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From The Washington Blade

2 cops working to boost police image in Baltimore


LGBT liaison officers hope to alleviate tension with area residents


by Amy Cavanaugh
Friday, July 10, 2009

The Baltimore Police Department launched a gay liaison unit late last year with two officers assigned to the unit part time. Sgt. Jeffrey Chaney and Sgt. John Kowalczyk, both of whom are gay, act as liaisons between the police department and the gay community and as a support system within the department.

"I've been in the department for 23 years working in Mt. Vernon, our predominantly gay community, and it was obvious there was a tension between the police department and the GLBT community,” said Chaney, who looked at units in D.C., Los Angeles and New York for guidance in developing Baltimore’s program. “As the years went on, it didn’t seem like those tensions were getting any better, and it was my opinion that we needed a liaison between the community and the police department.”

Chaney added that the department also “needed somebody internally to assist GLBT officers.”

“Many felt that the atmosphere in the department wasn’t accepting of them to come out and be who they are at work,” he said. “I felt like they needed a support mechanism as well, so it was a two-fold thing.”

Chaney said the tension between police and local gays existed because of a perception that police were not receptive to the community’s needs.

“Like if there was a domestic situation between a same-sex couple, a lot of people felt that police did not handle them the same way they would have with a heterosexual relationship,” he said. “Sometimes there would be complaints that an officer made inappropriate comments, which may not have been meant to be harmful, but the officer may not have known how to address that type of situation.”

Chaney said there is diversity training in the academy, but “we could always use a lot more,” to teach things like appropriate terminology.

“I’m working on more training for the recruitment classes for the trainees in the academy, and I’m doing the lesson plan for that now,” he said. “We’re also working on a program for veteran officers to get them up on a policy that was put in place for dealing with GLBT incidents.”

The policy says that the liaisons are the official point of contact for the LGBT community, and that they report to the police commissioner. It also outlines plans for more training, including how to properly report hate crimes.

“It appeared that a lot of officers weren’t aware of reporting hate crimes, and while I can’t give you statistics, since I don’t have accurate ones, it was apparent that the number of hate crimes that had been reported could not possibly have been correct with the population we have in Baltimore,” Chaney said. “We felt the officers weren’t reporting the hate crimes, but it may not have been intentionally. This is all hate crimes and not just GLBT ones, so we’re including that in the curriculum also.”

Chaney said that he and Kowalczyk also attend community meetings at the Gay & Lesbian Community Center.

Local residents have applauded the addition of the liaisons.

“I think it’s an outstanding improvement,” said Lisa Polyak, a member of Equality Maryland’s board of directors. “I can think of several recent incidents where having a liaison would be a major benefit to the people involved.”

Polyak cited a recent case where a lesbian couple was murdered in their home in Baltimore.

“Having an officer sensitive to the family issues of an LGBT family would make a tremendous amount of difference in terms of privacy issues or legitimacy issues about who these two people were to each other,” Polyak said. “I’m very happy the city found the funds to staff an LGBT liaison and grateful to Sgt. Chaney who did all the work to make that happen.”

Chaney said that he considers the program “very successful in the community aspect of it.”

But he doesn’t consider the program as successful on the interdepartmental front just yet.

“I had hoped that some of the officers would feel more comfortable if they had a resource and there were some out males in the department, but I haven’t seen that yet,” he said. “So we’re still working internally to get people here to feel more comfortable and be able to come to work and be who they are and not have to fear anything.”

To contact the liaison unit, call 410 396-2442 or e-mail bpdliaison@gmail.com.