Скачать или смотреть Improving police relations: Community policing tour begins in Cincinnati

CINCINNATI (Jeff Hirsh) -- Could our community be a model for cities across the country improving police-community relations?Calling it the issue of our time, newly confirmed U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch holds up Cincinnati as an example for the right way to improve a police department.Think Baltimore, think Ferguson; now think Cincinnati 2001 and how far the community has come since then. That's why Attorney General Loretta Lynch met with community leaders at the Freedom Center. Attorney General Lynch toured the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center before her forum on police-community relations. It's no accident Lynch picked Cincinnati for the first stop in a nationwide series of meetings on community policing. Following the 2001 riots, Cincinnati became not a national model but the national model for how to improve relations between the police and the community; particularly the minority community.Cincinnati Chief Jeffrey Blackwell said, "I think she chose us because we're first and foremost evidence based, we go where the crime is. Second, we're a community oriented policing city. And lastly we have the highest level of community engagement in the U.S.""For a city to grow everyone has to be invested, and after they talk at each other they have to be able to sit down and talk to each other and Cincinnati has been able to do that," said Lynch. Dozens of police officers and community and religious leaders met with the attorney general. There was also a 10-year-old girl, Brielle Poston, who waited in the lobby for a glimpse of the first female, African-American attorney general in U.S. history.The Cincinnati Collaborative Agreement included changes in police policies and practices, a citizens complaint authority, and other reforms. The agreement was very controversial at the time, but was ultimately embraced by police officers and community leaders. The attorney general's meeting was closed to reporters after the opening remarks, presumably so there could be an open exchange without cameras present. Other cities on the attorney general's trip are Birmingham, Pittsburgh, Seattle, Richmond, California and East Haven, Connecticut. The justice department is making more than 60 million available to police departments nationwide to institute a variety of reforms. Follow Jeff Hirsh on Twitter @local12jeff and LIKE him on Facebook