. The first comment out of all the cops, most, oh, my God, is that off?

Other people who maybe are thinking, I want to have a challenging conversation around difference, any kind of difference, doesn't have to be. But maybe they're reluctant to. Right. They don't want to ruin a friend, ruin a relationship, or put their foot in their mouth. What advice do you have?

You know. You know, if something's. If something's troubling you and there's a person you think might have some answers, just, you know, I guess put yourself out there. You know, just, hey, I'm having these thoughts here. You know, this is my perspective. What do you see from yours? You know, am I missing something here? You know, what do we have in common? You know, because I know, I know not everything seems as it is at first appearance. How are you? How are you seeing that? And then I have to do this all the time. I have to bite my tongue. I have to listen. I need to listen and not think up the, oh, well, this is where you're wrong. This is why I'm right. Just listen and ask questions about what the person is telling you to really try and understand what they're getting at. And then once you get to that point, listening to what the other person has to say and ask some questions of an educational purpose and not a gotcha purpose, you know, and try and try and find things that you have in common. I mean, talking about kids is great. You know, talking about dogs is great. Talking about sports is great.

Just not. Don't talk to me about cats. That's where I draw the line. I can't stand cats. But I like everything that you said.

So listen, I don't like the Minnesota Vikings. So there. And do phone calls. Don't do emails. Oh, phone calls in person, not emails. Yet last week, there's a. There's a man that has a Talk show from 3 to 6, and he has a conservative point of view. And every once in a while, the next day I will get emails from people that have listened to his radio show asking questions about this, this, and this, and what are your policies on this, this, and this? And I always reply, why don't you give me a call and provide my phone number? And I don't get the calls.

Aha. That's fascinating. But you know why? That's too scary. Well, everybody wants to get a keyboard. I just want to tell you what I think by email. That's way too scary.

This is it right here. This is my weapon. This is, you know, this is my power. The damn keyboard. Yeah. I love these citizens in this community. I really do. The low needs, the high needs. I mean, it's a great place, really.

Thank you so much. I'll let you get back to your day. Thank you.

Thanks. Thank you for this opportunity.

Bye.