Mayor, activists say Brooklyn Center police recruitment video sends the wrong message

[MUSIC PLAYING] CATHY WURZER: Cities across Minnesota and the US are struggling to recruit police officers. We've done stories about that. The city of Brooklyn Center posted a video in December intended to recruit new police officers, but there was a backlash among some in the region.

Activists and community members voiced outrage at a rally outside the Brooklyn Center City Hall last night to denounce what they call a hypermilitarized video produced for the police department as a recruiting tool. Now, that video was posted last month but has since been taken down. The police department has spent the last two years facing the aftermath of Officer Kim Potter shooting Daunte Wright.

For more, Michele Gross and April Graves join me. Michele is involved with Communities Against Police Brutality, and April Graves is the new mayor of Brooklyn Center. First, we want to talk to Michelle Gross.

Thank you for joining us.

MICHELLE GROSS: Thank you for having me today.

CATHY WURZER: The video shows officers getting ready for their shift, including one officer putting a handgun in a holster, another enters a squad car with an assault rifle, and it ends with an arrest. What do you see when you watch the video?

MICHELLE GROSS: Well, first of all, it's filmed in a way that is meant to be very dramatic. It's at night. It's dark. It's very much like I'm getting ready to go to war, putting on all of his implements and his gun and holstering his gun and all of this. And then it shows a scan of the room and a meeting, shift change meeting or whatever, and there's not a single female officer.

And virtually all of the officers, I say for one, are white. And this is in a community that's 67% people of color. So it gives very much the impression of we're going to war on the people of color. And then it shows them leaving and getting into these cars and screaming down the street at high speeds with lights flashing.

And it's all very dramatic with dramatic music in the background. For us, it was hypermilitarized, hypermasculine, and not in any way showing any kind of engagement with the community. And that was really problematic for us.

CATHY WURZER: The police chief says guaranteeing safety and security is the main thing that they do at the police department. One could argue the video shows that.

MICHELLE GROSS: Well, actually, the reality is that we've had a problem with the culture in that department. And what a recruitment video does is it shows potential employees about the culture of the department, a little bit about what the work might be like. But most of police work is nothing like that. There are instances where that kind of thing happens, but most police work is run of the mill things, accident reports, all of that kind of stuff. I guess that stuff's maybe too boring to show in a recruitment video.

But the reality is that working with the community and dealing with routine issues is what police work mostly is. And to do that kind of hypermilitarized video is going to attract only a certain kind of person to apply for the position. And what we're looking for are people who want to work with the community.

Those are the kinds of people that they should be trying to recruit. And it was deeply concerning to us when we saw the video. People in the community were really upset about it. And we understood that, and we support expecting different from that police department.

CATHY WURZER: Have you seen the Minneapolis or the Saint Paul recruiting videos? Is there something that are in those videos that the Brooklyn Center folks could take away?

MICHELLE GROSS: Absolutely. Yes, I have seen those videos, and they emphasize the diversity of the community. They emphasize meeting with people in the community and talking with people in the community. It's not this hyped up situation where screaming out.

The other thing that some people have raised to us about that Brooklyn Center video is that it shows them arresting a guy because he's got a gun in the trunk of his car. If you're a legal gun owner, you're allowed to have a gun in the trunk of your car. So it was not even clear to people why this person was being arrested or what the matter was about.

And again, just a few months ago, this past summer, a little girl was killed who was an innocent person in an innocent car during a high-speed chase where Brooklyn Center Police were driving way too fast on a residential street. And so the community has great concerns about that as well, that kind of depiction of racing through the streets and so forth.

CATHY WURZER: Michelle Gross, have you had a chance to talk to the mayor or council members about the video?

MICHELLE GROSS: We spoke last night. I spoke at the public forum. But I also sent them a private letter telling them that one of the things you want to do is to make sure that you portray the culture that you want to develop in your department. I recognize that the police chief, McDaniels, is new, and he needs some time to develop the culture he wants in the department. But this kind of a video is not a very good start for that.

