On Tuesday, local organizations and community members gathered with the Duluth Police Department (DPD) in regards to their recent racial bias audit. This is phase three of a drafted plan.

The purpose of the audit is to create a community based framework for the DPD to use in their practices and policies. The City of Duluth says this will help police interact with the Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) community.

They are hoping to help these interactions through training, retention, policies, and procedures.

Katie Zafft, the manager of the Crime and Justice Institute states, “…face to face conversations that they might not have had together before really matters when it comes to changing policy and pushing the police to change a little bit of their practice.”

Another part of the meeting was spent discussing the new vehicle stop policy that the NAACP released a few weeks ago. Police department heads highlighted the new policy and gained feedback they plan to use going forward.

This is the third of their implementation planning sessions that were in-person. The first one was with DPD members, and the next was with community members, and the latest was having both groups come together for a large discussion.

The organizers of the roundtables plan to use the information that they learned from all three sessions in order to help build a roadmap moving forward for the DPD and the community.

For more information on the Racial Bias Audit, head to this story.