Eva Castillo regularly takes calls from local immigrants requesting that she call the police for them.
Castillo, herself an immigrant from Venezuela, has been working for years to improve the relationship between New Hampshire’s immigrant population and the police, but many, including herself, still fear law enforcement.
“When I’m on the highway, I think I’m going to be profiled. I still feel that fear, which is totally ridiculous, but I’ve learned to accept that,” Castillo said.
Castillo has worked with Nashua and Manchester police departments to implement policies against asking for immigration status upon traffic stops or arrests, but those policies vary widely across New Hampshire communities. Many immigrants fear that they could be profiled and asked for immigration status upon calls to the police for help or routine stops, actions that could lead to detainment and deportation by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Many immigrants who come from Central and South America have experienced trauma with police from their own countries, which may make them less keen on interacting with law enforcement, Castillo said.
“Immigrants, for the most part, come from places where the police are crooked, are bad, are rapists, are criminals, everything you can think of,” she said.
Samantha Searles, Black Lives Matter Nashua’s communications director, approached police in her hometown of Merrimack to discuss organizing a peaceful Black Lives Matter vigil last month.
“It’s a business meeting we scheduled in advance, I’m dressed professionally, everyone has their masks on, we’re sitting six feet apart, just talking about logistics. They’re actively working to help me and I’m still nervous,” Searles said.
The experience with Merrimack police brought forward memories of a police encounter in another town when she was 18 years old. Searles said she was pulling over into Dunkin’ Donuts parking lot to finish talking to her mom on the phone. An officer saw her swerve as she tried to pull over to the side of the road and decide instead to head to the parking lot.
“He saw me and turned the lights on. It was raining. I couldn’t see him waving at me, so the second I rolled my window down and say, ‘Is there a problem?’ he just starts screaming. I mean, I couldn’t see him,” Searles said. “I tried to explain that I couldn’t see him, that I was hands free for like 99.9 percent of the time and everything, and I recognized that I did have the phone in my hand and that’s not a good thing. At the same time, in a lot of these cases, the response from law enforcement is not warranted to that extent. I had nothing on my record, not even a speeding ticket.”
Searles said she twice rolled up her window when she believed the encounter was over, each time the officer banging on her window to continue talking to her, saying he would arrest her if she rolled up the window again. She was given a ticket, which she was later able to appeal.
“I’m alive. So it’s a lot better than Sandra Bland or anyone else, but it could have escalated that high easily.”
Searles and Castillo want to see a more trusting relationship develop between people of color and law enforcement and have been working toward more community dialogues. Stronger implicit bias and diversity training for officers is also an important step, they said.
Castillo herself sits on Manchester’s police commission and believes that local immigrants should trust the police, but that further dialogue is needed.
“I think the will is there, and we just need to keep trying to build relationships. I don’t want an unsafe community. I’m an immigrant myself, I don’t want my people subject to abuse, but at the same time I want people to build relationships with the police,” she said.
Laconia’s police take a community-based approach and have regular dialogues and events with community members to gain feedback and help build trust, said Mathew Canfield, Laconia’s chief of police.
Canfield said the department’s human relations committee was established to address the concerns or fear the city’s residents, particularly its immigrants and refugees, may have regarding law enforcement.
“I want to meet them so they know that we’re not the same as the countries that they come from, and we don’t police the same way,” Canfield said. “It’s all about rapport and making them feel comfortable in the community.”
Also beneficial to Laconia’s policing system is its national Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies accreditation, Canfield said. Agencies must abide by 460 national standards to gain such an accreditation, many of which address bias and use of force.
“Part of that is the philosophy of community policing. Reducing crime is not all about giving out tickets and making arrests. We’ve seen that time and time again,” Canfield said.
Across the country, activists have been examining alternatives to policing as protests against police brutality toward Black people continue. Some activists say calling 911 or police should be a last resort to avoid the potential of violence and brutality. Some communities, including Minneapolis, where George Floyd was killed, have moved toward disbanding or defunding their police departments. Other communities have created their own alternatives, like CAHOOTS in Eugene, Oregon, or the Safe Outside the System (SOS) Collective based in Brooklyn, New York.
But even in New Hampshire, law enforcement is not the only available option for someone who is in a crisis or needs help.
“I think that it sometimes seems like there’s not real familiarity with what resources are available, and that leads people to call the resources that they know about,” said Jennifer Mulryan, director of psychiatric emergency services at Riverbend Community Mental Health in Concord.
Riverbend is one of three community mental health centers in the state with a mobile crisis response team, which can respond to anyone experiencing a crisis wherever they are in the community and help them find resources and navigate next steps. All of New Hampshire’s community mental health services are confidential under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act.
“We’re here as a support net for folks. I think sometimes depending on why they have negative thoughts and feelings toward law enforcement, for some people that can be really ingrained and requires long-term work. But we try to be transparent about the work that we do, and why we have security here,” she said.
Resources for those experiencing mental health crises, looking for substance use treatment, experiencing domestic violence or looking for immigration assistance exist throughout the state. Many of these services may also redirect you to local community resources.
Members of those organizations also clarified that they may call emergency responders if a caller seems to be in immediate danger of hurting themselves or others. Many are also mandated reporters, which means they must report any disclosure of child or elder abuse. Those experiencing an overdose should dial 911. Those who report drug overdoses are granted immunity under the law.