SPD wraps up “Why’d You Stop Me” Training

Salinas police officers are wrapping up a major training program to better relations with the community. For the last eight weeks, all of the officers have been taking part in training called “Why’d You Stop Me.”

The creator of the WYSM program considers it “empowerment education.” Long Beach Police Officer Jason Lehman said he aims to teach the community how to better cooperate with police and teach police different ideas and techniques on how the community wants to be treated.

It’s a two-pronged approach.

“(Help) Community members to understand police officers did sign up to protect and that police officers are human beings, and that police officers are going through stressful situations and we don’t know where that police officer came from,” Lehman said.

And helping the public realize, they may be feeling the same emotions like anxiety and fear.

For the officers, teaching them better tactics to build trust with the public.

“This may be a person who has never had any contact at all and now they’re being stopped and if this turns out to be a negative contact, that could be the only contact they have and that’s their lifelong perception of police,” said Salinas Deputy Chief Dave Shaw.

KION had a chance to see firsthand the training in action.

Officer Bryan McKinley went through the course several weeks ago, but would try to be transparent with people even before that. On Monday, he pulled over a driver going 15 miles over the speed limit. The driver didn’t speak English, so McKinley called in another officer to translate. He explained to the driver why he was pulled over, heard the driver’s reasoning and let him go with a warning, as well as mutual understanding.

“Dealing with the human condition and the way that normal people’s brains operate and the fact is we all have kindness and when we’re all able to bring kindness out in a specific group, we’re able to build upon a lot,” Lehman said.

The course was paid for by a $850,000 state grant. Just because the class is over, the implementation is not. Shaw said the training will be an ongoing effort along with other measures like police legitimacy and procedural justice.