was provided by Ray Watson and was generally agreed upon and accepted. The definition is credited to Chief Dean Esserman from the winter of 2005. For the full interview with the Chief - Chief's Interview

- Community policing is essentially about breaking down the anonymity of the police officer. It relates to the idea of reducing fear. If we want to create a fearless environment, we must first ensure that people are not afraid of the police. Too often, seeing a uniform makes people feel uneasy. If they get to know the person in the uniform, that fear goes away.

-To foster the relationship between police and citizens, community policing calls for decentralized, neighborhood-based police agencies, in which local officers are permanently assigned to communities. This model allows police officers to get to know the neighborhood and the neighborhood to get to know them. Both sides of the badge become more at ease with each other.

-Ideally, community policing results in two things. First, crime and fear will decline. Second, partnerships, mutual trust, and respect will develop between the police and the rest of the community. In practice, community policing is hard to do effectively. On the one hand, if are super crime fighters, but alienate the community, you have failed. Conversely, you can be loved and embraced by the community, but not bring down crime and then have also failed. In Providence, we try not to crash onto either shore.

The Changing Face of Mount Hope

-Some members of the community tried to say the problems were due to an influx of new residents and implied the new residents had fewer rights than the residents with 30 plus years or multiple generation connections to the neighborhood. They asked why things need to change and why behaviors, like John Paris' boats and front yard junkyard, that were acceptable before should be deemed unacceptable now.

-Others objected stating a house is no less a persons home no matter how long they have lived in the neighborhood and a resident is no less than full member of the community. Also, because laws and ordinances were ignored for years is not an excuse to continue ignoring them in the future.

-Counter points were that the community feels that white people are displacing minority families.

-More counter points ridiculed the idea of a larger organized movement to displace minority families.

-This issue will take much time resolve and the answers are less clear than the problems.

Turnout

– Lt. David Schiavulli said he was disheartened by the turnout of the residents. Especially the residents who were very vocal in the first meeting.

- Representatives at the meeting conveyed to the Lt. that the 4pm Tuesday meeting was difficult for people with jobs to attend. The result was that the next meeting – Monday July 16th – will be held at 6:30pm.

Teny Gross

– Executive Director for the Institute for the Study & Practice of Nonviolence

- A very interesting speaker was Teny Gross. He’s an Israeli who spent the required 3 years in the Israeli Army kicking down the doors of the Palestinians. He moved to the United States when he went to Harvard (and he did say he went to Harvard about 6 times). He worked in Boston targeting inner city violence and is now trying to help here in Providence. He’s trying to tackle this issue from a systemic viewpoint.

-His points were pushing the "soft approach." Looking to help the neighborhood as an effort to help ourselves. Such as volunteering at the community/recreation centers. Getting involved in local politics to stress the need for funding for programs to give the troubled members of the community a place to learn and grow.

- This approach is not for everyone, especially some of us who work 60-70 hours a week, but it’s worth investigating.
Racism

-There was definitely talk if racism and overreacting police officers but I think the police officers handled themselves incredibly well and I commend them for both their patience and politeness during the entire meeting.

Council Kevin Jackson

-Councilman Jackson was oddly quiet throughout the meeting except for one story about he was riding with the Chief of Police. He said they were riding together when a call came in about kids smoking pot a Billy Taylor Park. When they got to the park one of the officers was already there playing basketball with the kids and there was no pot smoking around. What Councilman Jackson was trying to communicate with this story, and more importantly, how it enriched the conversation in the room is truly elusive. It appeared he was trying to say that many of calls received by the police are false alarms and asked if that were true. Again, how this was constructive is confusing. This was clearly not a demonstration of leadership.