- April 30, 2024
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Bunnell Police Department Officers Alex Kilpatrick (right) and Mike Fansler (left) play ball with the kids of a South Bunnell neighborhood. Photo by Sierra Williams
Bunnell Police Department Lt. Shane Groth attempts to steal the ball during a pickup basketball in a South Bunnell neighborhood. Photo by Sierra Williams
Bunnell Police Department Lt. Shane Groth lifts a young teammate high in the air to make the next basket. Photo by Sierra Williams
Bunnell Police Department Lt. Shane Groth helps a young man make a slam dunk during a basketball game with kids in a local Bunnell neighborhood. Photo by Sierra Williams
While on patrol, BPD officers carry foam footballs to hand out to kids in the neighborhood. Lt. Shane Groth grabs a few to hand out. Photo by Sierra Williams
BPD Lt. Shane Groth throws a football back and forth with kids in his patrol's neighborhood. Photo by Sierra Williams
BPD Lt. Shane Groth throws a football back and forth with kids in his patrol's neighborhood. Photo by Sierra Williams
Bunnell Police Department Officers Alex Kilpatrick (right) and Mike Fansler (left) play ball with the kids of a South Bunnell neighborhood. Photo by Sierra Williams
Bunnell Police Department Officers Alex Kilpatrick plays ball with the kids of a South Bunnell neighborhood. Photo by Sierra Williams
Bunnell Police Department Officers Alex Kilpatrick (left) and Mike Fansler (right) play ball with the kids of a South Bunnell neighborhood. Photo by Sierra Williams
Bunnell Police Department Officers Alex Kilpatrick (right) and Mike Fansler (left) play ball with the kids of a South Bunnell neighborhood. Photo by Sierra Williams
The first thing Bunnell Police Department Lt. Shane Groth does when he begins his assigned patrol in the South Bunnell area is roll down the windows of his department-issued, unmarked patrol truck.
It’s for two reasons, he said. First, so he can listen for sounds of distress, but also so he can interact with the residents.
“I stop and talk to people a lot of the time,” Groth said.
It took a long time for him to build these relationships, he said.
On every street, every few houses, one or several of South Bunnell’s residents are standing outside. Groth greets every single one, some with just a wave and others by name with a smile and a few minutes of chit-chat.
All officers are encouraged to do so, Groth said. The officers even carry around miniature foam footballs to hand out to kids and — time and crime permitting — throw a few rounds with the kids.
Sometimes, the officers organize an improptu pick-up game of basketball. On April 5, as the sun began to set, Groth and Officers Alex Kilpatrick and Mike Fansler played a 3-on-10, free-for-all match at the end of South Bacher Street. A regular occurrence, Groth said.
Getting to know the community, and letting the community get to know them, is part of a recent focus on community engagement for the Bunnell Police Department. BPD Chief David Brannon said he has made community engagement efforts a large part of his goals to improve the relationship between Bunnell residents and the police.
But are all the events, the “hellos” from patrol cars and games with the kids really working?
Brannon said that when violent crimes happen in Bunnell, it can be hard to get residents to talk about what they have witnessed, out of fear of retaliation, or because of family ties to the suspect.
“By our actions is how we’re going to build trust with any community,” Brannon said. “So if we’re out here, maybe ignoring or not paying attention to the crime that’s going on and not being thorough ... that sends a bad or negative signal to the community.”
As an 11-year veteran of BPD — the longest employed person on BPD’s force, he said — Groth has seen the changes that a focus on community engagement has made for officers’ relationships with residents.
“It’s a completely different agency than it was two years ago,” Groth said.
BUNNELL’s HISTORY OF SEGREGATION
Flagler County was the last county in Florida to desegregate, Flagler County Historical Society President Ed Siarkowicz said. It desegregated in 1970 after a federal mandate forced the county to do so.
Bunnell was formed in the early 1800s after Alva Bunnell began sawmill and lumber businesses that were so successful the Flagler Railroad added a stop at the mill. With the development of the mill and, later on, agricultural land, Siarkowicz said, African Americans became residents in Bunnell.
After the housing boom in the early 1900s, he said, when the county was still segregated, Black residents had their own neighborhood built on the south side of East Moody Boulevard.
Many people at the time referred to that South Bunnell area by a racial slur, he said.
