New Fort Worth survey looks to gather insight about community perception of police
FORT WORTH (CBSDFW.COM) — The City of Fort Worth is looking for feedback from the community about its police department.
The Office of the Police Oversight Monitor launched a survey this week to gather insight about how people perceive the police.
"We just want to make sure that our police department is the best one in the country, and so I think as much as we can do to collaborate – police, community, city leaders, our office – to collaborate and work on that common goal, I think the better we can be in the long run," said Kim Neal, the director of the Office of the Police Oversight Monitor.
Improving the relationship between police and the people they serve has been a priority for the city for the past several years, and this survey is a chance for the community to say whether they've seen any changes.
At the heart of it all is how citizens and police officers interact with each other.
"I think sometimes many of these encounters, if they lead to a complaint or arrest, it's leading to that because of a misunderstanding," Neal said.
Last week, a critical report found officers are consistently failing to de-escalate situations and use force when it's not needed.
An expert panel looked at hundreds of cases since 2020 and found concerning patterns of use of force, that officers are often aggressive from the initiation, and the behavior is tolerated in many cases.
"They also saw that the policies and procedures around use of force were good policies and procedures," said Neal. "Their concern was it following all the way through practice, through training."
Neal says her office has been able to observe new recruits getting that training but the department needs to make sure longtime officers are too.
Since her office was created in 2020, a lot of the focus has been on use of force. Neal believes Fort Worth police have made significant improvements.
"We've seen officers actually intervening in situations that were escalating," she said. "So we've seen great strides in those areas."
It's one of the topics both community members and police officers can share their thoughts on in the survey.
Neal hopes to get 10,000 responses in the next few weeks.
"I think it will give us some great ammunition, or information if you will, combining it with the expert panel report, on how we move forward in the City of Fort Worth," Neal said.
Community members have several options to complete the 2022 Community Perception Survey anonymously:
- Online.
- Paper. Call 817-392-6535 or send an email to receive a printed copy by mail.
- Phone. Call 817-392-6535 to complete your survey by phone.
The Office of Police Oversight Monitor also plans to launch a new Restorative Justice Mediation initiative soon.
Community members and officers will have the option to meet and talk about what happened in an encounter, instead of launching an investigation into a complaint.
"The good thing about it is it's not a dispute resolution program, so no one has to say that they were wrong, but it is a way for both sides to actually talk about the concerns they had during the encounter, to hopefully give both individuals the perspective that they didn't possibility look at in the same way," Neal said.
The voluntary program could address more low-level allegations, like discourtesy or lack of service.