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Friday, August 20, 2021

Grace and Forgiveness

There is not a person among us who has not been wronged or hurt by someone. Whether it be a person with whom we are in a romantic relationship, a member of our own family or a friend we consider to be part of our tribe, harms happen all the time. 

Some harms are minor and unintentional and occur because of miscommunication or expectations that weren’t realized. This is the kind of conflict we find ourselves in often, if not daily. Misunderstandings and disagreements are part of the human experience.
Just yesterday, my spouse asked me to grab the paperwork we needed for an appointment from the kitchen counter. The day before, I put that paperwork in a folder and placed it in my den so when we went to leave, I grabbed the folder.  We found it empty when we got to our appointment.
“I TOLD you I put it on the counter so we wouldn’t forget it!”
“I put the documents in the folder where they belong. Why would you remove them from the contained folder so loose papers are strewn around?”
“I specifically advised you that I removed the papers from the folder and placed them on the counter – so we wouldn’t forget them.”
Ugh. There we were without the paperwork we needed because I didn’t hear (listen) to her tell me that she moved them. We were an hour from home and couldn’t turn around and our appointment was in 20 minutes. We immediately went into problem-solving mode and located a hotel nearby and re-printed out the paperwork in the business center. High-fives. Even after that, I quipped that she shouldn’t mess with my organizational system. I couldn’t help myself. That led to her chastising my listening skills. We were literally pulling into the parking lot on time with the correct paperwork and started laughing at the absurdity of fighting about it. 
That’s the stuff of life. We are all trying to navigate through a messy world with other humans who have different methodologies and mindsets, so conflict is inevitable. Add temperaments and adaptability (or lack thereof) and it’s a recipe for a spark to become an explosion.
Seemingly small conflicts can turn into big rifts if we aren’t careful. As a police officer responding to family disputes, I have heard countless stories of people not talking for years over a minor argument. As preposterous as that feels to me, it happens so frequently, and ego is the culprit. We wait for the other person to apologize and when they don’t, brick by brick we build walls that become impenetrable.
But what about harms that go far beyond a misunderstanding or failed communication? How do we overcome the pain associated with being a victim of someone’s deliberate and willful betrayal? When intimate partners break trust by being unfaithful or a member of your tribe does something they know full well will break your heart. What then?
I have been genuinely betrayed by people I thought were my friends or by those I’ve loved, and my default is to slam the door and move on. I have chosen not to forgive. I have even found myself plotting vengeance because I wanted them to experience the pain I was feeling. In each of these instances, I have thankfully come to my senses without a step in furtherance. I believe that living well is the best revenge and that mantra has served myself and our family well over the years. 
Some might say that certain transgressions are unforgivable and that’s true depending upon your threshold for forgiveness. Sometimes a line is drawn and stepping over it serves as grounds for severing the relationship. Overcoming harms that break trust with our partner, family, or those in our inner circle requires the deliberate will to forgive those who have broken our hearts. The person who was wronged must make the conscious decision to forgive. 
Before that can happen, there must be a sincere and compassionate apology by the person who has committed the harm. When a person acknowledges a transgression and offers that they were unequivocally wrong and asks how they can make it right, there is nothing more that can be done. The caveat is that err must not be repeated or the apology is null. You can’t be genuinely sorry and do the same thing again. But when someone earnestly atones, forgiveness should never be withheld. 
Those who can’t forgive are doomed to everlasting pain because that stuff is heavy. Carrying hatred and vengeance weighs you down. You think you are in control by withholding forgiveness, but you aren’t. The energy has now transferred and the person who is sincerely sorry gets to move on with the understanding they’ve done all they could to right the wrong. At that point, it becomes the responsibility of the person harmed to let it go. 

And if the person never reaches out to tell you they are sorry, that's okay. You can still find peace within yourself. I use it as a lesson going forward to remind myself what not to do to someone else.
When I ponder the betrayals I’ve experienced and start to feel the familiar anger stirring inside me, I needn’t look far for perspective. Dallas police officer Amber Guyger killed an innocent man. She shot 26-year-old Botham Jean in his own apartment, where he'd been watching football on TV. At the time, she was still wearing her uniform as a Dallas police officer, having just come off a double shift. Guyger said she entered Botham Jean's apartment by mistake believing it was hers (his unit was one floor directly above Guyger's in the same building). I struggle to comprehend this entire incident, but it happened.
During the trial, Botham’s brother, Brandt, gave an extraordinary response to the murderer. Brandt said, “If she is truly sorry for what she did, I forgive her and want the best for her.” Then he did something inconceivable.
The two shared a hug and the only noise in the courtroom was the sounds of sobbing.

