By NICK PRICE

Buzz, buzz, buzz.

It’s 4:30 a.m. in McPherson, Kansas. Robert McClarty slaps the alarm. It’s time to start the day.

He reaches for his glasses on the nightstand and begins his morning ritual — with prayer. He prays for his family. He prays for his safety. He prays for the people he has sworn to protect and serve. Afterward, Chief McClarty is ready to start the day.

Same time, 200 miles away. Kansas City, Kansas is fast asleep, but nevertheless Bob Angell’s alarm goes off.
Buzz, buzz, buzz.

Shower, breakfast, hug the kids. It’s time for Captain Angell to go to work.

Both men realize that the people they interact with today are most likely having the worst day of their lives. Some of these interactions won’t be safe. You see it on the news with images of police brutality and violence conducted by law enforcement and against law enforcement.

But nevertheless, these men love what they do.

“Today is not my day. I’m going to be OK today.”

Angell lives by those words. It allows him to go to work with a peace of mind that he will return home.
But not every officer is lucky enough to return home.

Cop killing is a trend that is growing nationally. According to the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund’s mid-year report released on July 20, there had been 67 officers killed in the line of duty in 2016. Thirty-two of the fatalities were firearm-related, a 78 percent increase from last year. Among those shootings were multiple police killed in Baton Rouge and Dallas.

And the toll continues to rise. Since that report, 20 more police officers have been shot dead, including two officers in Urbandale, Iowa, on Nov. 2.

Law enforcement officers aren’t the only victims of today’s policing climate. In 2015, police killed more than 100 unarmed members of the black community. The killings have expanded the divide between law enforcement and the people of this country, particularly members of minority groups.

“99.9 percent of the officers out there would never betray their badge, and I think that they take a bad rep for the less than 1 percent that do betray their badge and do something unforgivable,” McClarty said.

Angell said that specialized programs have been established in police academy training to reduce the number of police brutality incidents. Juvenile aggression and Fair and Impartial Policing courses have been implemented across the state. The programs are designed to prepare officers for the type of altercations that can be escalated by an age and racial divide.

“It’s a hot topic, and if we aren’t addressing it and preparing them for it, then we aren’t doing our officers or our citizens justice,” McClarty said.

A June 2015 Gallop poll indicated that while a majority of citizens (52 percent) remain confident in police, that confidence level is at a 22-year low. By July 2016 confidence in police had rebounded to 56 percent. But while 58 percent of whites had confidence in police, only 29 percent of blacks felt the same way.

Tragedy in Kansas City
Improved training methods won’t prevent all violence between officers and civilians. Earlier this year, tragedy struck the Kansas City Kansas Police Department.

On May 9, U.S. Air Force Veteran and 20-year member of the police force Brad Lancaster reported to work like he did every morning since joining the Kansas City Kansas Police Department 10 years ago. Shortly after his lunch break, Detective Lancaster received a dispatch of a suspicious person at the Hollywood Casino.

Before being given the chance to take the call, it was claimed by another squad car. But then another call came in: the suspicious person had fled from the responding officers on foot.

Lancaster located the suspect attempting to escape through a nearby field. He exited his unmarked vehicle and commanded the suspect to stop.

But he didn’t.

Instead the suspect opened fire on Lancaster. By sheer coincidence, the detective had been caught in a shootout. He was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

He was struck twice. Brad Lancaster, 39, died at 12:20 p.m. that day. He left behind his wife, Jamie, and two daughters, ages 9 and 10. Two days later, Curtis Ayers was charged with capital murder.

As he had done for 26 years, on July 19 Cpt. Robert Melton reported for duty. He had been a member of the Kansas National Guard, and served in Afghanistan prior to his police work.

Melton had worked for the Kansas City Kansas Police Department for 17-years, and had worked with Lancaster the past 10.

At 1:33 p.m., dispatch requested an officer respond to a report of a drive-by shooting near 22nd Street and Haskell Avenue. Another squad car took the call, but. Melton flipped on his lights and raced toward the scene to provide backup.

Melton and a partner arrived at the scene within five minutes. The car involved in the drive-by was located, and suspects were being questioned. One suspect had already been taken into custody.

When pulling up to the scene, the captain saw another suspect attempting to flee. He shouted to the suspect. The suspect opened fire on Cpt. Melton’s car. The bullets penetrated his windshield, striking the captain.
Robert Melton, 46, was pronounced dead at 2:22 p.m. He is survived by his three children and expectant girlfriend. Jamaal R. Lewis was arrested two days later and charged with capital murder.

“When it comes to losing somebody as violently as we lost these two guys, it starts rocking your whole understanding and belief of police work,” KCK Police Cpt. Angell said. “For years I knew this was a dangerous job to do, but I never really accepted it for what it actually is.”

The slaying of the two officers by armed gunman were the first in the department in more than 47 years. Now there were two officer fatalities in two months.

Repercussions
McPherson is 50 miles northwest of Wichita. The KCK officer fatalities occurred 200 miles away, but the impact hit close to home for McPherson Police Chief Robert McClarty.

“Anytime you get a fellow police officer that has been shot or shot at, it definitely has an impact on our officer’s morale,” McClarty said. “We saw it when the Baton Rouge officers were killed, we saw it when the Dallas officers were killed, and we saw it when the KCK officers were both slain.”

McClarty said that the impact on morale isn’t exclusive to the officers they know personally. Any death in the line of duty has a negative impact on the psyche of the entire police fraternity.

The deaths of the KCK officers add to the growing total of gunfire-related fatalities in our nation’s police force. Of the 257 officer-fatalities in the state of Kansas history, 170 were the result of gunfire.

“I haven’t lost any officers because of this impact yet, but I certainly have heard officers talking about it,” McClarty said.

