During the public comment portion of Tuesday’s Centralia City Council meeting, citizens spoke on the topic of the Centralia Police Department’s recent request to purchase riot gear and Police Chief Stacy Denham’s later request to remove purchase of the gear from the city’s 2021 budget. Comments both in favor of the protective gear and opposed were voiced.
On Nov. 10, the council held a workshop to discuss the police department’s purchase of riot gear.
The council approved a version of the budget on first reading that included the purchase, but Denham later recommended the removal of the gear from the budget after hearing public comments on the matter. The budget passed on the second reading.
At this week’s meeting, two letters were received by the council in favor of the purchase of the riot gear — describing the need for protective gear to keep the police officers safe in more dangerous situations.
“In the times we live in, this type of protective gear is more necessary than anytime before. If anyone has seen the news then you know the devastating assault that has been geared toward our police. We need to be prepared for this chaos and destruction,” Scott Robertson wrote. “The last thing we would want is for them to be unprepared and get hurt trying to protect our homes and businesses.”
Other public comments argued that riots and public destruction are not common in Centralia so there is no need for the gear.
Citizen Rebecca Green provided an analogy: “If you don’t live in a snowy area you wouldn’t buy snow tires.”
Several citizens spoke about their concerns with other approved gear within the police budget — gas masks and WRAPs — described as “a safe, restraint system, designed to protect subjects, officers, and staff by reducing the possibility of injury and death,” according to “The WRAP” website.
Green inquired as to why the police department thought the gas masks would be necessary and raised the concern that gas masks in the police budget inferred the use of tear gas.
Many citizens called for robust anti-racism training, body cameras and de-escalation training. Several people also asked for a group meeting with Denham to be arranged so they may speak with him about their concerns.
Citizen John Brown called for Denham to be fired for his comments regarding people of color moving to Centralia and the need for riot gear.
“Chief Denham’s comments about people of color moving to Centralia and riots were clearly racist… I believe that his comments disqualify him from being chief and he should be fired from the position,” Brown said.
He said that any funds used for riot gear, including gas masks, should be redirected to benefit people of color in the community.
Denham previously apologized, saying he misspoke.
Michael Green asked that the budget only include items that the police will have legitimate and frequent reasons to use.
“You know gas masks are riot gear so please take them off the budget during this time of community conversation on the topic. The police department already has sufficient protective gear,” he said.
Denham said that the police department is working on restarting district meetings with the public and is figuring out what the virtual meetings are going to look like. The exact dates are being finalized but the first meeting is scheduled for sometime in January. The district meetings will create an open forum for citizens to share concerns with the police department. He said it will be a place where officers can explain why certain types of gear are necessary.
“I’m excited to restart these meetings. There’s always a lot of valuable information that is collected from them and we are able to share a lot of things as well,” he said.
The district meeting dates will be announced on the Centralia Police Department Facebook page.