There are three parts to an apology: 
    I’m sorry. 
    I was wrong. 
    What can I do to make it right?

If this man can show grace and forgiveness for the unthinkable, so too can we. It’s not too late to say you’re sorry or to forgive someone who has hurt you.

Thursday, August 12, 2021

What Do You Want From Your Police Officers?

The Associated Press just reported that police officers in Connecticut would be prohibited from stopping drivers for a broken headlight, displaying their license plates in their back windows, and other minor violations, under recommendations approved Tuesday by the state Police Transparency & Accountability Task Force. According to the AP, some of the task force members said they hope restricting police from stopping drivers for ‘secondary’ violations curbs the disproportionate stops of minorities and decreases confrontations where police use force on motorists.

The primary function of a law enforcement officer is to (wait for it..) enforce the law. Laws are made by lawmakers. Cops don’t make the laws. My first instinct when I read the blurb in the AP is to remove laws that you’d not like to be enforced.

A great example is shoplifting. The law says it’s a felony to steal merchandise with a value exceeding $300. Ask any police officer when they got felony charges approved for a person caught with stolen goods valuing that amount. In fact, it’s become commonplace for State Attorneys to release shoplifters with no charges. This emboldens thieves to steal because there are no consequences for doing so. In short, crime does pay. 

Vehicle equipment and administrative violations are commonplace and police officers are responsible for enforcing these infractions. These requirements are set forth by the respective state and they annoy me just as much as they annoy you. I hate the cost of renewing my license plate sticker and I just got pulled over in Florida because my license plate cover was obstructing my plate. But these are still laws by which we all must abide. I immediately removed my license plate cover in order to comply because I respect the law. 

If you don’t like the laws, lobby your legislator to change them. If you think stealing is okay, start a movement to eradicate retail theft from the big book of laws. If you don’t want to adhere to vehicle equipment standards and administrative bureaucracy, get an army of people to protest your representatives and strike those laws from the vehicle code. For the record, officers who pull over minorities for the sole reason they are minorities have no business being in our profession. IF that is happening on a police force, traffic stop data collection required by police officers will reveal that pattern. Deal with THAT. 

But don’t tell police officers not to enforce laws that they are sworn to uphold. 

Chicago police officer Ella French was killed, and her partner is in critical condition after they were shot by occupants of a vehicle that they pulled over for expired license plates. Pause. They were enforcing the law. The occupants had loaded guns inside the vehicle and opened fire on the officers. Every molecule in my body wishes the vehicle owner would have had valid plates. Had that happened, the traffic stop would have never taken place and a twenty-nine-year-old police officer would still be alive. 

In addition to the “minor” violation, they were driving around with illegally possessed, loaded firearms. Had the traffic stop never occurred, who might they have turned the gun on? We can never know how the story might have unfolded differently. These minor equipment violations often lead to the seizure of weapons that officers confiscate. You can reasonably make the correlation that every illegal weapon seized lowers the probability of it being used to harm someone. It’s simple cause and effect. 

You (the collective society) need to decide what you want from your police officers. The only thing I know for sure is that the police officers are out there doing their jobs. Those who fail to comply with laws (even laws with which you do not agree) are still subject to enforcement by law enforcement officers. 

As the underbelly of society continues to figure out that there will be minimal consequences for their criminal actions, they will continue doing what they do. Psychology teaches us that behavior is altered when consequences outweigh the action. Until criminals feel consequences, they will continue to harm our communities and more blood will be shed. 

Saturday, November 21, 2020

Leadership is about Disappointing People at the Rate They Can Absorb

I went to Harvard. That statement is true(ish) because I was fortunate enough to spend three weeks attending the Harvard Kennedy School of Government “Executives in State and Local Government” program. But I still love saying I went to Harvard and pausing before I say…. for three weeks. It was the most academic of the training I've ever attended and I left there with my mind blown beyond its original dimensions.

The reason it was so good was because the instructors didn't allow you to give a canned answer and then move onto the next person. And, unlike most classrooms, they didn't wait for you to raise your hand. The notion that you could be called upon at any moment to offer your opinion about a discussion or an assigned reading meant that we were all at the ready. 

