Parsons Sun
Two retired police officers, one from Arizona and one from New Jersey, discussed on Tuesday evening a national initiative to return a peace officer mindset to departments nationally. The presentation took place at Parsons High School’s auditorium. The Parsons Police Department is the first agency in Kansas to sign on and start the training for the Police2Peace initiative.
raining started this week and was to conclude on Friday.
Jerald Monahan was the main speaker. He is a retired police chief and worked at departments in Arizona. Justin Insalaco is a retired police officer from New Jersey. Both are involved in the Police2Peace program, which is a non-profit.
Monahan hopes the training will introduce the framework to make the peace officer initiative sustainable in Parsons.
He said the training looks at the community and the department and how the department interacts with the community. He said he found the department to be well functioning but it acknowledges it wants to do better. The training involves the community stakeholders in the process.
The department has an existing citizen advisory board that will be part of the Police2Peace initiative.
Monahan said hearing from the citizens is an important part of the initiative. The program is a reaffirmation that people count, all people and those from all walks of life. The department must keep in mind the U.S. Constitution and assure that citizens’ rights are being honored and upheld.
“We leave our bias at the door, and we police in an effective, empathetic and just manner,” he said.
He repeated the words effective, empathetic and just throughout the presentation.
Laws in Kansas, Arizona and New Jersey refer to police officers as peace officers.
“So that mindset, that identity, has been built into this profession for years in over 80% of the country,” Monahan said.
He said the idea of being a peace officer rang true for him and he considers that the true purpose of policing. That’s not always been the case. The identity of police officers morphed over the years to more of a law enforcement function. He hopes Police2Peace will bring that idea back.
Officers may go through an entire shift without arresting anyone. But they will resolve conflicts, hopefully before things get out of hand. This helps build community cohesion, he said.
Actions by one officer, specifically an officer in Minneapolis, Minnesota, who killed George Floyd, tarnished the national view of police officers and started the “defund police” movement. The profession was then painted with one brush and the public suffered a crisis of confidence in police departments. While this negativity was not experienced everywhere, it was “significant enough that we all felt it in the profession,” Monahan said.
When departments change to a peace officer mindset, when officers daily work to bring peace to chaos, resolve conflict and promote equal justice to all, that is policing, he said.
“That’s the true purpose of policing,” he said.
He said the initiative demands that people are treated with dignity and respect.
Monahan said Parsons Police Chief Robert Spinks and Deputy Chief Dennis Dodd understand this and that police are in the people business.
Positive interactions between police and the community create safety for all. This helps the public to know they will be treated fairly and well if pulled over by police.
“Not every community enjoys that,” he said.
“This project will bring a mindset that’s sustainable. It’s not just some new thing that the chief wants to try. It’s in addition to an already functioning, well-policed department,” Monahan said.
Police officers do more than just law enforcement. They must know the resources available in the community that will help citizens in crisis.
“This is not soft on crime, but this is big on solutions,” he said.
He said he hopes the initiative will make citizens secure in their homes and reduce conflict so the community can move forward in peace.
Chief Spinks then answered questions from the floor about the department and its operations. A domestic violence unit will come online Sept. 1 that will also help the department deal with the city’s No. 1 crime issue: domestic violence.
He added that the public safety sales tax, which he will bring to the public in 2025, would help fund these initiatives in the future.
“This is another groundbreaking opportunity for your police department to be leading law enforcement in the state of Kansas,” Spinks said. “We always like to lead from the front. We like it when other communities have to eat our dust and catch up.”
