Multicultural Law Enforcement

Police Response to Conflict Within the Community

This week's written assignment has to do with the conflict in relations between community members of different cultures and the police.

In a 2 page paper, adhering to APA style guidelines, describe how you would handle the following situation if you were one of the responding police officers. Be sure to describe how the actions that you propose to take would be consistent, no matter what ethnicities are involved.

You are a police officer in an agency that has been involved in community-oriented policing for several years. You are working in a neighborhood where there has been conflict between Korean Americans and African Americans.

You have been summoned to a Korean American store where the Korean clerk has made a citizen's arrest on an African American youth for petty theft.

A group of African Americans has gathered to protest the arrest. They are angry, but they are not hostile to you and your backup officer. There are several ways you could approach this multicultural community problem and some of the ways would probably ignite the situation more than necessary.

What do you think is the best way to handle the situation given the animosity between the two groups?