SEASON 4: EPISODE 47 | Airdate: 6/3/2022
The Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department Foundation, a nonprofit that raises money for Metro Police programs and initiatives, launched the Black Giving Circle in February.
The purpose of the Black Giving Circle is to “forge and strengthen relationships between the Southern Nevada Black community and local law enforcement.” Tom Kovach is the executive director of the LVMPD Foundation. He said the foundation decided to create the giving circle after seeing that a lot of its programs were in areas of town with a high population of people of color but the foundation’s donor base didn’t reflect those communities.
The foundation felt creating the Black Giving Circle was a way to give the Black community a chance to have engagement with the police department in positive ways and take greater ownership of public safety.
Capt. Carlos Hank oversees Metro’s Internal Oversight and Constitutional Policing Bureau. He said the new giving circle allows specific members of the community who are people of color to contribute to the foundation and forge relationships. He said the circle is “off to a pretty good start.”
Hank said the program was important because area commands around the city hold hundreds of events every year designed to engage the community but those events need resources to continue and expand.
“Relationships is everything,” he said, “The ability to bring and come alongside a youngster allow them to see the police aren’t that bad. The police are actually good people. They’re coaches. They’re mentors.”
He said when young people see the police who are coaches for the little league who are also responding to calls in the community it starts to break down barriers and allows for relationships to grow. With strong relationships, comes reduced crime, he said.
Erika Washington is the executive director of Make It Work Nevada, a nonprofit that helps women of color in the community. She said that while the Black Giving Circle might have “good bones” she is not entirely sure that giving resources to little leagues and doughnuts with cops is the best way to improve the lives of Black people.
“I think the problem is less about a relationship between the community and police officers but resources that need to be made available to folks who live in marginalized communities,” she said.
Washington said she is not sure that it makes sense for people to donate money to create more programming when obvious changes need to be made to the way that police officers do their jobs. Beyond that, she believes that resources need to go into helping people from birth until they’re grown. She also believes investments need to be made in parks, sidewalks, crosswalks, high-performing schools, and after-school programs in marginalized communities.
Washington said the phrase ‘defund police,’ which became a popular motto during the racial justice protests in the summer of 2020 after the murder of George Floyd at the hands of a Minneapolis police officer, is controversial. However, what most people are saying with that phrase is moving resources from policing into long-term programs to help lift people up and really change their circumstances.
Pastor M.J. Ivy from the Kinship Community Church agreed with Washington about the use of resources. He said that if some neighborhoods have sidewalks and others don’t it creates problems.
He also wants Black children to have relationships not just with cops but with people from all walks of life. He said that children of color need to know that they can get an education and become anything they want from a police officer to a teacher to the mayor of Las Vegas.
The pastor also pointed out that Black people live everywhere in the valley and not just on the Historic Westside.
Kovach said the program is new and starting where the need is greatest, which right now is the Bolden Area Command, which includes the Westside. He noted that there are actual improvements in crime rates because of some of the programs sponsored by the Black Giving Circle. He noted that there has been an 86 percent year-over-year drop in violent crime in the park where the Bolden Little League practices and plays.
As for the current relationship between Metro and the Black community, Capt. Hank described it as “very strong.” He said when he was the commander of Bolden Area Command. There was a robust coalition of people from all walks of life and all races. He said the coalition led many initiatives to improve the lives of people living there, like bringing broadband internet service to people who didn’t have access.
Washington has a different take.
“I think there is still a lot of discontent within the community when it comes to talking about Metro,” she said.
She said while the programs are good she doesn’t think they have a direct connection with policing or building trust with police. She said trust really starts at the root and that root is policing done differently. She said the community still says they don’t feel safe when the police come around because of the history and that feeling is not exclusive to Las Vegas.
Pastor Ivy expressed the same sentiment.
“I’m 50 years old. When a light goes on behind me, I still get apprehension. That’s because I’ve gone through these non-violent, non-issues,” he said.
Hank said Metro is doing everything it can to identify and train for implicit bias and racial profiling. He said no officer goes out on duty with the intent to hurt someone. He said the department encourages officers to go out and create relationships with the community every day.