To McClarty, the consequences of the shootings are immediate as officers second-guess their decision to be cops. For a department with 34 sworn officers, losing just one or two could negatively impact their ability to protect their community.

McClarty said the recent officer fatalities haven’t only affected current officers, but it has significantly impacted recruitment efforts.

“It has limited our number of applicants. I believe it has also made people question more whether they want to be police officers,” McClarty said.

This impact of police fatalities and the media coverage that follows is having an increasing affect on recruitment. For instance, at times the Lawrence Police Department has had as many as 600 applicants. Lawrence Police Department Sgt. Amy Rhoads said that has drastically declined during the past decade.

“There could be a lot of different variables that could play into that — it could be the violence that’s going on in the country, or it could be something else,” she said.

New recruitment tactics
It used to be enough to place an ad in the local newspaper, or on a few websites, but the traditional recruitment methods don’t seem to be sufficient anymore.

“Our recruiting methods had to become much, much more aggressive because we need to expand our resource base,” McClarty said. “We have to reach out to all of the major colleges throughout the state —we need to expand.”

As part of the expansion, the McPherson Police Department has created a new career fair program where recruiters travel throughout the state in hopes of finding good potential officers at each of the state’s universities and colleges, as well as at other Kansas institutions.

It’s not enough for departments to look for recruits in their own backyards anymore, and the need for recruitment expansion is something that departments across the state are beginning to realize.
Even in urban areas where potential officers are more abundant, changes to the recruitment process are being made.

Angell said the Kansas City, Kanas Police Department had previously taken a need-based approach to the recruitment process, only interviewing and screening potential applicants before upcoming retirements or other departures. Now, the department has implemented a monthly screening process to establish a group of promising potential recruits that can be brought into police academy training at a moments notice.

“Now we have a stack of applicants where we look at the oral interview and say, ‘Wow, this person has wanted to do this since they were 2 years old,’ and we can confidently say that this person is an excellent candidate to become a police officer,” Angell said.

This screening process involves multiple steps, including a written exam, physical test, background check, psychological evaluation, and a series of oral interviews.

Taking preemptive measures to compile a list of potential recruits works well for areas where potential job applicants are abundantly available, but this method isn’t as practical for rural areas with lesser populations. It’s one reason some departments throughout the country have been loosening the requirements of their potential officers.

In Lawrence, the previous prohibitions on tattoos have been removed. Police departments are more concerned with finding candidates with strong ethical characters, and are willing to make exceptions to prior requirements as long as prospects don’t have a questionable past. In many other Kansas departments, the requirements and restrictions for applicants have not been reduced.

New training procedures
Finding qualified candidates is only half the battle. Angell said the real challenge is preparing officers for the adverse situations of today’s policing environment.

The problem is that police academy training pales in comparison to the training that is required for other professions. For instance, Kansas requires 560 hours of training to graduate from the police academy and become a full-time officer. However, to obtain a barber’s license requires a minimum of 1,500 hours of training.
Angell said police academies must use the little time they have with recruits wisely in order to prepare them with the skills to effectively police in today’s society.

The state of Kansas now requires every officer to go through an additional 40 hours of Advanced Officer Training each year. The training is used to address changes in law enforcement.

Advanced Officer Training involves courses in Fair and Impartial Policing, Verbal Defense and Influence, and most relevant to today’s policing circumstances, De-escalation Training.

De-escalation Training includes a newly introduced program called CIT training (Crisis Intervention Team Training), which focuses on preparing officers to interact with people who are in unstable mental states. CIT training teaches officers how to communicate properly with people with suicidal thoughts, schizophrenia, and other mental impairments.

“It deals with things that we didn’t dig into 10-or-15 years ago that we are examining much more closely today,” Angell said.

As part of the newly introduced CIT training, officers in Kansas City are now required to complete an additional 16 hours of scenario-based training as well. This type of training is conducted by sending officers into pre-set situations in which they would be dealing with a person with a mental impairment.

The Kansas City Kansas Police Training Academy, located on the campus of Kansas City Kansas Community College, uses trained officers as well as students from the college’s theater department as role-players for these training exercises.

“If the officer comes in here and does great, that’s what you’d like to see,” Angell said. “If the officer comes in and makes mistakes, this is the perfect place to correct those.”

Moving forward
While confidence in police has fluctuated in recent years, McClarty said the relationship between the police and the communities they serve is fixable.

“It starts with doing good police work in your community… doing what’s right, and doing it well,” he said.
After getting the policing portion of the job down, McClarty said they have to be an active part of the community they serve.

“I think the more interaction that you have with the community in a non-enforcement manner builds that relationship and allows us to have a better response when and if something does get bad.”

Relations between law enforcement and their communities seem to be getting better. According to an October Gallup Poll, 76 percent of Americans said they have “a great deal” of respect for police in their area, up 12 percentage points from 2015.

Gallup has asked this question nine times since the peak of the Civil Rights Movement in 1965, and the percentage of people who say they respect police is higher now than in any measurement taken since the 1990s. And while 80 percent of whites said they have a great deal of respect for police, 67 percent of non-whites have the same level of respect.

Many officers have said it would be ill-advised to declare this trying time for police-civilian relations to be one that will have a negative impact for the future of law enforcement.

Lawrence Police Department Sgt. David Hogue is one such officer. He said that the future of law enforcement in this country is promising. He said the recent negativity toward police won’t discourage people who have a passion for helping people from taking the oath to protect and serve.

“Ultimately, you come into this job understanding that there’s going to be conflict and that people do bad things,” Hogue said. “The people that would naturally be drawn towards a career where they are making a difference, making and impact, or changing the world… I don’t think those people have been deterred.”

Nick Price is a University of Kansas senior journalism student from Overland Park.