It seems that this afternoon’s Urbana Police Use of Force Listening Session for Youth was a complete flop, as not a single youth participant attended or wished to speak. The session was held by Urbana’s new “Community Engagement Coordinator”, Sherman Lemond Peppers, and has left the residents of Urbana rather unimpressed with his first public assignment.
The meeting panelists included Mayor Diane Marlin, Chief Bryant Seraphin, Deputy Chief Richard Surles, Lieutenants Joel Sanders and Matthew Bain, and new School Resource Officer Chad Burnett. While waiting to see if anyone would raise their hand to speak, Peppers and the other panelists attempted to fill the idle time with softball questions, complimentary exchanges, and other comments which seemed to be designed to preemptively defend officers who use force.
Peppers: “Anytime the use of force is enacted, it is a traumatizing event, not just for the person maybe who is having the force placed upon them, but certainly upon the officer who has to make use of various levels of use to force. I think that one thing our public should be clear on is that, you know, our officers are trained at the highest level, and, you know, we do not implore those men and women of the force who came here to have shoot-outs in the wild wild west.”
While preparing complimentary statements to shower upon the Urbana Police Department, it appears that Peppers forgot to contemplate the “community engagement” part of his title before the meeting. The meeting was not posted on the City calendar until two days prior and apparently little to no effort was made to engage Urbana youth.
After several uncomfortable pauses hoping for youth participation, one resident eventually did speak, but not a youth resident. Sarah Hoag, who appears to have previously worked with Peppers in regards to related issues, broke the silence with a few brief youth-based questions, such as asking if there are specific guidelines for school resource officers.
Peppers budgeted 2 hours for the youth listening session, but ended it after just 42 minutes. Only 2 minutes of the meeting was spent “listening” to the one non-youth participant.
It should be noted that Peppers gave a rather intimidating introduction near the beginning of the meeting. He set out heavy-handed speaking rules and threatened to mute anyone who did not comply with his orders. He also had the chat feature on Zoom deactivated, so participants who were uneasy about speaking were not able to simply type their statements/questions in the chat (Peppers said they could send emails to the City). Here is a video of Pepper’s introductory statement:
And here is the full listening Urbana Police Use of Force Listening Session (Youth Voices):
-Christopher Hansen, Urbana