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Crisis Communications
After the violent apprehension of a suspect who suffered substantial bodily harm, the Gainesville Police Department (GPD) pulled its K-9 Unit from duty. A few months later, the police chief suddenly returned the unit to the street-- without notifying the city manager or the Gainesville City Commission. This action led to a series of crisis communications moves that included an immediate second suspension of the unit, rapid collaboration with partner agencies, tight control of information streaming from GPD, and a series of public statements.
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I worked closely with the city manager to develop a strategy that would inspire public confidence, meet the expectations of our commissioners, and still show solid support for our city's police officers. My role involved strategic decision making, writing statements and collateral and advising senior leadership.
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I followed a modified crisis timeline of rapid response, dissemination of information, providing reassurance, updating with transparency, and building trust and community understanding
Statement from the City Manager
In July 2022, a Gainesville man landed in the hospital after losing his right eye during a routine traffic stop gone awry. (This was before my arrival at the city.)
After a brief suspension, the police chief put the dogs back on the street without alerting city leadership. When the rogue news release announcing the unit's return crossed the city manager's desk, our first step was to craft a statement that would express appropriate displeasure and publicly reverse course (removing the unit again) without further damaging the reputation of the police department.
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The city manager sat in my office and we collaborated on the wording for hours, a delicate balance to say the least.
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First and foremost, we needed to counteract the criticism, confusion, anger and anxiety bubbling up from a community that was still processing the shock of the original incident and had now been further shaken by the whiplash effect of the unit's gone-- then back-- then gone status.
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The second priority was to acknowledge the legitimate concern of members of the community (and our city commission) over what appeared to be lack of consistency, structure and planning in the way the officers were returned to duty.
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A third but very close priority involved hinting at the insubordination of restoring the unit without notifying city leadership; for this we opted to use a lighter touch out of deference to the city's sworn police officers.
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The final element was a strong tone of support for the Gainesville Police Department that suffused the entire statement.
Holding Statement and FAQs
The development of a holding statement and FAQs gave the city the security of a prepared response under the scrutiny of media attention and community concern.
Joint News Release
As we faced public and policymaker discussions around whether to permanently end the use of canines in the Gainesville Police Department, we moved to provide relevant information and redirect conversation.
This joint news release was designed to restore confidence and eliminate perceptions of possible public safety risks in a community that would be without K-9 officers.
We collaborated with the Alachua County Sheriff's Office to put out this reassuring message.
Public Listening Sessions
City leadership wanted GPD to get out into the community to share information about the issues within the K-9 Unit and the policy changes that would be introduced to improve the unit's operations.
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This posed another challenge. Although GPD would create and deliver the presentation for a pair of public listening sessions, as communications director I was held accountable for the tenor of the events. My role was to organize the sessions with assistance from the director of Government Affairs and Community Relations. In addition, I carefully reviewed the content that went into the slideshow created by the police department.
That presentation went through a number of edits and reviews as I worked to eliminate any elements that felt dismissive of community concerns or had potential to inflame the feelings still surrounding the K-9 incident that had led to the initial suspension.
The listening sessions had moments of tension, anger and conflict. Serving as communications lead at these events was a lesson in diplomacy and tact.
Comments from the Public Listening Sessions
Final News Release
Ten months later, when it became clear the policy changes required for a safe and effective K-9 program were solidly in place, we sent a final news release updating the community on the change in status.
Earned Media
The earned media was predictably intense, but efforts to shape perceptions worked. It was clear from local reporting that the community understood the city organization was holding the police chief and his department accountable. Below is a representative sampling of earned media.
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