OCU Police Chief Dexter Nelson hosted a virtual forum Sept. 9 to answer questions from the campus community and discuss police presence both on and off campus.
Nelson said he was able to discuss his vision for the police department of wanting campus police officers to be more present on campus. He said the four topics he wanted to discuss in the forum were how to interact with the police, how police officers train, how to file a complaint on a police officer and investigations related to ‘police-involved deaths.’
Nelson said when interacting with police, citizens should follow what he calls the ‘Three C’s:’ Cooperate, Comply and Complain.
“You can take any incident that’s happened across the country and look at the 3 C’s,” Nelson said. “Did the person cooperate with the police officer? Did they comply with the police officer? My grandparent’s taught me the do’s and don’ts of what to do when you encounter the police, and a lot of people aren’t doing that nowadays, and some of those that are, the talk is misguided and they’re telling them, ‘you don’t have to listen to the police, you have a right not to do this or that. In most cases they’re correct, but what people still have to understand is, with police officers, the badge and the authority that’s bestowed upon them, they do have the ability to suspend your rights depending on what’s happening.”
If you are in a situation with a police officer and you think the officer is doing something wrong, Nelson said to get through the situation by cooperating and complying and then make a complaint when the incident is over.
“Too many people are wanting to make their complaint right there on the street to the officer,” he said. “It’s not very likely the person you’re having a problem with is the same person you’re going to make a complaint to. That person isn’t the same person that will give you what you want.”
Eli Nash, music theater sophomore, said following the ‘Three C’s’ is a good thing to do, but it doesn’t guarantee an interaction with a police officer will go smoothly.
“I’m all for being cooperative and doing what they ask. However, I do have a problem, and it feels like a power sort of thing, whenever you expect me to do what you want me to do without telling me why, like I have no rights. It’s very dehumanizing you get to tell me what to do, and I can’t know why. The moment I ask ‘why,’ it’s ‘oh, you’re not complying, you’re not cooperating, let me shoot you.’ That’s how quickly it escalates, and that’s the world we live in at the moment,” Nash said.
Nelson said he can help facilitate complaints against police officers.
“I want to know if any of my officers are involved in anything someone thinks is wrong. I can assure you, when you make a complaint on an officer, there’s a file on them and the number of complaints an officer gets. If they get too many complaints in a four-month period, they pull them and they have to go to psychological evaluation, and a supervisor will evaluate by their activity, their home life and a lot of other things. They also evaluate, in OKC, the number of use of force incidents they’re involved in,” he said.
Nelson said use of force is considered anything physical the officer does if a citizen is not complying, even if the citizen was not harmed. Since Nelson began at the university in March, he said there have been four cases where campus police have used force, and nobody was harmed in the process.
Nelson also said OCUPD will be adopting Oklahoma City’s de-escalation policy. He said officers have always practiced de-escalation, but the term to describe the practice is new.
“De-escalation looks at what you can do instead of using force. It’s a big part of what the city does, and it’s a big part of what we’re adopting here. Officers do this already; they just didn’t know what to call it. Now, they’ll be required to explain what they did to de-escalate the situation,” he said.
Nelson also said he wants to get new body cameras for campus officers.
“We’ve got body cameras here on campus, but they’re so old and outdated, most of them don’t work,” he said. “People talk about defunding the police departments. Well you can’t have that type of equipment if you don’t have the money to pay for it.”
Nelson said the idea of defunding the police is good in theory, but thinks it would be difficult to execute. He said mental health departments don’t have the ability or equipment to respond to calls like police departments do.
“When you talk to the people who understand the problem and are really trying to do something, what they mean by ‘defunding’ is diverting monies that goes to police to other agencies. The problem is, we have relied on the police wearing so many different hats and taking on so many responsibilities. It’s going to be very difficult to take money from them and give it to other agencies. It sounds good to reallocate it to another department, but those departments aren’t equipped to do the job the way it needs to be done,” he said.
Nelson also said he wanted to explain in the forum how an investigation takes place when the officer has done something that results in death. He said police go through a more intricate process than average citizens because there are multiple chances for them to be prosecuted.
Nelson said citizens should be wary of what they see on the news because it is usually preliminary information and not always truthful.
