DAVENPORT, Iowa —
Davenport Police Chief Paul Sikorski sat in the back of the council chambers and listened, while community members spoke.
Earlier that evening, he had his turn to address members of the council, and the public.
He began by looking back: "Back on May 25, a family was shocked with the death of George Floyd. Our nation was shocked. Our community was shocked and sickend by the events we all saw. Your police department was shocked and sickened, I was, and I know all of you were."
"We are not a stagnant police department; we want to get better," he said.
In response to many questions from council and community members, Sikorski addressed where his department stands with a presentation titled "A Comprehensive Look at the Davenport Police Department."
"Last year, in 2019, the police department handled more than 107,000 calls for service." He said data reported to the FBI in a voluntary use of force data collection program showed that the department resorted to use of force in less than half a percent of the calls for service.
On recruiting and hiring, he said, there is "a movement from us to have our police department reflect what our community looks like."
On the chokeholds, he said, "State law considers all neck restraints as deadly force. So they can only be used in deadly force situations."
"That's part of the training, when we have use of force training for our officers."
"It's very rare, in fact, I couldn't think of any of the top of my head. Especially what you saw in that video, that's something that I have never seen in 33 years of law enforcement, of teaching that kind of restraint," he added.
Athena Gilbraith, an activist for racial justice said she was encouraged by what she heard. "I appreciate the transparency that the chief did give to the community and so quickly."
Gilbraith, who is biracial, said she feared for her black children. More needs to be done, she said:
"We’re going to ask them to ban racial profiling as well as banning, the use of force policy as far as deadly force is concerned. While we understand that being a police is very dangerious, it’s also very dangerous to be a black person in the year 2020. So we want to make sure that our police department is doing everything they can to make sure that the black community here in Davenport is 100 percent safe.
Chief Sikorski, in concluding his remarks to council, echoed her sentiment that change needs to happen not just inside the police department.
"I challenge all of you, and myself including the members of my department, to look at the bigger picture of this systemic racism, the systemic, the social barriers, that are really out there that have developed over hundreds of years in our country," he said.