Fort Wayne Mayor Tom Henry gathered community leaders for a discussion about public safety Wednesday.
The dialogue comes on the heels of high-profile police actions in Ferguson, Missouri, and New York City which led to nationwide protests calling for reform. At Wednesday’s event, city leaders acknowledged that Fort Wayne is not immune to tensions between the police department and the community.
“I was I guess disappointed with the fact there were not more open lines of communication between a lot of our citizen base and our police department,” says Henry.
Public Safety Director and former Police Chief Rusty York says it used to be easier to communicate with Fort Wayne’s diverse populations, and a big challenge now is knowing who in the community to reach out to.
“It was very easy when I was chief to call two or three people, but that’s changed quite a bit, and they were mostly church leaders, and the community is evolved," says York. "They’re more focused on their own congregations now.”
The administration says there will be no formal report from the round table, but they hope to continue the conversation, take recommendations from community leaders, and implement some community engagement programs in 2015.