More than $800,000 has been awarded to four county school boards in West Virginia to help with school safety needs.
Grant, Pocahontas, Upshur and Marshall County Boards of Education will see a portion of an $824,774 grant from the U.S. Department of Justice Office of Community Oriented Policing Services.
West Virginia U.S. Sens. Joe Manchin and Shelley Moore Capito made the announcement in a joint press release this week.
The funding can be used for training opportunities for local law enforcement, such as preventing student violence, or for purchasing metal detectors, locks, lighting, and other deterrent measures at schools.
The funding may also be used for enhanced technology to more quickly contact police during an emergency.
“Our students deserve to be safe, especially while they’re in their classrooms and on the playground,” Manchin said. “And as our students face the challenges of attending school during the COVID-19 pandemic, we should work to provide as much safety as possible.”
“It is great to see this funding from such a competitive program awarded to our law enforcement community and schools in West Virginia,” said Capito. “Ensuring the safety of our kids and the peace of mind for our parents is critical.”
Grant County will see $390,069 of the grant; Pocahontas County will see $167,915; Upshur County will see $146,230, and Marshall County will see $120,560.
As the nation continues to grapple with conversations over police brutality and racism, some police departments are trying to tackle the problem by teaching better communication skills and recognizing bias among their officers.
Police in Jefferson County recently completed a two-day training focused on de-escalation, implicit bias and racial profiling.
About two dozen police officers gathered inside a spacious room, upstairs in the Charles Washington Hall in downtown Charles Town last week. They all work in Jefferson County. Most of them are city police in Charles Town, with some from Ranson and the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office. Most of the police at the training were white men, but three were women, including one who was Black.
These officers came together to learn skills in de-escalation, which means to approach confrontations with respect, empathy and calm communication.
Cpl. Jason Newlin, who’s white, has 18 years of policing experience, most at the Charles Town Police Department. He said the last time he had training in de-escalation was in 2002.
“I think training like this will show the general public that we’re making an attempt to retrain our thought process and, you know, retraining the way that certain situations can be handled in the way that we speak to people,” Newlin said. “Every human being, whether they’re on the right side of the law or not, have an expectation to be treated with dignity and respect.”
Annual de-escalation training isn’t mandatory in Charles Town, but some West Virginia cities, such as Morgantown, do make it mandatory. Newlin said he thinks training in de-escalation and racial profiling need to happen more often.
“Technology advances, why shouldn’t our training? We have to shoot our guns twice a year to maintain state qualifications for weapons that some have never ever had to use in the field,” he said.
But they don’t receive regular training in communication skills, which Newlin points out, is one of the things they use most.
All police officers in West Virginia are required to have 16 hours of state-approved, in-service, or continued education training annually, according to Charles Town Police Chief Chris Kutcher. It’s department heads, like him, who decide what these annual trainings will include.
“Let’s face it, we know what’s going on in the country. It’s a hot topic. You know, as the chief, I felt now is a really good time to look at our de-escalations, look at our racial profiling,” Kutcher said. “My focus with this is to give the officers some tools, things to think about when they’re out interacting with our public here in Charles Town.”
Kutcher said this was the first training held by his department that took such an in-depth look at de-escalation, racial profiling and bias.
The training was led by Silver State Consulting, a law enforcement and police training group based in Las Vegas, Nevada. They focused the first day on de-escalation techniques for addressing verbal confrontations. They emphasized the importance of speaking calmly, asking questions, like “how can I help?” and being respectful at all times.
The second day, police officers learned about implicit, or unconscious, bias and racial profiling. The instructor emphasized that everyone has implicit bias and discussed ways to recognize when this is a problem.
“When you’re being trained to be a law enforcement officer, you’re trained on how to do the job, but you’re not trained on how to interact with people,” said Robert Woolsey, the owner of the Silver State Consulting group who led the two-day training in Charles Town. Woolsey is also a former police officer and police chief.
He said police are the public face of government, so it’s hugely important for them to have good people skills and remain positive while interacting with the community.
“Most people see a police officer every single day, but they never see their mayor or their governor or the president of the United States,” he said. “And so, as a very visible presence in the community, it’s something that needs to be taught. We just never thought to do it. We never really put the emphasis on how to communicate and how to interact with folks.”
Woolsey said criminal justice reform as a whole is necessary to address the problems of racism and the high incarceration rate of people of color. He said recognizing mental health issues among police officers, suspending them when necessary and training in de-escalation and racial profiling are keys to a better policing system.
At least one other West Virginia police department, Morgantown, held a similar training earlier this year. According to a department spokesperson, Morgantown holds de-escalation and anti-bias training annually.
