What do people expect from their police?
Safety, vigilance, professionalism, an immediate response, empathy, leniency and punishment.
And police from their community?
Funding, validation, cooperation and compliance.
And both, maybe most of all?
Respect.
“Other than the words, are the goals that different?” Bruce Baker, one of two Schoharie County Sheriff’s investigators and one of three instructors at a Procedural Justice training session, asked a room of mostly police Wednesday.
Procedural Justice?
Legitimacy?, another word Investigator Baker and fellow instructors Carly Ferretti and Tom Rehberg, both from SUNY Cobleskill, turned to repeatedly.
Wait.
We’ll get there.
Held at the jail, the training was geared toward cops.
But as a way to bring others into the discussion, Investigator Baker has also been inviting in not-cops; Wednesday, they were four members of the Schoharie Village Board and one journalist.
The question of what police want from their community and what the community wants from its police was one of several the assigned-seating teams worked together to answer in the 3-10pm session.
There was also plenty of discussion, both instructor-led and informal; videos, including some taken by body cams; and thank God, pizza.
“We are here to drive the conversation,” Investigator Baker said, kicking things off shortly after 3.
“Some of this stuff gets pretty intense; don’t be afraid to step out. What we say in this room stays in this room.”
And then:
“Exactly what do we expect from this?”
“I’m worried that this is something the Governor is doing for people who don’t understand the job—but I’m keeping an open mind,” said a cop from Montgomery County, there with others from his department.
“I’m hoping that it will give cops and the community a better understanding…so that they see that we need each other,” said a University Police officer.
“I can assure you that’s not what we’re about,” Investigator Baker told the first skeptic—and there were plenty of others in the crowd.
“Understand: this is a police training. We’re bringing in the community to see what it’s about.”
So what’s procedural justice?
The procedures—steps—used by police officers to ensure that enforcement or arrests are done fairly and with proper respect, Officer Ferretti explained, something that may be a simple as body language or a tone of voice or offering to drive someone pulled over for faulty taillights home.
“Treating the people we deal with as human beings.”
Legitimacy?
“The way they look at us,” Investigator Baker said. “The public view. The things that let us do our job.”
With that, the training switched to a video from a body cam from a local, 2019 incident: a Sheriff’s deputy, backed up by a half-dozen others, convincing a young man to put down the knife he was holding to his own throat.
“Yes, I’m going to have to handcuff you. I’m not going to lie to you,” the deputy said through the locked and barricaded door.
“Come out so we can talk to you buddy...” and eventually, to the young man, after breaking down the door “It’s all good. It’s all good.”
“Thoughts?” Investigator Baker asked after the screen went to black, asking officers to critique what they’d just watched.
“I think you did well,” said one.
“You got the job done,” said another.
“From my perspective, this is a video that should be shown in every [training] academy,” Investigator Baker said.
“He didn’t know what was behind the door. He chose the less lethal…and went to his Taser. You couldn’t script a better outcome that this. The listening, the rapport…. It could have gone any one of five million different ways.
“This makes us legitimate in this young man’s mind. We’re all doing this. Every day. This is just to refresh our memories.”
And yet.
“This is an example of why you can’t rush things,” Lieutenant Rehberg said, a problem in the real world of budget cuts or being the only cop on the scene of a call on a back road in Gilboa. “Why you can’t put a time limit on a serious incident like this.”
More trainings, including some involving younger community members once they’re done with this semester of college, are upcoming.

MUCH MORE COVERAGE OF THE TRAINING IN THIS WEEK'S TIMES-JOURNAL.