News Releases

New Nationwide FBI Youth Program Created in Mobile

Oct 22nd, 2015

Bridging the Gap, a new national Federal Bureau of Investigation program that builds understanding between youth and law enforcement across the nation, was developed here through the collaboration of Federal Bureau of Investigation Special Agent in Charge Robert Lasky, Mobile Police Chief James Barber, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Alabama Kenyen Brown and a team of community leaders.

Announcing the program at Mobile police headquarters, Mobile Mayor Sandy Stimpson said it is an example of the value law enforcement agencies can provide to citizens by working together and alongside the people of the community. He thanked community leaders Ronald Ali, Elder Makinde A. Gbolahan, Casmarah Mani, Dr. Walter G. Bracy, Pastor Robert "Bobby" Brown, Pastor E. R. Scott, Cozy Brown, Pastor Montgomery Portis, Jr., and others who worked with Lasky, Barber and Brown to create the program and apply it successfully in Mobile. Mobile County School Superintendent Martha Peek contributed to the program and has spoken to the training sessions.

The program will be featured to FBI Special Agents in Charge of the FBI's 56 field division offices next week. FBI offices throughout the United States will be able to facilitate local law enforcement agencies application of the program in their respective communities.

"I am especially grateful to the community leaders who are participating," Stimpson said. "Because of their involvement, this program is real. It takes into account how today's youth feel about law enforcement and how law enforcement officers strive to make everyone safe, sometimes in dangerous circumstances. The behaviors it teaches can keep encounters between young people and police safe and productive. It is helping to make Mobile the safest city in America with respect for everyone and is something Mobilians are proud to share with the rest of the country."

Mobile Police Chief James Barber said the program is already paying off in Mobile.

"The collaboration of law enforcement agencies and citizens in the creation of Bridging the Gap and other crime prevention programs launched by the Mobile Police Department over the last two years have already benefited Mobile," said Barber. "We are using ideas contributed by community leaders in patrol activities, to help keep encounters between citizens and police safe and in instruction to new officers and on-the-job training for veteran officers. We are creating a respectful relationship between hundreds of Bridging the Gap students and police officers and these young people are telling their classmates that they can trust the police. Guidelines that can keep both citizens and police officers safe are available at www.mobilepd.org."

Barber said it is amazing how quickly young people become comfortable with police officers during the program and how much respect police officers develop towards the students.

"Mutual respect comes quickly as false information is replaced by facts," he said. "Most of the impressions that keep youth and police from cooperating are out of date or completely inaccurate but that don't mean they aren't real for those who hold them. An example is that many young people have been told that a police officer cannot come into their home without permission. The reality is that police officers are required to enter when there are indications of violence or injuries."

Lasky explained that the program was developed in response to FBI Director James B. Comey's call for youth and police to "see" each other in a speech earlier this year at Georgetown University.

"Director Comey said that perhaps the reason we struggle as a nation is because we've come to see only what we represent, at face value, instead of who we are," Lasky said. "The director stressed that the ‘seeing' must flow in both directions."

Bridging the Gap accomplishes two-way communication by sharing perceptions and information between youth (especially those in the ninth grade) and police officers while at the same time equipping youth with a better understanding of how their behavior at encounters with police can affect the way police officers must respond, Lasky said. Students from Mobile schools are chosen by their teachers to attend the program at the Mobile Police Department firing range.

Lasky said that the FBI will use a video produced in Mobile to show law enforcement managers across the country the back and forth communications the program uses to help young people and police understand and respect each other, demonstrate how quickly a life or death situation can develop and give young people an opportunity to apply what they learn during situation exercises such as a street encounter with law enforcement.
Lasky said demonstrations of explosives and the deadly power of hand-held weapons alert the young people to some of today's dangers. Young people who attend the program are encouraged to share their experience with their classmates.

U.S. Attorney Kenyen Brown summed up the collaboration that led to the Bridging the Gap program by observing that many young people have misconceptions about the police and many police offices have misconceptions about young people. He said these can be cleared up quickly in a productive and safe environment such as the Bridging the Gap meetings rather than argued on the streets.

Brown said that the collaboration of Bridging the Gap works at two levels.

"First, community leaders and federal and local law enforcement face together the real problems of modern life and build mutual respect that produces solutions such as guidelines for behavior during encounters between law enforcement and youth," Brown said. "Then students come together to express their concerns to law enforcement, learn the commitment of modern law enforcement officers to keeping them safe, practice how they can behave to avoid violence and hard feelings and learn how they can safely make complaints when warranted."

There are many revelations for both youth and law enforcement. For example few young people know there is a continuum of force that is designed to keep incidents from becoming violent and that complaints of civil rights violations are investigated by the FBI and prosecuted by the U. S. Attorney's Office and the Department of Justice, Brown said.

"All of us want the same thing—to enjoy the freedom of America and be safe," Brown said. "Bridging the Gap is helping to take Mobile there and is poised to help people in many other cities."

Barber said police tactics must be acceptable to the communities that we serve in order to be effective.

"Bridging the Gap connects the police and the people that they serve. It is an important step in making Mobile the safest city in America with respect for everyone," said Barber.


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