This week, Messenger news reporter Kelby Wingert sat down to talk with Fort Dodge Police Chief Dennis Quinn.

How can the general public be convinced that the violence is a problem that can actually be solved?

There is violence and things like that everywhere, but maybe not to the level of what we’ve seen recently here. But if you go back to last year or the year before, we didn’t have this exact same thing. Was there violence? Of course. I think everybody’s noticed, with unfortunate homicides and things we’ve had, that clearly there seems to be an uptick in that type of thing. But you know, last year and the year before, we didn’t have that same type of thing. So clearly, our community isn’t always like this. This is something that unfortunately, we as this community, have had to deal with.

But I think the fact that it isn’t like this is every year for us just shows the public that it doesn’t have to be this way. And I think that to show that we can change this, people need to have faith in humankind. I think inherently we’re all very kind and generous people. Sometimes life steers us maybe in different directions sometimes and sometimes people make poor choices in the spur the moment, but it doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re a bad person either. You know, people make mistakes. I think the biggest thing that people can do if they make a mistake is just learn from that mistake, and then try to do better, become a better person. Don’t let that one mistake define you. If you do make a mistake, and you do learn from that mistake, then try to use that to maybe help other people that are maybe heading down that same path that led you to make that one mistake you made so that not only now are you going from being potentially part of a problem to now you’re kind of going down the road where you can help be a part of a solution as to getting rid of some of this violence in the terrible things that have happened recently.

What is the FDPD doing or done to address the issue of juvenile violence and delinquency?

We still have our normal calls for service and try to increase patrol in certain areas that we perceive as being a little more prone to have something happened to them. Normal police activities that we would do. We work with other agencies, collaborating with them in different ways. Maybe they’ve handled something in the past, and also using their resources that we maybe just don’t have here in Fort Dodge.

Myself and some of the other officers, we’ve tried to attend different community events. I think it’s important to listen to the community members to see what are they saying? What are they seeing? What is concerning to them? Because that helps us to learn what people are worried about, or what they’re concerned about. How do we address that concern? How do we try to help ease that? You know, our resources and our manpower is obviously limited to a certain amount, but it doesn’t mean that we can’t change something just a little bit to try to help with whatever the community is looking at like it’s a problem. Maybe small things but just going out in the community and trying to just be out and have positive contacts with people in the public, I think helps because I think it shows our community members that our police officers are normal people too.

It gives us a chance to see people outside of a call for service where maybe somebody’s at their worst moment or something bad has happened to them, so then they kind of naturally attributes a police officer to something bad happened — not that it’s a bad experience with the officer, but it’s just a bad experience for them. Compared to if an officer gives you a coupon for free ice cream cone, now all of a sudden you have a little kid smiling because he just got something and then maybe they want to get their picture taken with you or shake your hand and things like that. Those positive experiences I think are huge. And it gives people that different perspective on who police officers are. We don’t always just come when it’s bad. We’ll come and help you. We want to be there with you. And we’re just like you, we live in this community and we’re invested in it. And we want the best for everybody.

In your experience with juvenile offenders, what do you see as their biggest needs are to get back on the right track and not re-offend?

I think something that would help them is to see that someone or people are invested in them and in their future. If someone makes a mistake, and they’re held accountable for that mistake, if while that’s happening and they’re going through the process, whatever it is — depending on what the mistake they made — if someone shows them that they care about them, and that they want to see them succeed and not continue to keep going down this same path that potentially it could lead to from one offense to another offense to another offense, I think that would maybe help to keep them from wanting to do the same thing again, or maybe amping it up and doing something worse.

Just having someone or people invest in them now and in their future, I think would give make them feel valued and feel like they have some self worth that someone has some confidence in them that they’re going to do something great.

What can the average citizen do to help address this problem?

I think there’s a couple of different ways. Obviously, a big thing that people talk about is volunteering to do different things throughout community, whether that’s volunteering at some place like the Salvation Army, or the Lord’s Cupboard, handing out food, maybe getting involved in a group like NextGen or volunteering for something like AFES (Athletics for Education and Success), which is a great organization. I’ve talked to Charles (Clayton, director of AFES) many, many times, and I find it hard to believe that if you wanted to volunteer to come help him — whether it’s coach or mentor a kid or help them with schoolwork, things like that — I find it hard to believe that he would say ‘Nope, I have enough people.’ Because I guarantee he doesn’t have enough volunteers there. There’s only so much money to pay people to be there. So if people wanted to give an hour a week — it may not seem like a lot, but imagine if 50 people gave an hour a week to come help teach a kid how to read or help them do math, things like that, that’s 50 hours. That is volunteer time that would be helping potentially 50 kids who now are learning different skills that they can use. Even more importantly, then you see you have 50 kids that now see there’s 50 different people that have invested their time with this person. Maybe that one person investing that one hour in that kid is enough for that kid who is maybe struggling at home, things like that, maybe now he goes or she goes ‘Somebody cares about me. Somebody’s volunteering their time to come help me.’ That has to have a pretty big impact on a kid.

Something else I think that the way community members can help is people always talk about tolerance. And something that could help with a lot of this is being able to see things from a different view. We live in a world that has a diverse population. We live in a town that has diverse population. People have different beliefs and different views. You don’t have to always agree with everything that everybody does. But I think if you’re just willing to accept people are different and accept that they have different views, I think that would go a long ways towards people getting along and being able to stop some of what we have. I think if you’re just willing to sit down and not judge someone else because of who they are or what they say, imagine how many problems can be solved if we didn’t look at someone and say because of what they’re saying ‘I don’t like that person because of that.’ That’s it’s unfair. You may not agree with that person. You don’t have to agree with them to get along with that person.

If you just look at things like a gray area where it doesn’t have to necessarily be ‘I’m right, this person’s wrong.’ You may think you are, but this person may have valid points and valid views too, so just be accepting of the fact that that could be the case. And I think that would go a long ways towards people getting along, helping to communicate, and I think you would end a lot of violence, if people would look at it that way.

What resources do you think our community needs to help kids who have been in trouble get back on the right path and not re-offend?

Obviously funding. Funding from whoever, from the state or whoever. That’s (the need) everywhere in the United States, so that’s a hard one to try to hang your hat on. Obviously, it’d be great if we all had millions more dollars to open up mental health facilities and things like. But I think if we could get more people to volunteer at the great organizations that we already have here, just be a part of it and be be invested in the community, I know people want Fort Dodge to be a great place. And it is a great place. We have wonderful community members and we have a lot of wonderful, caring people here. It’s just unfortunate that there’s a small amount that are doing the things that are causing a lot of our issues here in Fort Dodge. But if we had more people that would be willing to come to the community town hall events and listen and give their feedback as to what they think needs to change or what can be done to help, and them giving their time to different organizations, investing in the future of our community.

I think the most valuable asset that we all have is time because it’s the one thing that we can never get back. So when you give someone an hour or two hours, you are really giving them something huge because that hour goes by and you’d never get that hour back. So that’s why earlier I mentioned that if you went and volunteered or you went to a community event for an hour and you did this, you’re doing a lot. That’s showing that you care and you are giving the most valuable asset you have and when you give that to a kid or somebody that needs your help — doesn’t have to necessarily just be a kid — I think that person realizes how much you just gave them and that’s a huge investment. It’s one thing to give someone money and that can help in the short term, but giving someone your time I think is probably the greatest thing you could do. And it doesn’t have to be something monumental. Maybe it’s just sitting and playing checkers with a kid. