After five years of setbacks, Chief of Police David Kintz is finally ready to bring on a conversation between the Elgin Community Police Department and the ECC community, which would culminate at an event revolving around the Ten Shared Principles.
The Ten Shared Principles are a list of agreements to treat all people-no matter their race, ethnicity, color, religion, or sexual orientation- with dignity and respect while rejecting every form of discrimination.
The ECC Police Department is currently looking for a club to put on an event during the 2024 spring semester where ECC faculty and students will be able to have conversations with police officers and bring up questions that they might have.
The police department tried to host an event of this nature before COVID-19 swept the world, but the pandemic put an end to any planning that they were hoping to go forward with.
“We were all set to do this as a student-based [event and bring in] outside area departments where everyone would interact, but unfortunately COVID-19 knocked that out,” Kintz said. “So we had two years where we couldn’t do this.”
The ECC Police Department took into consideration doing a virtual event, but they all believed that face-to-face interactions and conversations would have more deeper and meaningful impacts.
“I think that it’s important,” Kintz said. “We’re finding what was a hot-button issue four years ago might not be so now, but it’s still important to have these conversations, even while nothing is going on nationally because it still develops that relationship.”
A couple of years back on March 22, 2o18, leaders from both the Illinois Association of Chiefs of Police (ILACP) and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) gathered in the Old State Capitol in Springfield, IL to sign their Affirmation of Shared Principles.
While the Illinois Law Enforcement Training and Standards Board (ILESTB) was one of the first state agencies to adopt these principles, hundreds of other law enforcement agencies had done so already, including the Elgin Community College Police Department.
In the later months of 2018, after the signing of the principles between the NAACP and the ILACP, Kintz brought forth these sets of principles and morals to the Elgin Community College Police Department.
“When I presented [the Ten Shared Principles] to our officers, we had a department meeting and everyone had a chance to review [it],” Kintz said. “To a ‘T,’ every officer looked at it and said, ‘This is already what we believe in and what we’re doing.’”
On Dec. 20, 2018, the Ten Shared Principles were officially adopted by the Elgin Community College Police Department.
“There was a lot of mistrust going on back at the time, and it still continues to this day,” Kintz said. “[The Ten Shared Principles] bridged the gap for discussion between people of color and law enforcement to make sure we were working together for the same interest in our community.”
Deputy Chief of Police Craig Campbell is currently managing the pre-production stages of the event and trying to get it off the ground.
“[The Ten Shared Principles] is a segue to continue to have conversations,” Campbell said. “Other things might come up as a result of that, [specifically] questions of legalities like, ‘why did officers do this,’ or ‘why did officers do that?’ We’re all seasoned and we love to answer those types of questions and have those types of conversations.”
Campbell talked about how coming to Elgin Community College as a police officer was a way for him to try and connect with students.
“I felt that being an African-American male I could bring a perspective here to students from my 56 years of being on this earth that some other people may not bring to them,” Campbell said. “I felt that I could bring something to people, and not just from a police perspective, but from a people perspective.
According to Campbell, he wanted to bring the Ten Shared Principles forward for discussion to engage with the ECC community at a police-held event, saying that the principles would play a big part in trying to get information and building relationships and trust between the community and the police department.
“I think [an event] would be a good idea just because people would be able to talk to the police officers more,” said first-year student Vojtech Cisar. “Personally, I haven’t spoken with them, but I’ve seen them around and seen them doing things. It would be nice to actually talk to them.”
First-year student Miles Deasey also explained why an event of this nature would be a great idea for the ECC community and police department alike.
“I think if the police department’s goal is to be more open to people, this is an open event, so I guess you can talk to the police officers,” Deasey said. “A different idea would be plastering [the Ten Shared Principles] on the walls.”
For more information about the ECC Police Department, you can reach them at 847-214-7778 for a non-emergency question/inquiry.
