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Brooklyn Park aims to enhance community police relations with new study results

A suburb that touts its police department as a national leader in community policing is also evaluating its police policies and procedures.

BROOKLYN PARK, Minn. — The city of Brooklyn Park is putting its police department under the microscope. After hiring an independent research group last fall to evaluate police policies and procedures, final results were shared at the regular city council meeting Monday.

Two representatives from St. Paul-based Wilder Research addressed the council for well over an hour, offering some suggestions for policing and crime prevention. Key findings on crime prevention included more emphasis on early intervention programs and mental health response; for policing, Wilder suggested limitations on warrantless searches, more de-escalation tactics and being more proactive in having officers identify themselves when arriving on scene. 

“I think we’ve created some really actionable recommendations that I hope the city picks up," Lindsay Turner of Wilder Research said in an interview after the presentation, "and really focuses it on prevention and improving effective interventions.”  

It's up to the council to decide what to do with the information. Some council members praised Wilder's work, while others expressed some concerns, including one council member who said he didn't want non-police groups to "micromanage" the police department.

The city paid $50,000 for the research, the city and Wilder confirmed on Monday. 

Ahead of the meeting, city manager Jay Stroebel explained the reason for the research.

Stroebel says Brooklyn Park is one of the most culturally diverse communities in the Midwest, and for about a decade now, the city has been ramping up efforts to improve community police relations with things like new community programs and events. As of Monday, the city website even says they're a national leader in community policing. 

Yet after George Floyd was killed in Minneapolis last year, Stroebel says Brooklyn Park, like other cities across the country, decided to review policies and procedures to further improve relations.

"We've done extensive work of working with the community of trying to become the best police department we can be," Stroebel said. "The Wilder report is just one additional opportunity to continue improving as a police department." 

The results come as cities nationwide see an uptick in violent crime, with Brooklyn Park seeing a two percent rise since last summer respectively.

"This report will be helpful in terms of how we prevent crime from happening in the first place and then how we can make sure that our police department stays using the best practices as we're policing," Stroebel said.

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