West Virginia Public Broadcasting also reached out to the Charleston, Wheeling and Huntington Police Departments for comment on their own de-escalation training, but they did not immediately respond for comment.
Two Charleston police officers tested positive for the coronavirus Thursday, after the Kanawha-Charleston Health Department helped facilitate a mobile testing site for staff and their families.
Both officers were in contact with the public last week. The health department began contact tracing Thursday to identify individuals police approached who may need coronavirus testing.
The health department tested officers and other staff after one employee tested positive for the coronavirus on Sunday, according to city spokesperson Mackenzie Spencer. The employee didn’t have any contact with the public and hasn’t been to the office since Friday, June 10.
Charleston officers must wear face coverings, unless it impedes their ability to make and respond to radio calls or unless it fogs up their glasses while they’re responding to an emergency call, according to Charleston Police Chief James Hunt.
On June 26, the Mid-Ohio Valley Health Department reported three officers and one support staffer tested positive for the coronavirus.
The Morgantown Police Department learned on July 7 one of its employees had tested positive. The employee had no contact with anyone outside the office during work, according to a release from the department, and all staff who had close contact with the employee were asked to self-isolate for two weeks.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends all essential employees, including law enforcement personnel, wear a mask while working, maintain a distance of six feet from others when appropriate, and regularly check for COVID-19 symptoms. West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice issued an executive order that took effect on July 7, requiring all West Virginians to wear face coverings while indoors away from home.
At least 11 people were arrested in Martinsburg the weekend of May 30 and 31 during demonstrations protesting police brutality and racism.
On Thursday, the ACLU of West Virginia filed a Freedom of Information Act request to the Martinsburg City Attorney’s Office and the Martinsburg Police Department on behalf of the Berkeley County Unity Coalition, a newly formed group of civil and human rights organizations, educators, faith leaders and others.
The FOIA asks for bodycam and dashcam footage, names and badge numbers of officers involved, official law enforcement policies and procedures for interacting with community members at protests, and use-of-force policies.
Additionally, according to the ACLU, the protesters who were arrested were forced to sit in jail with “excessively high bails” amid the coronavirus pandemic that has hit jails and prisons in the United States especially hard. A news release also said multiple video recordings appear to show police using “excessive force” and “escalating tensions” during the protests.
“This situation could have been handled in a way that de-escalated the situation and afforded a learning opportunity for both sides,” said Damon Wright, president of the Berkeley County Schools Diversity Council in the release. “Some of the young people were school aged and these incidents could further traumatize them to think twice about the role of police in helping.”
Wright said de-escalation training is “desperately” needed for officers.
Dr. Zakee McGill, president of the Berkeley County NAACP, also called for transparency from the authorities.
The Martinsburg Police Department wasn’t immediately available for comment.
On May 31, someone fired at least eight gunshots during an evening protest in downtown Martinsburg, according to police reports. No one was injured, and the shooter fled on foot.
West Virginians across the state came together in protest over the weekend, joining thousands across the country demanding action after the killings of George Floyd in Minneapolis and Breonna Taylor in Louisville, both at the hands of police.
People gathered in Huntington, Charleston, Morgantown, Parkersburg, Fairmont, Beckley and elsewhere, from the Eastern Panhandle to the southern coalfields. There was even a “virtual rally” Sunday on Facebook for those who wanted to participate but maintain social distancing.
In Charleston, hundreds of people, many wearing face masks, gathered outside City Hall and the police department Sunday afternoon, chanting, “I can’t breathe,” Floyd’s last words that also called up the 2014 death of Eric Garner, a black man who died in a police chokehold in New York City.
“[The police] have this mentality of ‘us against them,’” said Mike, one black protestor in Charleston, who declined to provide a last name. “They have to realize, we’re the taxpayers. We employ them. Their job is to protect and serve, not to intimidate and murder,” he said.
Credit Emily Allen / West Virginia Public Broadcasting
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West Virginia Public Broadcasting
Protestors gathered outside Charleston City Hall, where the police department is located, Sunday afternoon.
“There should’ve been 10 times as many people out here today,” said Jennifer Moore, a white woman from Charleston. “Where are they at? White people can’t keep sitting at home, saying ‘Oh, that’s terrible. That’s awful,’ and then that be the end of it.”
The crowd continued to grow as a few hundred people stayed chanting outside City Hall for hours, leaving at one point to march around the block.
Floyd, a 46-year-old bouncer and security guard, died outside a Minneapolis community store on Monday, May 25, after a police officer pushed his knee into Floyd’s neck for more than eight minutes. Taylor was a 26-year-old medical worker in Louisville, Kentucky, who police shot in March in her own apartment.
