An unlikely group that gathered inside what was once Champion’s Fun Center spent a good part of Wednesday trying to get beyond the misconceptions and biases to the heart of the matter.
And that, Bill Michener will tell you, is this: We are all human.
Some of those in the building Wednesday were sheriff’s deputies, a few were police officers, about 30 were middle and high school students and some were the adults who create safe spaces for those kids.
They came together to start talking, to listen rather than presume what’s in another’s heart or mind and maybe, said Michener, CEO of the after-school program Lighthouse, find some common ground.
“I wouldn’t be anywhere else,” said Lancaster County Sheriff’s Capt. John Vik.
It’s crucial, he said, to help kids understand what police do, but also for police to understand what’s in the minds of young people.
The kids — from El Centro de las Americas, the Malone Center, Lighthouse and Waverly schools — chose the name of the event, Bridging the Gap.
Although the Malone Center has a program where officers come to do activities with students, this event — two years in the making — is the first time the groups serving young people have worked together with police to start a conversation.
The idea arose before the pandemic, which put things on hold. Then the civil unrest following the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police pushed them forward.
“Lots of the things that happened heightened the breakdown of that relationship (between police and young people),” Michener said.
Wednesday was an attempt to begin building relationships.
Students and deputies paired off for a question-and-answer exercise. They were simple questions: What’s your favorite food? Your hobbies? But to guess the answers, they had to ask each other questions.
That, Michener said, addresses the assumptions each might have about the books or TV shows or snacks the other prefers. Take that idea — asking questions, not presuming — to a bigger scale, and it can begin to chip away at the biases, he said.
Organizers wanted to give young people a voice. They also wanted to give officers a chance to help young people understand what they do.
Sheriff’s deputies brought training videos on handling crisis situations. Students got to role play with those videos – putting themselves in officers’ shoes, in an office building with a gunman, making the decisions themselves.
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“Our goal here is really to expose these students to some of the decisions law enforcement officers have to make and how quickly they have to make them,” Vik said.
Middle schoolers Justice Buchanan, Jashawn Fuller and Dyonte Jackson thought the simulation was pretty cool. Eye-opening. One of them hesitated playing the role of an officer. Another fired.
Aleshia Rutt, a Waverly student, talked the gunman down.
“I think it’s really interesting,” she said of the event. “It’s changed my perception. They go through way more in a day than I thought they did.”
Lincoln police let students explore the crime scene van.
And while students waited their turn, they talked — and listened.
Officer Joe Fisher, a resource officer at Lincoln Southeast High School, talked about what he’s learned about other cultures, how he tries not to impose his culture on others, how he wishes people would stop judging others.
A group of students were hesitant to speak up, so their leaders did. A youth coordinator at El Centro said some of her students get nervous around police. To begin to break down those barriers, she said, police should come to them, at the center where they hang out.
Matt Baker, who isn’t an officer but runs LPD's gang prevention program, said coming once is one thing, showing up regularly is another.
“Go once and they might see you and not understand why you’re there. If you go every Tuesday ... you start to build credibility.”
Lincoln Police Officer and crime scene investigator Jason Hellmuth talks to students about the department's crime scene van during Bridging the Gap, an event that was two years in the making.
Ahmed Babiker, 14, inspects a Lincoln Police crime scene investigation van on Wednesday during Bridging the Gap, an event designed to allow kids and law enforcement officers to get to know and trust one another.
Lincoln Police Officer and crime scene investigator Jason Hellmuth talks about using various lights during an exercise Wednesday at Bridging the Gap, an event designed to allow kids and law enforcement officers to get to know and trust one another.