South Bend residents gathered Thursday night for the final community meeting in a series for the public to give input on the City’s police practices. The meeting was about next steps.
Residents looked over notes taken from previous meetings and decided what policy recommendations were most important to have on the final document for the Board of Public Safety.
Some common requests were more de-escalation techniques and for the use of force policy to be more clearly defined.
South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg joined in on the conversations.
“I do expect very real changes on policies and procedures will comeas a result of all the community inputwe got here,” he said.
Buttigieg expects to see some of those changes applied by next year.
But community member Jorden Giger is skeptical.
“I think it shows that people were listened to, but again, we have to see what’s implemented," he said. "Things look great on paper but we really want to see them implemented in terms of policy.”
These recommendations will be given to the Board of Public Safety on October 16th.
The board will then advise the South Bend Police Department on what they would like to see changed and wait for the department’s response.
Contact Annacaroline at acaruso@wvpe.org or follow her on Twitter at @AnnacarolineC16
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