One instructor in particular was terrifying. Marty Linsky would stand in front of the large audience and toss out a cerebral question and when he scanned the room, I found he normally chose the person to call upon who was attempting to avoid eye contact. I was never that person because I always have something to say and I'm not usually afraid to say it. But this was different. After someone made a comment, Professor Linsky would gaze at you and press harder. “Why did you answer the question in that way?” Or “What did you mean by that?” Or perhaps, “Why have you come to that conclusion?”.

I'm usually good for about one answer that makes me appear of average intelligence but the more he dug deeper, the more my classmates and I struggled to answer the question. We would often become flustered but he remained relentless in his pursuit of the “why”. In the moment, I wanted to punch him in the throat but now that I am able to see clearly, he was doing what so many people fail to do – dig deeper for meaning.

I can regurgitate talking points that I've heard from a news correspondent or from a colleague and even feel strongly in alignment with those opinions. But when you start asking seemingly simple follow-up questions, most people can't go beyond their canned answers. It forces you to dig deeper and when you've hit the bottom, most people find that they know very little about a particular topic. 

Marty changed me. He made me do research to support my position and my greatest motivation was not to look foolish in class. Fortunately, that lesson has transcended outside of the classroom and I have learned to carefully construct my position based on facts. I have also learned to challenge my own position. That's my biggest take-away. When he forced us to peel away the layers after parroting an answer, it actually caused some of us to change the way we looked at something on which we once felt immovable. 

But the day Marty literally blew my mind was when he spanned his gaze at all of us and he uttered these words:

“Leadership is about disappointing people at the rate they can absorb.”

What the hell does that mean? He saw the confusion on everyone's face and he repeated the same phrase as though the repetition would be cause for enlightenment.


Nope. Still nothing, Marty. Leadership is inspiring people to align with a vision. It's about taking people where they need to go but otherwise wouldn't. It's about setting clear goals for your people and getting work done through others. Great leaders do the opposite of disappointing people. Dammit Marty Linsky, YOU HAVE LOST YOUR MIND. 

I went to Harvard in 2011 and on February 1, 2017, I was sitting at my desk reflecting upon several decisions that I'd made during my one year as the Chief of Police in the 2nd largest city in the State of Illinois and it hit me. Sitting alone in my office, the lightbulb went on and I got it. I freaking got it! I wanted to call Marty to tell him that I finally understood what he meant. When you are the top person in an organization, you can no longer point to someone above you and shift responsibility. That means that every decision is yours and yours alone and even if you've collected other opinions and data and made an informed decision, it's still not going to please everyone.

Even with the best of intentions, a leader is going to upset someone. Whether it be through a policy decision, a choice for promotion, or administering discipline, leaders disappoint people. Even when attempting to implement something new and big that will change an organization for the better, people resist because it's different than what they are used to. People are creatures of habit and they don't particularly like to be forced out of their comfort zones and when their environment shifts, they stand their ground in defense of it.

I had only been the chief for one year in my organization when I became conscious of all the people I had already disappointed. Even though I believed I could see things so clearly that needed to be changed or people that needed to be disciplined, others did not agree. 

Marty was right. Being a leader who actually transforms an organization invariably means that some people are going to get left behind. It also means that you have to find the precise amount of transformation because people who walk in and decide to scrap everything are making a mistake. Every organization has a lot of wonderful in it and those things should be left exactly as they are. But the things that need to be changed should be changed even if it means that people are disappointed in the process. I have found that it's the transitional part of change that people cannot tolerate. But once you get through the part of change that's uncomfortable and you get to the other side, people are appreciative and even wonder why we didn't do it sooner. 

So carry on in disappointing people but make sure it's at the rate they can absorb.

Friday, May 29, 2020

Resisting Suffocation is not Resisting Arrest

Message to the citizens of Aurora:

When I first watched the video of the Minneapolis officer, I didn’t need to wait for more information to come in. I didn’t need to wait for the investigation to conclude before I made an assessment. When you place your knee on the neck of a human being for over eight minutes – a human being who is handcuffed and pleading that he can’t breathe – there is no defense. George Floyd is a human being.

To those who have said he was resisting: Resisting suffocation is not resisting arrest.

People of color are outraged. White people are outraged. Any cop who doesn’t feel the same should get out of our profession.

I awoke this morning to learn that a Minneapolis police precinct burned the to the ground.
Then I learned that the window of an Aurora Police Department squad car had been smashed out.

We cannot control what is happening around us, but we can turn to our own corner of the world and ensure that the culture in the Aurora Police Department is in alignment with valuing human life and the constitution.

