By Eric Stock
BLOOMINGTON – Bloomington’s new community house that police will occupy on the city’s west side stoked the emotions of many who filled the City Council chambers on Monday night.
Many held signs urging the council to vote ‘no.’ Henry Dick who lives a few blocks from the proposed police substation at 828 W. Jefferson St. said a police substation is not what west Bloomington residents need.
“I have neighbors who have been targeted by officers, I’ve heard stories about people being handcuffed and detained for not having ID,” Dick said. “I’ve heard stories of police entering tense situations and escalating it rather than diffusing it, of black men being stopped regularly and being described as suspicious for simply walking to work to the store or to a friend’s house.”
Mid Central Community Action, which will lease the home to the Bloomington Police Department for $1 per month, surveyed residents in the area on ways to improve public safety and relations with police before determining that a police substation was needed.
Dick told the council he surveyed neighbors on is own.
“The concerns I heard raised are contrary to the beliefs of MCCA,” Dick said. “Police do not make everyone feel safe.”
Tasha Davis told the council fears about crime forced her to move from out of her west-side home.
“I loved our home, a four-bedroom home, but I couldn’t stay here because of fear of living in my own home,” Davis said. “I didn’t feel safe, my children didn’t feel safe.”
Davis added the racial tension that exists between police and the community is not a local problem.
“That’s not going to change here, that’s not just in Bloomington, that’s all over and it starts with a mindset,” Davis said. “Having a substation or community home or whatever people are calling it, that’s not changing the issue that’s a nationwide issue.”
Black Lives Matter issued a statement that it is disappointed in the outcome of the vote, adding “We will remember tonight’s vote on April 4 (Election day).
“We maintain that the longstanding issues facing the west side will not be resolved by repeating the false solution of expanded law enforcement, and that tensions between communities of color and the Bloomington Police Department will remain until there is a transformation in the way our neighborhoods are policed.”
Eric Stock can be reached at [email protected].
