Dallas Pulls Back the Curtain on Police Shootings

Click on the 'Listen' button above to hear this interview.

Dallas Police Chief David Brown knows that the relationship between a police force and a community is often fragile at best. 

"There's a lot of context, and a historical perspective, when it relates to police-community relationships, particularly in communities of color," he says. "And some of the distrust has been earned by our department over the years."

Brown says that police departments must break down the barriers of distrust that often divide law enforcement and community members.

"We've done a really good job over many, many years in making amends, creating trust, creating a relationship where we can really have a great dialogue," he says. "But I just feel that our relationships are so fragile and hard-earned and so easy to lose that we can't let our guard down."

Brown hopes that one of his new initiatives will reinforce trust between the Dallas community and the police. Today the department launches a new website that will catalogue every officer-involved shooting since 2003. The website will feature several details about the shootings, including the race and ethnicity of those involved, the weapons used, the investigative process and more.

Over the last several decades — from the divisions of the 1960s to the beating of Rodney King to the shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri — Chief Brown says he has seen just how hard it is to gain the community's trust, and how easy it is to lose it.

"I'm walking a tightrope," Brown says, "And I have to be on both sides of the tightrope and balance to make sure that officers are doing the right thing and they stay encouraged and that citizens see transparency and accountability."

Click on the 'Listen' button above to hear the full interview with Chief Brown.