On July 28 Menomonie Police Chief Eric Atkinson spoke for over two hours to a large public crowd in Wilson Park. His talk covered a wide range of ideas, from the history of policing to the current pushes toward more police reform, particularly in reference to charges of unequal treatment of people of color by the police, the current BLM protests, and more. The talk was part of the ongoing Community Conversations series in Menomonie.
His talk called for more dependency on evidence-based policy in policing - that is, conducting research to determine what best practices for police actually work. The audience was very interested in the chief's observations and asked a range of questions at the end of the talk. It is reassuring and helpful to have a police chief be so involved and willing to have a conversation with the community.
A video of the speech is included here. The video quality toward the end of the talk trails off as it was becoming dark in Wilson Park, and the talk ran until after 9 PM.
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