GARY, INDIANA MAYOR KAREN FREEMAN WILSON TO DISCUSS COMMUNITY POLICING, POLICE ACCOUNTABILITY at the National Urban League 2015 Conference | Thursday, July 30 | Ft. Lauderdale, FL
WASHINGTON, July 29, 2015 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- On behalf of The U.S. Conference of Mayors (USCM), Gary (IN) Mayor Karen Freeman-Wilson will participate in a panel discussion titled SAVE OUR CITIES: Voting rights, Criminal Justice and Police Accountability at the National Urban League Annual Conference on Thursday, July 30 in Ft. Lauderdale, FL.
Mayor Freeman-Wilson, who chairs the Conference of Mayors' Working Group of Mayors and Police Chiefs, will discuss the mayors' collective recommendations for improving community policing, which were unveiled at the Conference's Winter Meeting in January and presented to President Obama's Task Force on 21st Century Policing.
Titled STRENGTHENING POLICE-COMMUNITY RELATIONS IN AMERICA'S CITIES, the mayors' report contains recommendations for improving community policing focused on the following topic areas:
- Building police-community trust
- Improving police department practices
- Assuring timely and accurate communications
- Conducting independent investigations
- Addressing racial and economic disparities
- Providing national leadership
The Conference's working group of mayors and police chiefs was formed following the tragedy in Ferguson and an October 2014 meeting in Little Rock, AR, where over 100 mayors and police chiefs met at the William J. Clinton Center to discuss different community-policing strategies and ways to build trust between law enforcement and city residents.
Freeman-Wilson has acknowledged that mayors recognize the violence, which has occurred in several cities in the past year can occur in any-city, U.S.A. Regarding the work of the USCM Working Group, Mayor Freeman-Wilson has said, "Mayors and police chiefs know full well that effective community policing is practiced in a constitutional manner by many police departments, and the vast majority of police officers have developed trusting relationships with the communities they serve. But, we also know there ought to be full confidence with the public in our law enforcement. … If our quest is to achieve a sense of justice in our communities, we have a responsibility to address these issues whenever there is a police-involved death. … This an opportunity for mayors to lead and we can choose to navigate around these issues, or we can create a new landscape in our communities to create a better future for our children."
Additional speakers at the NUL's Plenary II Session include: Attorney Benjamin Crump, Esq.; Georgetown University Professor Dr. Michael Eric Dyson; Pastor and Founder of The Empowerment Temple Reverend Dr. Jamal-Harrison Bryant; St. Louis Metro. Urban League CEO Michael McMillan, National Action Network Founder & President Al Sharpton and NUL President and CEO Marc Morial. For more information on the National Urban League Conference, please visit www.nul.org.
WHO:
Gary (IN) Mayor Karen Freeman-Wilson, Chair of USCM Working Group of Mayors and Police Chiefs – NUL Panelist
WHAT:
National Urban League Plenary Session II: Save Our Cities: Voting rights, Criminal Justice and Police Accountability
WHEN:
Thursday, July 30th at 4:00 p.m. ET
WHERE:
Broward County Convention Center – Hall D | Greater Ft. Lauderdale
The U.S. Conference of Mayors is the official nonpartisan organization of cities with populations of 30,000 or more. There are nearly 1400 such cities in the country today, and each city is represented in the Conference by its chief elected official, the mayor. Like us on Facebook at facebook.com/usmayors, or follow us on Twitter at twitter.com/usmayors.
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SOURCE The U.S. Conference of Mayors
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