MELISSA BLOCK, HOST:
If people know more about police work, they'll trust police more. That's the idea behind a program that's been going on for years in Oakland, Calif, a citizen's police academy. Tara Siler reports from member station KQED. It's so popular, there's a waiting list.
TARA SILER, BYLINE: About 40 people gather in a classroom at an Oakland police substation - black, white, Latino, Asian - it's a group as diverse as the city itself.
SEAN WHENT: All right, so thank you - thank you all very sincerely for the intro.
SILER: Police Chief Sean Whent starts laying out an unusually candid history of the department. Success had been measured by arrest rates, which led to mass incarceration, destabilized neighborhoods and communities that are no safer.
WHENT: The people in the neighborhood know who's up to no good. And so when they see the police stopping the wrong people, they come to one of two conclusions - that the police are either incompetent or corrupt. Neither of those bolsters confidence in the police department.
SILER: Whent even goes as far to say the Oakland Police Department had been an occupying force. All this catches the ear of Brian Bingham, sitting in the back of the class. He's 32 years old, African-American and a member of the Citizens Police Review Board.
BRIAN BINGHAM: For me to hear you say that - I've never heard you speak, and I don't know when I'll hear you speak again, but that meant volumes for me and it gave me some hope to hear that from the top coming down because acknowledging that there is a problem is very huge in, you know, building that trust.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #1: Yes.
SILER: This class ends up bringing residents together who may never have crossed paths in the city. Sandy Padnos tells Chief Whent she was unaware there was even an issue of mistrust.
SANDY PADNOS: I can't even tell you how shocked I was to find out some of our neighbors - our neighbors of color - had an entirely different experience with the police in Oakland.
WHENT: Right.
PADNOS: I understand...
WHENT: You know, we're not going to change it overnight. There's no way. This a decades-long history, and we as the police department have to start off with owning our history.
SILER: This department has been under federal court supervision for 12 years now. Chief Whent insists things are changing. There's better training, only one officer-involved shooting in two years. In the past, he says, the average was eight a year. Whent is clearly trying to win this group over, but the citizens police academy is really about understanding how police work gets done. So a week later, the class heads over to meet the real first responders - dispatch.
NIKITA WILLIAMS-PIERRE: Hi. What happened? Did you see any vehicle speeding off?
SILER: As it turns out, this was a particularly hectic and violent night.
WILLIAMS-PIERRE: We just had a major incident here. We just had yet another major incident as well.
SILER: This is Nikita Williams-Pierre. She's a 15-year veteran police dispatcher. Her computer screen is showing six priority calls, including a shooting in West Oakland.
UNIDENTIFIED POLICE OFFICER: Clear for medical - female, black, down on the ground, not conscious, not breathing.
SILER: Police are so busy this night, the officer who was supposed to talk to the class is instead at the West Oakland shooting. Lt. Steve Paich steps in to take his place. But then he's suddenly called away.
STEVE PAICH: Now I have to go to Highland. It's related - shots fired at Highland.
(CROSSTALK)
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #2: Well, there you go.
SILER: And on that note, this class comes to an end. Tonight, the group got a glimpse of a hard and often violent reality that police and many people in Oakland deal with every day. The goal here is that participants in this academy, like Brian Bingham, will become ambassadors of sorts between police and their communities.
BINGHAM: You know, we have this incongruence with the community and the police department that stems from, you know, a long history of police brutality and misconduct and militarization and things like that. And so I would love to be a part of bridging that gap.
SILER: But as a member of the Citizens Police Review Board, Bingham says he will keep a critical eye on a department promising big changes. For NPR News, I'm Tara Siler. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.