Wichita audience airs feelings about police

Concerns and questions about relations between police and the community received a thorough and peaceful airing at a meeting at East High in Wichita on Thursday.

A racially diverse audience filled a 600-seat auditorium at the school at 2301 E. Douglas.

Participants questioned police procedures on officer-involved shootings, urged the education and mentoring of young black men about how to respond to officers, questioned hiring practices within the department, and called for the community to be as accountable as the police for improving relations.

The meeting, called #NoFergusonHere, was held in response to recent events in Ferguson, Mo. The shooting of unarmed black teen Michael Brown on Aug. 9 by a white police officer sparked demonstrations and a national dialogue on police/community relations.

Audience members spoke for two minutes each over two hours to a panel of community leaders. Some gave their names; many did not.

Some speakers drew cheers and applause. But tensions never rose much beyond a few shouts and some snickers at answers from city leaders that were deemed inadequate. Security was light, with a handful of uniformed school resource officers and city police officers visible.

A number of concerns were expressed about the need for police officers in Wichita to wear cameras. Some in the audience held signs saying, “No camera, no gun.”

Toward the end of the meeting, Wichita Mayor Carl Brewer made a commitment to return to the City Council and work with City Manager Robert Layton to figure out how to find the money “to man-up every officer with a camera.” That drew a round of applause.

Layton told the crowd he estimated that would cost about $1.2 million and said the city has been studying the issue.

Angela Zachry, a mother of four children, said there is a need for young people to be educated about what to do when approached by police.

“Train our people to learn how to act,” she said.

She also advised police, “Don’t be so quick to shoot.”

Ida Allen, sister of Icarus Randolph, a 26-year-old Iraq veteran who was shot and killed by police on July 4, questioned why no police shootings in Wichita have been ruled unjustified.

Kevass Harding, a pastor who moderated the meeting, said the U.S. Supreme Court “really has the backs” of police officers when it comes to laws that regulate police shootings.

Allen and about 30 family members and friends of Randolph demonstrated outside East High before the meeting.

“No justice, no peace. It’s really as simple as that,” another speaker said, drawing applause from the crowd.

The panel included Brewer; Layton; Wichita Interim Police Chief Nelson Mosley; Kenya Cox, Wichita Branch NAACP president; Carlos Contreras, president of Kansas People’s Action; and the Rev. Reuben Eckels of Sunflower Community Action.

Several panelists called the meeting a good start at improving relations and suggested more meetings to continue the process. Cox also called for more accountability in the police department and “more cultural sensibility across the lines.”

Eckels called for creation of a citizens review board with subpoena power and cameras on officers. He urged people to get out and vote, saying they shouldn’t be upset with the leaders they have now if they didn’t go to the polls two or four years ago.

One man challenged all the pastors at the meeting to come up with a plan to improve the economic health of the community.

“We don’t have a lot of businesses in the northeast community, but we have a church on every corner,” he said.

Harding said churches are the biggest employers in the community.

Eckels said pastors have been having that conversation, that the community is right to hold them accountable, but that people in the community have to work at it as well.

This story was originally published August 28, 2014 at 10:28 PM with the headline "Wichita audience airs feelings about police."