Chief: Black students should consider police career

Enoch Owens still remembers how often he was stopped by police in the early 1990s as a black high school student in St. Cloud. It inspired him to work with offenders in the criminal justice system, and he is now a probation officer in Stearns County.

At a public forum Tuesday at St. Cloud State University on law enforcement and race, Owens told a panel of speakers that his view of police officers growing up had deterred him from becoming one.

St. Cloud Police Chief Blair Anderson knows that's a common problem.

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As a panelist at the public forum, he told the audience that fewer than 200 of the approximately 10,500 police officers in Minnesota are black. Anderson, who became St. Cloud's first black police chief in 2012, encouraged black students to consider law enforcement as a career. He even asked Owens if he had reconsidered his aversion to police work.

"People of color often don't consider police as a career, and often that choice is because of their experience with police when they were young," Anderson told the crowd. "I would say: Be a change agent. Think about (law enforcement), as a person of color, as a viable career option."

The panel discussed the difficulties of recruiting police in Minnesota. Mitch Weinzetl, retired Buffalo police chief, said the state is the only one in the United States to require a college degree for police officers, which adds to the challenge.

The conversation also touched on recent national events that have increased tension between minorities and police, including the Department of Justice's report on biased police practices in Ferguson, Missouri, following the shooting death of Michael Brown.

Anderson said he could not read the Ferguson report without "tearing up," calling the police department's actions "absolutely criminal."

"As a chief of police I'm ashamed of my colleague (in Ferguson), who has stepped down now, for lacking the courage to step up," he said.

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Kevin Whitlock, director of Public Safety at SCSU, said change starts with leadership, and that St. Cloud "has started on that path." Anderson said St. Cloud police have an extensive outreach program, and three people recently attending training on fair policing.

"In St. Cloud, we're doing a whole lot of stuff," he said. "Of course, there's still work to do."

Owens said after the forum that he thinks law enforcement is still struggling to draw minority applicants. But the conversation on Tuesday was encouraging, he said.

"I think it's still an issue," he said. "But more events like this would help."

Follow Sam Louwagie on Twitter @SamLouwagie.