Lawrence Police Chief Rich Lockhart shared with city commissioners on Tuesday how the department is trying to improve community relations.
Part of his presentation focused on data LPD is now tracking and compiling for monthly reports. But data is not the only answer.
“Crime in Lawrence is very manageable. It’s mostly down. But the fear of crime is up, especially in certain parts of town,” Lockhart said. “And so we can go to them with statistics all the time and say, ‘But your community’s safe,’ and their response is, ‘But I don’t feel safe.’ So how do we make them feel safe?”
That’s where community conversations come into play, he said. Lockhart gave the commission an overview of two community meetings the department held over the summer in partnership with facilitators from the U.S. Department of Justice.
The agenda item included a DOJ report that summarized the community discussions of issues and of potential solutions. (See the full report at this link.)
Among top issues identified during the first meeting were that community members and police participants both felt as though there is a sense of “them vs. us,” and the overall takeaway from the second meeting was that people should just treat each other as people.
Commissioner Amber Sellers reflected on the second meeting, saying that a group of people who were diverse — in age, thought, culture, ethnicity, departments and more — came together and said “Yes, we need to give each other grace.”
Among suggestions to help improve perceptions was to engage the community in policy decisions. Lockhart said that’s where the Strengthening Police and Community Partnerships Council, a group of volunteers selected following the summer meetings, will come into play.
“We now have a group of people where we can go to them to help implement some of these solutions, but also, if we have something significant that happens, they can be a resource for us to communicate with the various segments of our community,” he said.
Lockhart also shared the new monthly statistical reports with data on numbers of calls, top call locations, resources shared in connection with domestic violence calls, staffing levels and more.
Lockhart said supervisors in the department realized in collecting this data that officers weren’t always completing lethality assessments on domestic violence calls. They’re questionnaires to determine how likely it is that someone will potentially be severely injured or killed if they stay in their current situation. The department shared plans to implement them in September 2022.
Officers were not completing the assessments for an average of about 33% of domestic violence calls in January, February and March, according to the reports. Now that LPD is tracking that statistic, Lockhart said supervisors are urging officers to complete them.
“We’re hoping to see that number (of assessments not completed) go down, and so we’re going to be doing some additional training with our officers to make sure they know,” he said.
Here are the reports for January, February and March (click here to open the PDF in a new tab):
20250415-LPD-update-Monthly-statsVice Mayor Brad Finkeldei asked Lockhart about a report of gunshots fired in downtown Lawrence on Saturday night. Some people on social media made comments that similar incidents happen every weekend. Finkeldei said “we know that’s not true,” but said he wondered if there was a way that LPD could put those kinds of incidents into context when reporting them to the public.
Mayor Mike Dever said he would like to see transparency at the highest level. He told Lockhart that if there are more ways to share information or other pieces of data out there, he’d like to do that.
View Lockhart’s full presentation on YouTube at this link.
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Mackenzie Clark (she/her), reporter/founder of The Lawrence Times, can be reached at mclark@lawrencekstimes.com. Read more of her work for the Times here. Check out her staff bio here.
Get help in Lawrence
Domestic violence situations: The Willow Domestic Violence Center
- Reach the Willow for help 24/7 at 785-843-3333.
- Find more resources on the Willow’s website at this link.
- National hotline: Call 1-800-799-SAFE (7233), text “START” to 88788, and/or visit thehotline.org to chat and learn more, 24/7.
File for an order of protection
In Kansas, victim-survivors of stalking and abuse can file for court orders of protection from abuse or stalking online. Visit kspop.org and follow the instructions on the website. The service is available for any county in Kansas. You can also file for a protection order with traditional paper forms; check this link for more information.
Learn the warning signs
Read about warning signs of domestic violence and emotional abuse and learn how you can help at this link.
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