Duluth Police made a good call by pausing.
Even though the department's long-needed, long-overdue purchase of protective gear for emergency situations - basic things like helmets, leg pads, knee pads, chest protectors, and elbow pads - had been approved in a budget passed by the City Council, when questions started being asked and concerns raised, the department stepped back. It decided in December to hold off on the first of two phases of purchases totaling about $125,000.
And in the past four months or so, Duluth's top cops, led by Chief Mike Tusken, have met with, talked with, and answered questions from groups and individuals across the community, including a well-attended public forum Feb. 28 in City Hall.
A couple of meetings are still to be held. But then, for the safety of our officers and all of us who rely on the police for protection, city councilors can vote for the initial, $83,700, first-year equipment purchase, confident in the successful completion of an inclusive, appropriate public-input process.
"I had some other groups come forward since (the public forum) that want to talk further," Tusken said in a meeting this month with members of the News Tribune Editorial Board. "We're still in the process of a couple of things. One is educating, having conversations, and hearing perspectives."
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Tusken and others from the city won't convince everyone of the need for the gear, of course.
"Some may still walk away and maybe agree to disagree and won't like it," he said. "They certainly have a perspective. But I think they leave from meeting with us much more well-informed."
Even if we don't all agree, we all can see the necessity of such equipment.
"In cities of the first class like Duluth, for their police departments, this is standard-issue police equipment. This is something that cities of our size have," Tusken said. "This has been a need in our department for more than a decade. What we have (now) is outdated, outsized, (and) mismatched. ... As a police chief who's responsible for keeping 90,000 people safe and almost 7 million visitors a year safe ... I see (this gear) as an insurance policy that we have to have. We have to have the equipment and the training in case there is an event that happens here that requires our response in this equipment. For me, not having it would be, really, a dereliction of duty."
A concern of some is that the mere presence of protective gear would prove too tempting to Duluth officers, causing them to escalate what otherwise might be nonvolatile situations.
"It doesn't mean that because we have this equipment, we'll necessarily feel the need to use it," Tusken said in a News Tribune news story in December.
In the more recent editorial board interview, he added: "There is just a very finite circumstance where we would deploy with that gear. You're talking about criminal unlawful assembly where people or property are at risk. And then you're deploying for two purposes: to keep, certainly, people and property safe and then also to make sure that you keep your staff, your officers, safe. And I think sometimes the officers get forgotten about.
"Fundamentally, police departments are there to protect people's civil liberties and constitutional rights. And so while some believe we are going to use this as a tool to squelch or maybe squash people's 1st Amendment rights, it's exactly the opposite."
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Consider the last time Duluth police put on such gear. That was in 2012 when white supremacists clashed with a large group of counter-protesters at the Duluth Civic Center. Police talked to both sides first, urging peace, but, almost immediately, snowballs started flying. Quick arrests quelled emotions.
"Just think if we did nothing, and then that escalated," Tusken said in an interview in December with the editorial board. "We made sure our officers were in regular uniform. We did give them helmets and eye protection, but otherwise, we didn't have riot batons. We didn't have shields. We didn't want to have the appearance of expecting a fight, because sometimes the psychology is, 'Look at the cops. They're looking for a fight,' and (then) of course there's going to be one, right?"
Not with appropriate police response, the sort Duluth's department demonstrated that day.
Appropriate equipment is needed, too, even if, hopefully, it never has to be used. The purchase now is a small price to pay to ensure the safety of our police officers - so they can protect our safety.
