EMail This Page - Print

Jaclyn Brenning
Daily Egyptian

A two-month conversation between police and community members ended with a decision to keep the dialogue going and educate people on laws and police procedures.

"We're going to change the community," said Kara Dunkel, a volunteer in the Safe to Live Community, which is sponsoring the Carbondale Conversations for Community Action.

But they're taking it one step at a time.

For the Carbondale Conversations for Community Action, which is made up of study circles supported by Carbondale's Human Relations Commission and one of three groups sponsored by the Illinois Violence Prevention Authority, the first step was to get people ˆ members of the community and law enforcement ˆ talking with each other.

"In our understanding of each other, we realized there were things we didn't know about each other," said Tucker Harold, an employee of SIUC's Department of Public Safety.

Several community members said stereotyping police officers was a problem on their part, but past experiences with police tainted their experiences and impressions now.

"Before interaction can be positive, it's already tainted," Harold said, adding that the "sins of fathers" contributed to this.

Paul Echols, a Carbondale police sergeant, said law enforcers were able to see things from the citizens' perspective that the police themselves had been taking for granted for a long time. It was revealing, he said.

The next step is to take action.

In a meeting on Saturday, Carbondale conversations participants voted to decide what they would like to focus on for the future.

Continuing the dialogue between police and city residents received the most votes, followed by educating people about police officers and vice versa, more youth involvement and police recognition.

Police appreciation days and adopt-a-cop may sound strange to some, but they were both ideas suggested to bring people together.

So often people hear the bad things about police, and they rarely hear anything good, said Scott Martin, a member of one of the study circles.

"We'd like to hear about the unsung heroes out there also," he said.

Todd Sigler, director of SIUC's Department of Public Safety, said he was pleased education was at the top of the list.

The worst thing he could see happening, he said, is for nothing to come of the past two months of communication.

"Maintaining the dialogue is critical," Sigler said.

The Carbondale Conversations for Community action is now in its second phase of the community and police working together ˆ the action phase.

"In study circles, the bottom line is we're trying to make change," said Lana Bardo, who coordinates the conversations.

Sarah Heyer, the assistant coordinator, said she thinks study circles will start going through their ideas and deciding which ones they will try to enforce in the next couple of weeks.

"We all have a lot of work to do," Bardo said.