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Thursday, March 21, 2024
Promoting Conversation: Columbus Police dialogue team informs protesters of rights By Nora Igelnik Lantern Reporter
A
t many events and protests around campus or the city, people sporting light blue vests stand out in the crowd. Among other officers, Columbus Police dialogue officers — vested in blue — specialize in facilitating conversations and informing people of their First Amendment rights. The initiative started after a series of protests following George Floyd’s murder in 2020 and now has 53 trained officers who take part. The dialogue officers are volunteers with other full-time jobs within the division. They must go through a 40hour training where they study the social identity approach, read case law, learn negotiation and de-escalation skills and speak to community members, Sgt. Kolin Straub said. “Our motto [is] honest dialogue requires honest intent,” Steven Dyer, a sergeant for the Columbus Police Department, said. “So we’re there to honestly facilitate peaceful First Amendment activity.” The foundations of the program began in 2020 when Dyer went to Europe for 21 days with Commander Duane Mabry and another sergeant to study
crowd management under Clifford Stott, a professor of social psychology at Keele University in England and an expert in crowd psychology. Stott taught the group of officers a social identity approach to crowd management, which is “viewing crowd action as a rational, meaningful and identity-based response to social context,” Straub said. Police departments are moving away from mob theories where crowds are seen as performing irrational and random actions influenced by ring leaders, Straub said. With this social identity approach, police can understand that there are individuals in the crowd and that the “decisions and actions that they take are rational and meaningful to them.” “Instead of us versus them, it’s us with them — working together,” Straub said. The First Amendment right to speech and assembly are the team’s guiding principles, Straub said. “There’s been some controversial messages that have come to town, and we don’t have an opinion on either side of those controversial messages,” Straub said. “We support the right to say that message.”
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COURTESY OF THE COLUMBUS DIVISION OF POLICE
Columbus Police dialogue officers can be identified by their blue vests. The team was created to improve police-community relationships.
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