Yates Building

For the last year I've been working with the Community Policing Advisory Committee and the Chapel Hill Police Department to dramatically revamp its Citizen's Police Academy. The new Academy will give participants an inside look at the police department and its work. You'll get to operate a simulator and see what it's like to respond to a domestic call that turns violent, sit in a squad car, watch the SERT and K9 teams in action, and talk to the Chief of Police about tough issues. Along the way you'll learn about the Department's work, how you can help make a safer community and much more. Participation will involve attending one evening session on April 24 or 25 as well as an afternoon session on Sun. April 28.

This just arrived from Town Manager Roger Stancil:

In consultation with the Town Attorney, I have developed the following statement that we will provide the media.  If you have any questions, please let me know.

Two months later, Chapel Hill Town Manager Roger Stancil has published his memorandum to the Town Council, outlining his "conclusions, actions and recommendations" related to the occupation of and subsequent police raid at the Yates Motor Company building on W. Franklin St. last November. It's an impressively bland endorsement of paramilitary police action, largely devoid of content. Stancil wastes no time in reaching the conclusion you may have expected him to reach—that the police did everything right and nothing wrong—and that if anything needs to happen as a result of these events, it's that the CHPD should adopt a new media relations policy.