Hairstylist Melissa Pounders used to be married to a Decatur police officer.
“People don’t respect them,” Ms. Pounders said about a culture in which police officers are not appreciated. “When they (the public) don’t need them (police), they think they’re just trash.”
Decatur Police Chief Nate Allen took over the department in May 2016, and began making administrative and policy changes to help improve the lives and reputations of his 138 officers.
“Being a police officer — I consider it a calling,” Chief Allen said after a press conference on Tuesday at city hall to recognize three ‘Employees of the Month.’ “So, you want a person to be happy doing the job.”
Chief Allen is rewarding officers for community policing, and he now requires all units to respond to certain calls.
He calls these common-sense ideas and policy. But it has not always been that way in this police department.
“Investigations stayed on one side. Traffic stayed on the other side, and patrol did all different things, as opposed to working together,” Chief Allen said of the department’s policy upon his arrival in May.
Chief Allen has also begun a policy making his officers’ body-camera footage available for release immediately once an investigation is closed.
It used to be that media or people involved were only permitted to watch the footage from a computer screen, and recording was not allowed.
Ms. Pounders likes the changes, especially the ones that foster community policing.
“Let those police officers get out there in the community,” Pounders said. “Let them get to know their city.”
But to Ms. Pounders, there is something else that would help with recruitment, retention and overall pride in the department.
“To improve morale — Employee of the Month is not going to improve morale,” she said bluntly. “What’s going to improve morale is for the city to give them raises.”