The Training Division at APD focuses on scenario-based training and in every exercise, de-escalation is the first tactic. We include implicit bias training as part of our curriculum because we understand that what makes Aurora beautiful is our diversity.

We have created a culture at APD where we stand with our officers when they are right and we part with them when they are wrong. We are not perfect and we make mistakes, but we police each other at every rank and we swiftly and thoroughly investigate any allegations of wrong-doing with transparency. Accountability builds professionalism.

I see many chiefs sending out messages to their officers with a stern message about use of force. I want to do the opposite. I want to take this opportunity to thank every police officer in our city who acts with nobility and honors our sacred oath. I am so grateful to them for the professionalism and compassion that they display every day in the city of Aurora. The men and women in blue who serve our community are the best in the nation and I am saddened that they will be painted with a broad brush. But they understand that they represent all police officers and they shoulder that responsibility.

Finally, I am grateful for our Aurora citizens who support us. We vow to you that even in these trying times, we will remain loyal to you and our fellow man. It’s up to each and every one of us to keep our city safe.

Please stand with your Aurora Police Department because there is no us.
There is no them.
There is only we.


Tuesday, March 31, 2020

Be Comfortable with Making Others Uncomfortable

Throughout my career, I have been underestimated. From the moment I earned my badge, I’d show up on a call and people would say, “you’re too little to be a cop” or “do they let you ride by yourself in a squad car?” As I moved up the ranks, I was often asked, “Do those men follow you?” I have learned to shrug it off or retort with a witty comeback. I never got angry because I tried to respect the templates for which those people saw the world that made them doubt me. It made me try harder to disprove their world view.

When Chief Greg Thomas called me into his office to tell me he was appointing me to Commander, I looked behind me to make sure he was talking to me. I verified he was and he went on to explain his expectations for my new position and then asked if I had any questions. I took that opportunity to inquire if he had any reservations about choosing me. He looked at me with honest eyes and said, “yes”. He said by promoting me, he would be promoting the person with the least experience. He would be promoting the youngest person to have ever been promoted to the position. He worried that I wasn’t ready. He worried that choosing me was a risk. When I looked at this decision from his viewpoint, I understood his trepidation. He could have gone with the safe bet. He could have chosen the person who looked like every other person who has lead our police department. He could have picked a calm and steady presence with years of experience versus the loudmouth girl who doesn’t fit the stereotype of a cop let alone a leader of cops. 

But he chose me. He said he did so because I scored one of the highest on the assessment the candidates went through. He said he knew I was a student of leadership and he believed that meant I would make it a priority for our department. He said he was more willing to take a risk on me rather than doing what has always been done. For him, staying the same was the bigger risk.

I never forgot the uncertainty in his eyes and I used that to spend every moment earning the position he gave me. I was determined to prove to him that he made the right choice and I know I ultimately made him proud. 

When I was appointed chief of police by Mayor Tom Weisner, he observed out loud that my resume ran circles around the other candidates. He offered that I had proven myself as a commander but he did tell me that he was apprehensive about my “personality". All of the candidates had to take an assessment and he said I came back as a “risk-taker”. He told me I might need to write fewer blog posts because I was a bit too opinionated. I laughed and didn’t deny that part of my personality because it’s who I am. I appreciated him for being a little afraid of me. But he gave me a chance.

Once again, determined to prove to him that he made the right choice, I made it my mission to succeed. I picked team members who thought differently than me to be a part of my command staff. I chose people who possessed qualities that I lacked but who shared the same passion for leading others. And as a team, we changed things for the better. We were unafraid to implement new and better processes and to make difficult personnel decisions because we all understood that to make a change, we had to be bold. 

I learned from Professor Marty Linsky while attending the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University that “leadership is about disappointing people at the rate they can absorb”. I thought that statement was absurd when I first heard it while sitting in his class. It wasn’t until I became the chief and was met with resistance at every change that I began to understand what he meant. People hate change. What I came to understand is that it’s not so much the change that is painful. Instead, it's that space before change happens that is painful. The only way to get to the other side is to go through it and I soon became comfortable with disappointing people on the way to changing things. 

If you are comfortable with making others uncomfortable, you can transform an organization. At my swearing-in as chief, I made a promise to the police officers in my department that I would ask myself three questions before making a decision: 1) Am I doing the right thing, 2) at the right time, and 3) for the right reasons? I vowed that if I ever answered “no” to any of those questions, I would not proceed. But if the answer was affirmative to all, I would move forward unapologetically. 

