Gastonia Police Chief Travis Brittain recently answered some questions for the Employee Focus newsletter about the covenant between the Gaston Clergy & Citizens Coalition (GC3) and Gaston County Law Enforcement.
Q. What was involved in developing the covenant?
There were some very difficult conversations. The comfort levels weren’t exactly there, but there was the willingness to sit down and have those discussions and get upset but still stay at the table. When you have folks collectively sit down together and spend time on something, one, that they believe in and, two, they know is going to be important moving forward well into the future and they go through those throes, the back and forth, debate, discussion. Whenever that document is finalized it only makes it that much more important and valuable, especially to those that are building it because you put that investment in it. You may have acquiesced to something here or there, and you may have stood firm on another, but at the end of the day the collective, everybody agreed this is a covenant, we’re comfortable with it, we can abide by it, we’ll put our names on it.
Being involved in some of that, watching that process was educational and enlightening. To see all of these people knowing, having the forethought that this thing is going to be important and be a very valuable instrument for us moving forward.
It’s like Rodney (Freeman) and I have always said, it’s not if, it’s just when. It’s easy to be jovial and happy and bubbly in the good times. Tough times are when you put the covenant to the test. If you truly believe in it and you truly utilize it, then things are going to be a lot easier. Doesn’t mean they’re going to be easy, but they’ll be a lot easier.
Q. Were there any eye-openers for you?
Meeting Rodney. Befriending him and that friendship developing into something that was an eye-opener for me in that I ended up having a friendship with a Black pastor that I never thought I would have. It gave me an opportunity to see and hear things that I didn’t know that were right there in front of me. That community sees the police differently. And hearing that and being able to have those discussions, having candid discussions with Rodney and being intentional about it, it just developed into a friendship where I can pick up the phone and call anytime and talk.
There are times when we’ve had discussions, we disagree or we may not be very happy about something, but it opens your eyes to things that maybe you didn’t know before. The optics are different because you’re talking to somebody who’s being candid with you and telling you stuff even when it might be uncomfortable. Maybe the way that you see things doesn’t mean that’s how they are because people look at them differently.
I might have an opinion of what the Black community thinks about me coming in there as a white police officer, but it could be completely different and it is. Those are some of the conversations we’ve had. From that developed the conversations that you have when we have these big events going on and working with each other and saying 'Hey this covenant really means something' and calling at 10 o’clock at night and saying 'Hey this is what I’m hearing, what are you hearing?' Having that relationship and that trust. That’s the core, the trust.
Q. After George Floyd’s death and around the time of Confederate Monument protests and protests at Tony’s Ice Cream last summer, videos were done at City Church and Chief Helton and Dr. Freeman did a Facebook Live. And there were lots of meetings with churches. Were those meetings tense?
Some were tense, but they were meetings that needed to be held. The transparency that this agency has to provide for the public to see, to be willing to go out and have those conversations. And the trust part of it. Knowing that we’ll tell you what we can tell you. We’ll share what we can share. There are things we can’t, but we’ll do everything we can because that relationship is important. And you may leave not happy. We may leave not happy. But you know what, we met, we talked. And then it can’t be said that we didn’t come to the table.
Q: What do you think the biggest challenges and benefits of the covenant are?
The biggest challenge of the covenant is the people who have not had to exercise it don’t realize the value of it. Then the biggest benefit is the value of the covenant. It is a really important piece for Gastonia PD and for law enforcement here in this county. It’s more than something you can put your name on. It’s not like I can have an issue in a neighborhood and pull the covenant out of the car and say, 'Hey we’re good.' But what I do have is people that I can call and people that I can reach out to, people who trust that what I say is the truth. And I can share as much as I can share. That’s the core of that covenant.
And realizing I don’t have any idea what it is to be Black. Rodney doesn’t know what it is to be white. That’s the piece, the crux of the whole thing, being intentional, being willing to listen, and being willing to say maybe things do need to be done differently. Maybe just because of our positions, pastors, chiefs, doesn’t mean that we know everything.
Being at Franklin and Avon at 11 o’clock at night and having clergy call, checking and saying, 'Hey what do you need? Tell us what you need.' That’s big.
Q. Some of those experiences, like the realization that not all police have been good in communities or people have been taught not to trust or talk with the police. Were a lot of those stories shared when you were hashing out the covenant to explain a point of view?
Certainly. GC3 and Gaston Together realized that need was there and you’re never going to have complete trust. Because you’ll have a Floyd or something may happen here that causes that trust to erode, and we’ll just have to start over again. It’s continuous. It’s just like gardening or anything else, you plant it and you don’t walk away. You have to keep tending to it. Sometimes it’s painful, but you have to do it. We are never going to be perfect; something could be happening right now and we have to prepare for it.