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The first step to alleviating tensions between police and people of color is for the former to acknowledge and apologize for past mistreatment, a keynote speaker said Friday night at the annual NAACP Salt Lake fundraising banquet.
Police forces can eliminate a community's "historic mistrust," said Carlton T. Mayers II, policy counsel for the national black advocacy group, if they change how they view their mission from being "warriors" in a constant battle, to being "guardians" of victims.
Mayers, who crisscrosses the country working on reform in Ferguson, Mo.; Baltimore; Charlotte, N.C.; and New York, addressed more than 200 attendees in the Little America ballroom, including Salt Lake City Police Chief Mike Brown and Provo Police Chief John King.
The speaker applauded President Barack Obama's 21st Century Policing Task Force, which mandates new and veteran officers' annual training on how to recognize personal biases, how to de-escalate potential violent confrontations and how to deal with mental illness.
NAACP Salt Lake was founded in 1919 to fight discrimination and push for voting rights and registration.
Those issues in the national conversation again, said chapter President Jeanetta Williams, who reminded participants of that hard-won right and urged her listeners to vote in the upcoming election.
Other speakers Friday night included FBI special agent in charge Eric Barnhart, who said he and his colleagues were doing their best to bring diversity into their ranks, and Brown, who said he was proud to team with the black activists to build bridges in the community.
Williams presented the Albert B. Fritz Civil Rights Worker of the Year Award to Devery S. Anderson for his book "Emmett Till: The Murder That Shocked the World and Propelled the Civil Rights Movement."
The local NAACP president also gave the President's Award to Jeffrey Thomas, who leads the group's environmental committee and James Yapias, head of its education committee.
Every two weeks for the past several months, Salt Lake City police have met with community members to address their concerns about what's happening between the two groups.
Sitting in on all these meetings, Brown said, was an indispensable participant the indefatigable Jeanetta Williams.