And that’s how we transformed our police department. As a result, our officers have reduced crime while building relationships with our citizens. We have added technology that has brought us to a “smart city” status and we have unleashed the talent and compassion of our officers. We have committed to relentless training so our officers are prepared on the street and make wise decisions. 

My biggest take away from being the chief has been that we can build a culture of police officers who are compassionate and empathic guardians of our city while simultaneously building warriors who run towards horrific things that no one else will. Every day, these officers respond to violence that puts them in harm's way, and presently, they are showing up and protecting our city during a pandemic and risking their own health to do it.

The pride I feel for them has never been higher and as I contemplate how I got lucky enough to serve this city and this department, I realize it all comes back to that one person who gave me a chance. I am privileged to be in the position I’m in and the only way I can pay back those like my chief and my mayor is to be willing to upset an ecosystem.

Sometimes we need to blow up the template of what we’ve always done to begin a transformation. And that might mean making others uncomfortable in the process. 

Do it anyway.

Thursday, March 26, 2020

What is this Pandemic Trying to Teach Us?

Life as we know it has stopped.

When my daughter received notice that her summer abroad trip to Taiwan was canceled, she was devastated. She is minoring in Chinese and worked so hard to be chosen for the program. Her story is similar to so many of your stories so she doesn’t have a monopoly on disappointment.

Nuptials have been canceled. Seniors in high school and college were robbed of milestone memories. A walk across the graduation stage has been replaced by a shuffle to the kitchen to break up the monotony of being confined. Performance stages all over the nation are dark and arenas are empty. Literally everything that means something to someone has been placed just out of reach.

I was calling it our “new normal” but I’ve stopped using that phrase because this is not a permanent change in our lives. If everyone cooperates, we will emerge on the other side of this and hopefully, we will have a new appreciation for what we once considered mundane. It turns out that as much as we complain about having to show up somewhere, we failed to see the freedom that comes with getting to show up. We are social animals and when we are forced to apply distance, we don’t respond very well.

It has never been more apparent as we drive through our bustling cities to see empty streets and closed businesses. On normal days, we complain about the crowds and the lines but these days, we yearn for those small annoyances because it means we are living our lives and doing the things that bring us happiness. I didn’t realize how much sitting in a restaurant with friends and laughing was part of my mental wellness. In our police department, we congregate in meetings and roll-call and what I once considered obligatory, are now things I miss simply because of the social component that goes along with conducting business.

When I’m confronted with challenges either personal or professional, I try to ask myself, “What is this trying to teach me?” When we can learn to apply lessons to our struggles, it often provides a much-needed perspective. This pandemic is no different. What is this trying to teach all of us?

My favorite book is “Man’s Search for Meaning” by Viktor Frankl. I’ve read it over 20 times but never has the message been more relevant to our current plight. His book taught me that everything can be taken from each of us except one thing — the freedom to choose our response in any situation.

Frankl was a prisoner in the Auschwitz concentration camp and his book chronicles his experiences and lessons of survival. When other prisoners were giving up on life, Frankl learned that he could control his mental health despite not being in control of his surroundings. Even when people were dying, he chose to search for meaning in suffering. You don’t have to be a prisoner in a concentration camp to understand the parallels of those fighting this virus or suffering from losing someone who has succumbed to it.

How do we attempt to find meaning in a pandemic that we convinced ourselves was only possible in cinema? I don’t think we have reached Frankl’s level of enlightenment, but perhaps we shift our focus on doing so.

Maybe the lesson is that we are all interconnected and what affects one of us, affects all of us. Our actions matter. Reckless behavior by one of us could cause illness or death to someone we love.

We understand interconnection when it comes to kindness. “Spread that stuff everywhere” is a mantra we all comprehend. Perchance what we need to take away from this is that the “germs” we pass along to one another aren’t only in the form of infectious disease. The other ways we infect one another manifest in violence in the streets in the form of anger and hatred. And it spreads more hatred and kills more people. I wonder if a virus can teach us that human transference is more powerful than we ever imagined.

Wash your hands.

Saturday, January 18, 2020

A Lesson for Adults: Talk Less. Care More.






“What factors are contributing to today’s youth violence?”


  • Bravado on social media.
  • Fear of being ridiculed (i.e. bullied).
  • Lack of friends.
  • Abuse at home.
  • Lack of a father figure.
  • Bad parenting. 















