Jake Thomas
jthomas@portlandobserver.com
Doing a little research on the Mike Reese, who was became police chief last week, for an article in this week’s paper I came across an interview he did with the Sellwood Bee earlier this year after being made East Precinct commander.
The article has some interesting biographical information on Reese, but he also expresses strong support for the idea of community policing, which fell out of favor during Chief Mark Kroeker’s term in the late 1990s and early aughts.
Speaking before the East Precinct Citizen Advisory Group, the paper reports these remarks from Reese:
“I ‘grew up’ in law enforcement with the concept of Community Policing,” Reese told the group. “But it’s not only that Community Policing was coming into vogue during my formative years — I really believe in it. More than that, as a new officer, I really enjoyed building relationships with the community, and saw how those relationships lead to safer communities.”
Reese added that his role that evening was to facilitate the meeting, and listen to the community he was serving. With that, he called on his command staff to give information and reports; then solicited comments from community members present.
In an interview with the paper, he added this:
“It is different from the standard policing model of law enforcement, which reacts to problems in the community. Instead, we are engaged in problem-solving. What I want to see from my officers at East precinct is this style of policing. That is, being engaged with the community, and developing as good a relationship with neighbors, business people, and social services providers, as we have with other parts of law enforcement.”
