Charlotte PD takes a customer service approach to policing

CHICAGO (NewsNation) — Police officers in America have been facing unprecedented backlash over the past several years as national scandals, starting with the death of Trayvon Martin in 2012 and magnified by the deaths of Mike Brown, Breonna Taylor and George Floyd have contributed to an erosion of the public’s trust in police.

One North Carolina police department, however, has decided to take matters into their own hands, adopting a customer service approach, and turning to a consulting firm out of Ohio to help.

“There’s another side to policing and what’s behind this badge that comes with the humanization of what we do every single day,” said Chief Johnny Jennings of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department Tuesday morning on NewsNation’s “Morning in America.”

“My goal was just to improve our everyday contact, that we have to say we’re going to approach every interaction, whether it’s internally or externally, and try to make it positive,” Jennings continued.

The approach is one that may also benefit the officers, as media coverage and social activists have intensified the focus on police, resulting in political causes such as the “Defund the Police” movement. A mass exodus of officers from the profession has followed and changed the way policing happens in the United States.

Departments in New York, Portland, Chicago, Oakland, Seattle and San Diego, among others, have publicly spoken about the severe challenges officer shortages have brought to their departments.

The DiJulius Group , which is the agency Jennings hired to help improve community relations in his jurisdiction, incorporates marketing skills to tell their stories. They’ve even released a warm promo video demonstrating their vision.

“From my work with Charlotte and the amazing vision the chief has, close to 98% of their interactions don’t even result in an arrest,” John DiJulius said Tuesday on “Morning in America.” “So if you table the 2.5 to 2.3% that do and focus on those and be a human first and a professional second, you can leave a positive impression,” he said.

“They literally want someone after they hand them a ticket to thank them. That’s remarkable. That’s their approach,” he added.

This is especially important as some experts are now tying the negative social perception of police to the rise in assaults on officers.

The FBI released statistics that found that 129 police officers were killed in line-of-duty incidents in 2021. Of the 129, 56 died in accidents, while 73 officers died as a result of criminal acts — an increase of 27 over the 46 such deaths in 2020.

“We want to be the best part of somebody’s best day, and that’s difficult to do. And this training makes it intentional, what we’re trying to accomplish. And I think it’s making great strides in everything (on) how we do policing throughout our agency and and even across the country,” Jennings said.