“They basically called it ‘N-Town,’” Siarkowicz said.
The once-segregated South Bunnell area has begun to integrate over the years, but the decades of racial boundaries can take a long time to fade. Jearlyn Ministries Pastor Jearlyn Dennie said Flagler County’s racial history is partly why Bunnell’s Black residents have had trouble trusting its police force in the past.
“The only way to fix that is community policing, and getting to know your community and for them to get to know you,” Dennie said.
THE STEPS TO BUILDING TRUST
Brannon just celebrated two years at the Bunnell Police Department. He said one of his first initiatives was to increase community engagement with Bunnell residents through a variety of avenues.
BPD officers began attending and hosting more community events, and officers are encouraged to interact with residents on their patrols, both in and out of their patrol cars. One of the first things he did, Brannon said, was create a Facebook page for the BPD to help keep residents informed and up-to-date.
That page, he was proud to say, recently hit the 4,000 followers mark, while Bunnell has a population of just over 3,500 people.
Accountability is another way Brannon works to build trust. BPD officers are required to wear body cameras that are turned on during every criminal interaction. Every week, Brannon said, he and another officer will randomly audit body camera footage and review that week’s cases. If there’s a discrepancy, the incident is carefully reviewed and questioned.
City Commissioner Tonya Gordon is a born-and-raised Bunnell resident. She is on her second term as a commissioner and has seen the tenure of several BPD chiefs.
Brannon, she said, is the first BPD chief to actively be involved with the community.
“Before, different chiefs didn’t really do any activities or get involved with the community,” Gordon said.
Brannon is involved, she said.
Taking the initiative to get to know the community shows the officers see the Bunnell residents as actual people, Gordon said, and not just as police officers, as threats.
“It shows they care,” she said.
In truth, Groth and Brannon both said, Bunnell does not deserve the high-crime stereotype that has developed. Most of the residents’ families have lived here for generations, Groth said, and are just trying to get by.
“People say we have these crime issues, and we really don’t,” Groth said. “A lot of the crime we have, it’s solved relatively quickly.”
But building trust is easier said than done.
Dennie said that BPD’s historically high turn-over rates — including in its leadership, with Brannon being the third police chief between 2014 and 2022 — makes it hard to trust new officers before the community gets a chance to know them.
“It’s important to have those long standing officers to build those community relationships,” she said. “Because those that are in and out and think it’s a stepping stone to something else, [they’re] not going to build that trust in the community.”
Groth is a well-known and respected face, Dennie said, so it isn’t surprising Bunnell residents would greet him with smiles. A real picture of how residents feel about the officers would be how they react to the newer officers.
KEEPING FAITH
Brannon told the Observer that Bunnell’s crime rate is down 27.5% in 2023 from 2022. He attributes that decrease to a combination of proactive enforcement and community engagement.
The hard-earned trust and communication can be fragile, though. Groth knows this first hand.
He’s built up a rapport with the residents in South Bunnell, but the job come first, occasionally souring relationships when he has to arrest someone’s grandson or friend.
Groth said he believes, and hopes, the community knows that he tries to do his job the honest, “right way,” but it is difficult when everyone in the South Bunnell community is family, or friends, or knows the suspect and is afraid of retaliation.
Honesty is the key, he said.
“It’s just being honest with people and treating them the way you would want somebody to treat your mother or your dad or brother or sister,” Groth said. “Just being human with them.”
Then, there are the other ways the community’s trust could be damaged, like with the increasing involvement of the Flagler County Sheriff’s Offices Police Athletic League at the George Washington Carver Community Center, the last remnant of what was once Bunnell’s only Black high school.
Dennie said that the addition of the extra law enforcement presence at the Carver Center — a community space that has housed multiple birthdays, weddings and memorial services — was decided upon against the community’s wishes, which in turn made the community feel irrelevant, she said.
Dennie said she has heard from the community that it makes people nervous to think someone could enter the center and have unwanted run-ins with law enforcement officers.
Of course it’s possible, she said, that over time the community will accept that their presence is benign — that the sole reason PAL and the FCSO are at the Carver Center is to foster positive community engagement through sports programs.
Dennie said she hopes that PAL is a success at the Carver Center. She also hopes that the BPD officers can use their positive relationships with the community to help bridge the gap between residents and other law enforcement.
Email Sierra Williams at [email protected].