CATHY WURZER: All right. Michelle Gross, I appreciate your time. Thank you so much.

MICHELLE GROSS: Thank you.

CATHY WURZER: Mayor April Graves joins us right now. Thank you. I appreciate your time. I understand you were sworn in as Brooklyn Center's new mayor last night, is that correct?

APRIL GRAVES: Yeah, that's correct. Thank you for having me on the show.

CATHY WURZER: Thank you for taking the time. What was your reaction to the video?

APRIL GRAVES: When I saw it, I had a very similar reaction to Michelle's. I didn't like it. I thought it was likely to be triggering for folks. I felt like it was sort of like a-- set up like an action movie or a video game. I thought it could have been much, much better and have highlighted the nuanced and multifaceted ways that the police show up in the community.

It could have used more of our police officers of color in it. I also think having it at night probably wasn't the best choice. Instead, maybe they could have taken some scenes from our neighborhood meetings where the police are out in the community with community members and just do a better job highlighting what our values are and what the goals of the city and the city council have been. I felt like it was very insensitive to where we are in that process.

That being said, as I said in the meeting last night, I thought that it's likely a difference in perspectives or lenses. Somebody who's already been part of police culture and on the police force maybe isn't the best person to make the final decision about the messaging that we want to send out when we're doing transformative work.

So making sure that when we're doing that kind of thing, like creating a recruitment video, that not only are the police involved, but that the communications director is involved, the city manager is involved, community members can be involved so we can make sure that we're shaping the narrative that we want to make sure is going out to people that are going to be applying. And we don't want it to be like, oh, come and shoot them up and chase bad guys. We want to be about building relationships and doing transformative work with empathy and care for one another.

CATHY WURZER: You mentioned the word triggering, so did Michelle Gross. What does the police department need to do now to build trust within the Brooklyn Center residents right now?

APRIL GRAVES: Well, I think continuing to do the work myself with the Implementation Committee, bringing those proposals and recommendations that they have been working on forward to the council and to the rest of the community. I'd also like to see some more specific mediation. So let's say there's been a complaint against a particular police officer. I'd like to see a third party come in and do some mediation or restorative circle processes with people that have been harmed by the police department.

I think that building relationships and trust and being able to see each other as human beings, to be able to disagree respectfully and recognize, acknowledge mistakes and make an intention to do better is really the only way we're going to be able to move forward. That's what changes culture.

That's what does it is relationships, building trust, having empathy, and being willing to collaborate and work with each other. If we're constantly pointing fingers and blaming each other-- although I do think we need to have accountability, I think we can do that with grace and respect for one another. Otherwise, I think we're just going to be repeating the same cycles over and over and over again.

CATHY WURZER: Your predecessor was talking about using citizens, trained citizens, to make things like traffic stops, that kind of thing. Will you continue on the path your predecessor has set or will you do something different when it comes to policing in the city of Brooklyn Center?

APRIL GRAVES: Well, I'm going to continue to work with the Implementation Committee, which was created through the Daunte Wright and Kobe Heisler Resolution that we passed. So I'm going to continue that work. But I have other ideas too. I work full time for the Office of Violence Prevention in Minneapolis. So I have a background in alternative policing strategies and violence prevention. I really want to focus on getting to the root causes.

I think, obviously, we talk about racism and we talk about the need for equity and inclusion, but it goes much deeper than that as well. A lot of the work that we're doing in the city is around public health, around issues related to housing, access to quality jobs, being able to access good health care, mental health support. So some of that stuff is already in place.

I don't pretend to have all the answers. I think the solutions are within the community and within the people that are already doing work with communities. So I think bringing all the stakeholders to the table to come up with solutions together is where we're going to find our answers.

CATHY WURZER: All right. I appreciate your time. Brooklyn Center Mayor April Graves, thank you.

APRIL GRAVES: Thank you so much.