Although the rallies were organized in response to police violence elsewhere, West Virginia has had its share of alleged discrimination and abuse from law enforcement. Last fall, the Charleston Police Department’s policy for use of force came under fire after a young black woman was hospitalized following her arrest by two police officers.
The woman, Freda Gilmore, sued the city in December. The case is still pending in federal court, with trial set for January 2021.
Charleston Police Chief James Hunt said Monday he understands “the community has a reason to be mad.”
“I along with the officers… know that that officer in Minneapolis was in the wrong. We support what our protestors are behind, and we let our protestors know that,” said Hunt, who was not chief at the time of the use-of-force incident. “If they have ideas or grievances directed toward the Charleston police department, I’ll gladly listen.”
Black Lives Matter West Virginia, which in 2017 led a protest outside the state Capitol following the deadly White Supremacy rally that year in Charlottesville, Va., has stated that the group is not coordinating its own events, but members are monitoring those throughout the state and sharing resources.
The organization said it’s collecting face masks and organizing funds for bond and mutual aid, in case the largely peaceful events result in arrests.
Protest organizers continue to receive threats of violence. Men armed with rifles and handguns were on the sidelines of a Parkersburg protest Sunday night, in an apparent counter protest. According to the Wood County Sheriff’s Office, there were no confrontations between the two groups. In Martinsburg, police say they’re investigating after shots were fired during a Sunday protest. One man with a gun showed up to the Charleston event on Sunday, but police escorted him away from the area.
Credit Corey Knollinger / West Virginia Public Broadcasting
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West Virginia Public Broadcasting
Crowds at the Wheeling protest Sunday evening were compact despite guidance from medical experts for the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.
These gatherings come as most medical experts continue to advocate against large, in-person activities due to the coronavirus, especially as data shows how it disproportionately affects minority populations.
According to data Monday from the West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources, African Americans accounted for nearly 7 percent of the state’s positive cases, a community making up a little more than 4 percent of the state’s total population. Other minority groups made up 15 percent of the state’s positive cases.
Health officials also have reported black West Virginians are hospitalized more than whites for the coronavirus, and they experience symptoms more often.
In Wheeling, WVPB reporters noted little room for social distancing. A sidewalk protest swelled onto the street in front of the Wheeling police department and city building. Once the police closed the street where protests were occurring, some room was provided for social distancing for those that wanted it. But most of the crowd stayed compact, circling around various speakers who explained their experiences to the crowd.
One virtual rally between black leaders, elected officials, candidates for office and advocacy groups allowed more for social distancing.
Jerry Carr, Jr., of the Morgantown NAACP stated during that rally this was the first time he could recall not taking to the streets in protest.
“We cannot wait centuries to solve this problem,” Carr said. “What has to happen is immediate action. … Even the people who don’t think they’re impacted, they’re definitely feeling the effects of all this.”
Several more protests are set for this week, including an event in Morgantown on Tuesday.
Reporters Roxy Todd, Corey Knollinger and Glynis Board contributed to this report.
CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story included protests in Athens, Mercer County. There’s no evidence there were any rallies there over the weekend.
Updated Nov. 6, 2019: The Charleston Police Department's Professional Standards Division determined that two officers, Joshua Mena and Carlie McCoy, had…
Updated Nov. 6, 2019: The Charleston Police Department’s Professional Standards Division determined that two officers, Joshua Mena and Carlie McCoy, had followed the department’s policy appropriately, and after almost a week of paid administrative leave the men were allowed to return to their jobs on Friday, Oct. 25.
Original Story:
Two police officers in Charleston have been placed on paid administrative leave following an incident during an arrest on Monday. According to a press release from the Charleston Police Department, the incident is being investigated by the Police Department’s Professional Standards Division to determine whether the force used was necessary and within the department’s policy.
A citizen captured the arrest on video and it was posted on Facebook Tuesday. The video shows an officer punching a handcuffed suspect several times. The investigation “will be expedited and is expected to take no longer than two weeks,” according to the release.
The police department met Thursday with Reverend Roberta Smith with RESET, an organization of Charleston clergy and community advocates who serve as liaisons to the Charleston Police Department and the community-at-large, to discuss the incident. As a result of the meeting, CPD will be conducting a series of trainings for officers, according to the release.
Officers will complete additional defensive tactics trainings in two officer cuffing situations and one officer take down and cuffing tactics.
“The goal of these trainings is to work with officers to show different techniques that can be used to defuse situations,” the news release says.
