Chief Tinti: “… we’re staying on the forefront …”
KINGSTON – City officials, joined by members of the Kingston Police Department, participated in the city’s first community-police forum Monday evening.
After having other successful community forums with a similar format,
where residents were free to engage with city departments in a series
of roundtable discussions, the city felt it was time to be proactive with
getting community feedback on their experience and perspective regarding
the police department, as well as giving the city’s police an opportunity
to share information regarding their policing practices.
Police Chief Egidio Tinti said in addition to getting community feedback, the police department wanted to use the event as a way to also share what is new in terms of policy and new technologies.
“Some of the adoption of different policies coming down the pike: the right to know the policy development as it pertains to immigration violations, and certainly, the increased use of body cameras, we currently use mobile dash cams and now with the implementation of body worn cameras for patrol, I think that’s part of the thing that we’re trying to show the community that we’re staying on the forefront of,” said Tinti.
Beyond the benefits of having the police and community being able to interact with one another, Mayor Steven Noble said the main objective is to make sure residents feel safe when dealing with the police.
“Anytime that you need assistance we want you to be able to pick up the phone and have no question about how, and what that interaction is going to be like, so we really want to standardize those interactions,” said Noble. “That’s why we work so hard on procedural justice and making sure that everyone in the community feels like whether you’re stopped for running a stop sign, or you needed to call someone to help at your household, we just want you to know that we want you to have a professional interaction at all times.”
Speculation was raised that the forum was held in direct response to an incident involving Fabian Marshall, 27, who was tased by city police while allegedly waiting for a ride to work. A video of the incident made its rounds on the Internet in November of 2017, with some of the forum’s community attending just for that reason. However, Chief Tinti said the forum was organized as the result of community request at a police commission meeting and was then facilitated by Mayor Noble.