“What you see on the news is generally inaccurate because as an investigation develops, that information changes,” he said. “What they’re putting out initially, if they do it as they should, they can only tell you so much. They can’t tell you everything, they have to protect information for a potential prosecution, whether it’s going to be a prosecution of the officer or the prosecution of a suspect. They can’t lay out the whole case, and that’s why in a lot of cases they don’t release the video. You don’t take your evidence and let everyone see it because then when it’s time to find a jury, they can argue everybody in the area has seen the evidence and they can’t get an impartial jury.”
Lisi Levy, senior acting major, said she doesn’t agree media representation of police brutality is inaccurate.
“I definitely understand that there’s an aspect of the situation that we are not privy to, but the fact that we’re not privy to it only makes it more reasonable that we’re angry,” she said. “So, as much as I appreciate the sentiment, I do not agree. I don’t think that firearms are necessary and now, if you look at the research, or at least from what I’ve learned, the discharge of weapons is almost like a reflex.”
Although there may be more cases of police brutality being shown on the news, Nelson said that doesn’t mean there’s been an increased amount of police violence.
“So, when something happens, say for instance the last one, Jacob Blake, it’s already been everywhere across the country. An incident where someone may die or get shot at the hands of police like that happens about every couple of weeks. That’s the average, and that’s normal. I’m not saying that’s to be accepted, but in the interim, we have something like that happen every two weeks. There are tens and hundreds of thousands of arrests that take place every day where nothing happens and everything goes fine,” he said.
Nash said normalizing the idea it’s okay for someone to die at the hands of a police officer about once every two weeks is scary.
“That makes me super nervous, because you always think, ‘I’m not going to be the one,’ but then it turns out you’re the one,” he said. “I’m sorry, but someone has to be that one person. Do we just not care about that because the majority is fine, so we ignore it and sacrifice one or two people here and there? Who says that me or anyone else couldn’t be that one person?”
Levy said the fact that there hasn’t been an increase in police-related deaths despite seeing them more in the media is troubling.
“I don’t think that’s reassuring at all. If there’s not an increase, that just means it’s been this way for a long time. I remember watching the movie ‘BlacKkKlansman’ and realizing how much of what we experience in this country during the civil rights movement is very similar to what we’re doing now. We’ve known this has been going on. Look at quotes from Angela Davis and activists from the civil rights movement, and they were fighting for police abolition, prison abolition, the industrial prison complexes for 40 years before now. I genuinely think it’s only worth to know there is not an increase in police related deaths because it’s indicative in how much we have failed to meet the needs of our community,” she said.
Dr. Dia Campbell-Detrixhe, professor of nursing, said she attended the forum and was very impressed by it.
“I was overly impressed and very appreciative of Chief Nelson being very open and upfront and transparent when it comes to the responsibilities and goals of the police at OCU,” she said. “He talked about wanting to be more open and be more part of the community and have his officers be more visible and interact more. Not just cruising around in their cars but to actually get out and have them walk the halls and interact with everybody. I was tickled about that.”
Campbell-Detrixhe also said she was glad Nelson discussed how officers are being portrayed by the media.
“The media is just so focused on seeing the after, and we, as the viewers, do we really know what caused the occurrence to occur in the first place? We only see one side, and to me, that breaks my heart because I have a lot of friends and faculty who are married to police officers or friends that are police officers. I’m so glad that he recognizes it and he wants the other side of the picture to be represented and valued too,” she said.
Savannah Funkhouser, cell and molecular biology senior, also attended the forum and said she liked the idea of having campus police be intentional in getting to know the students.
“He really wants the culture of students and police officers to change on campus, and he wants us to know them and be more comfortable and be able to recognize them when they’re on campus,” she said. “He wants it to be better than it was in the past and for every student to actually feel safe and supported.”
Levy said the police forum was a good opportunity to hold OCUPD accountable.
“I think it’s a good chance to hold the powers that be accountable. I do appreciate it because I feel like at my time at OCU, that has been the first effort to streamline communication between OCUPD and students,” she said.
Nelson said he plans to host more forums in the future and would like to see more student involvement.“I get it, students aren’t willing to talk to police, but we’re doing everything we can to try to be there for them and answer questions,” he said.
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