WASHINGTON — A recent police shooting followed by protesting and rioting in Charlotte over the past week has put the spotlight back on the shaky relationship law enforcement has with the public.
“We do, in fact, suffer from the sins of our fathers and grandfathers, and we’ve got to earn the public’s trust,” Montgomery County Police Chief Tom Manger told WTOP.
Manger has spent the past 40 years in law enforcement in both Maryland and Virginia, now serving as the top cop in Maryland’s largest county.
“Fifty, sixty, seventy years ago, police weren’t always on the right side of justice,” Manger explained.
The chief says that has changed since the civil rights movement of the 1960s.
“We’re not spraying people with fire hoses that are engaged in a lawful protest. We’re not protecting some school system that is discriminating against young African-American students. We’re not doing that,” Manger said.
Despite not doing those things, there is still a lot of tension between the public and law enforcement.
“We’re not there yet. There’s a lot of segments of our community that don’t trust the police, that think the police are not there to help them,” Manger said. “We are here to help everybody to make sure there is justice for everybody.”
With four decades of service in, Manger has seen much change in his line of work, like the recent introduction of body cameras following police-involved deaths in Ferguson, Mo., and Baltimore, Md.
It’s just part of the evolving environment officers are working in each day.
“I think there is a lot more scrutiny on police nowadays,” Manger said. “I think a lot of it’s because everybody’s got a camera and everybody can video everything.”
But regardless of the challenges officers face on the streets everyday, the police chief says it all comes down to a matter of trust.
“To the extent that we can, with every contact, we have to earn the public’s trust and confidence — that’s what we need to do,” he said.
