Ames Police Chief Geoff Huff, who has been serving as interim chief sinceAugust 2020, had his first day on the job July 1.
Huff spoke with the Ames Tribune on Thursday about how policing has changed in his nearly 27 years with the department and his goals as chief. He took over the department fromChuck Cychosz, who retired last year.
In this interview, Huff spoke candidly about his efforts to engage underserved communities, debates on the city's school resource officer program and how acitizen advisory committee may work with the police department.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Related:Interim police chief Geoff Huff to serve as Ames' new police chief, city manager announces
Without community engagement, 'we don't provide good service'
How have you seen Ames and the police department change since you started working here? What have the different challengesbeen over the years and how has the department evolved in responding to those challenges?
"Certainly policing has changed (since 1994). I think the focus has really moved to this community policing, community engagement kind of model. I think Chuck (Cychosz) was really instrumental in ...pushing us towards that model of policing. And so I think we understand now, you have to have a full partnership with the public or we don't accomplish any of our goals. We don't provide good service. We don't stop crime from happening. Through the process of the chief's interviews,a lot of what we did was we met with different focus groups and they gave feedback to the city manager. A lot of what I heard was, we need to do a better job of engaging the public, especially those that we don't engage with very often."
"Another thing that I heard is, I often say that Ames is safe, and statistically it is, right? ...But that doesn't mean everybody feels safe walking down the street. When I met with one of the focus groups, they challenged me on that. And I said, you're right, there is a difference in there."
What kind of data do you hope to regularly publish and how do you plan to make that information widely accessible?
"I think, one, we have to understand what people want to see. So I think people want to know arrest data. ... And it sounds like, what I'm hearing at least, is they want to know characteristics of people that are arrested."
"Online is easy for us ... the hardest part is, how do you reach people that don't have that?Maybe make (data) available at the library where people could go in and look at it if they want to. We've talked about that with our policy manual as well, making it available at the library.The issue, though, is our policy manual is a living document. We hired a company called Lexipol to help us with our manual. ...It's online for a reason so that you can make changes. And so every time we make a change online, then we would have to print a new copy."
Previously:Ames residents ask police chief finalist Geoff Huff about data transparency, racial equity
Officers in schools have been doing jobs police 'shouldn't be doing'
Do you want Ames schools to keep SROs?
"One thing I can tell you is that our SROs do not work independently from the school administrators. In fact, in most cases if they write a juvenile referral, it's because they've been asked to by a school administrator, which is part of the story that has not been told. And so I think it's a little bit unfair to say the SROs are doing whatever without recognizing that they're working(closely) with the schools."
"Once we all understand what the program is and what it isn't, and we could agree upon what the SRO should be doing and maybe what they shouldn't be doing, then I think that's the time to look at (whether we should)continue the program or not.... The SROs have been asked to do some things they probably shouldn't be doing — bathroom checks, hallway checks, stuff like that — that just doesn't require a police officer. I think that's more of a school responsibility. ... Officersalso do a lot of outreach. ...They are trained in trauma-informed care. I think they provide a lot to the school district. But I've told people before, if we find that the SRO program is not serving the students well, then we shouldn't do it. But if we find that they actually are, then we should probably continue."
More:As districts look at the role of police in schools, what do records show about SRO interactions with Ames students?
Use of force policies 'can't be so strict'
Do you have any plans to make changes to use of force policies? And if not,how do you hope to communicate to residents why those policies are best for the city?
"Lexipol doesn't provide us the policy.(Our policies) are our policies.... What they do is they provide kind of a backboneand a structure for the policy manual. ... Ithink there's a misconception that they just hand you a policy manual and you start following it."
"Aforce continuum is always bad. It's never step one, step two, step three, step four, you have to respond with the force appropriate for what you're presented with. And so sometimes it might be verbal commands, but sometimes it might be directly to a deadly force situation, just depending on the circ*mstances. And so our policy speaks to those force options."
"I'll also tell you that de-escalation is nota powder you sprinkle on people. You use techniques, and sometimes they work and sometimes they don't. ... But we always try and de-escalate the situation. ... Our use of force is really low.Most people are compliant most of the time."
"If you banned tear gas and you have a situation where you have to disperse a crowd of people that are unruly, then you've really limited what our options are. ... I wouldn't be very supportive of limiting those options. I think the more tools you have in your tool bag, the better your response is going to be. And we don't use it very often. It'sgot to be a crowd that's causing damage."
"(Shooting at moving vehicles) is just short of being prohibited in our policy. ... As a general rule, it's not very good. It's generally not effective. It's got to be reserved for those deadly force situations when an officer doesn't have any other options left."
"(Most) chokeholds were bannedby the state (last summer), and we did update our policy to better reflect that."
"A policy manual can't be so strict that there'sno room in there for interpretation. And I know some people don't like that, butofficers are presented with rapidly evolving incidents where they really have to think on their feet and they have to have as many tools in their toolbox as possible to try and solve that problem. It's very easy to sit back on Monday morning and think about all the things that could have been different, but put yourself in their position at the time it happened under that stress and then I think it looks a little bit different."
Making it easier to complain to police
What do you envision the role of theAmes Citizen Police Advisory Committeebeing with the police department?
"That's probably the thing I was most excited about coming out of the policing report. ...I've been doing this for 27 years. I think like a police officer when I'm on duty and when I'm off duty. And so I think having a different perspective saying, this is how it looks from our point of view,is really important."
"With an advisory committee, they can look at (citizen)complaints,and determine whether the officer did what they were supposed to do, follow policy or not."
"The other part of that is we'll hopefully be adding a way for people to make a complaint online. ...I know not everybody has the internet, but it's one more tool than we had before, where you could get on there, hit one button,fill out a complaint and it goes straight to me. And when we have the advisory committee, you'll be able to also make a complaint directly to somebody on the advisory committee who then can get it to us to investigate."
Recruiting people to work for 'the best department in the state'
As interim chief, how have you been able to show candidates that Ames is where they should want to live and work? And what do you plan to do to improve those numbers moving forward?
"We're working with HRto widen the net on how we recruit. We've just got to get the word out furtherto get more people to think about Ames. Ames is a good department and I think it's the best department in the state — I might be a little biased on that. If we can get them in the door and we can show them what we're all about, I think we have a pretty good shot at getting them hired. And we are definitely competing with all the other departments, especially in the Des Moines metro."
"It's a challenge. We're down eight officers — I don't think we've ever been down eight officers. ... We've also seen our our overall numbers of applicants go down over the years. During COVID, it's been much worse. I think it might bounce back a little bit as we come out of the pandemic. ... And the more people apply, the more diverse that application pool is."
"We do look to the public that we serve to help us with this. If you know somebody that you think is a good fit for a police officer, then get them in that process. Help us do it."
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Isabella Rosario is a public safety reporter for the Ames Tribune. She can be reached by email at irosario@gannett.com or on Twitter at @irosarioc.
