CIRV, YPD, team up for diversity training

Staff report

YOUNGSTOWN

City police will be undergoing diversity training this year as part of the officers’ continuing education.

The Community Initiative to Reduce Violence will help facilitate the training, titled “Diversity and Your Service,” focusing on poverty, race, religion and relationships.

Mayor John A. McNally said in a news release he likes the training because it continues the department’s trend of keeping in touch with the community, saying he “wants to continue its [city’s] proactive response in educating our officers as well as foster good relationships with the community they serve and protect.”

The mayor credited CIRV with creating good relations between citizens and the police.

Officers taking the training will speak with community leaders who will tell them how residents think and react when they are approached by police, the release said.

Officers will then have a chance to volunteer themselves and speak with various community, church and youth groups as well as schools, the release said.

Guy Burney, CIRV executive director, said in the release that the training is a good way to address issues that have cropped up across the country in some communities between police and minority communities over police tactics.

CIRV is a combination of law enforcement and social services that targets at-risk youths in the city to keep them out of a life of crime.