Community Outreach With The Oxford Police

Tyler Pistor

Miami University journalism student

Clouds from a rain shower earlier in the day let through small rays of sunlight, the day winding to an end with a calm breeze blowing through the streets of Oxford -- suddenly, blue and red lights flash against the pavement of High Street, providing an alarming warning to a speeding car for them to halt -- they comply.

It’s Thursday, and crowds of students make their way Uptown for the festivities that will take place throughout the weekend. Students passing by gawk as the car sits in front of the Farmer School of Business, waiting as the officer makes his way out of his vehicle.

Traffic violations are common in Oxford, especially around the campus of Miami University, and are taken very seriously by Oxford police officers around areas that get a lot of foot traffic.

Traffic stops can also be useful for other reasons, such as catching drug traffickers.

"I really enjoy traffic, that also stems because I want to take the drugs out of the community, and a lot of times a minor traffic stop turns into taking drugs off the streets," says Officer Anthony Gilbert of the Oxford Police Department.

Police officers don’t always find controlled substances when they pull someone over, but with the new K-9 unit coming to Oxford this summer, Oxford PD says it’ll be easier for officers to detect drugs.

"It really depends, obviously with the students you get the marijuana, you get cocaine every now and then, but we also have meth and heroin that we find as well," says Gilbert.

Gilbert says a lot of the drugs are trafficked through US-27, which passes right through Oxford.

Police Patrols And What They Look For

Patrolling Oxford is more than just an officer driving around -- it’s information overload as officers are constantly multitasking, watching the road, listening to the radio, watching the computer screen in the car, and keeping an eye on what’s going on around them.

"If you can’t multitask, you’re not going to be successful in this job," says Amy Gabbard, the office manager at the Oxford Police Department.

Gabbard says that multitasking is an essential part of the job, since officers must be able to complete several tasks at once while out on patrol.

"The sensory overload of an officer can be challenging, between their MDT, their radio, someone in the car they’re talking to, and then watching the public and watching for traffic, and I think you learn to be that observer," says Oxford Police Chief John Jones.

When out on a regular patrol, Gilbert says that he’s looking for "anything suspicious, anything that catches my attention," keeping an eye out for "anything that doesn’t add up," which is when he starts investigating the situation.

On a patrol, officers can go from pulling over people for traffic violations to responding to calls about a theft -- each situation varies.

"During the day, you get a lot of medical runs, a lot of crashes, theft -- at night you start dealing with more of the college kids who are drunk Uptown," Gilbert says.

Police Patrols And Community Outreach

According to 2015 data from Gallup, confidence in the police is the lowest it's been in 22 years, the pollsters noting that "the combined 18% who have very little or no confidence in police is the highest Gallup has measured to date."

Last year's Gallup poll shows that confidence in the police has risen, but it's still at only 56 percent.

Building good relations with the community is something that police officers in Oxford work toward. One way to help build these relationships is through the police department's ride-along program -- anyone can do it, all you have to do is fill out a waiver and schedule a time.

According to Oxford's website, the ride-along program aims to serve as "an educational tool for participants and acquaints citizens with the complexities of police work."

"I think that the ride-along program is an important part of our community outreach," says Jones. "We want the public to see what we’re seeing, we want to be transparent as to what we do, and we think it gives an opportunity for someone to see things through our perspective and some of the challenges we may face."

While officers say they appreciate the interest from ride-along participants, doing their jobs with someone else in the car can be complicated.

"I welcome ride-alongs, not too many at one time, because it can handcuff the officers to a degree because you’re always thinking about the rider in the car. You want the rider to be exposed to things that are interesting, and that they’re wanting to see, but you’re also trying to protect them and you want to make sure they stay safe," says Lieutenant Lara Fening.

Officers say regular police-civilian interactions are important to the health of the community.

"I try to get some interaction with pedestrians, I work weekend nights, so obviously I’m working with a certain bar crowd. I try to get an interaction with them to show what it looks like from my perspective," says Officer Richard Butler.

There isn't a set narrative for what happens during a ride-along, the program simply allows passengers to experience first-hand what officers actually do during a normal work day.

While you’re sitting in the police car, an officer might pull over several people for traffic violations, investigate suspicious things, or answer calls patched to them through the radio.

The officer might flip on the car’s lights and make a sharp U-turn to pull over a driver going fifteen miles over the speed limit in an area with heavy pedestrian traffic, letting you watch as they talk to the driver, cite them, and fill out the paperwork -- but that might not happen for you -- there’s plenty of variety in what the police officers of Oxford deal with.

Photo: Officer Gilbert drives in a subdivision in Oxford that has a high amount of people who speed, keeping an eye out for any people violating traffic law. --Photo by Tyler Pistor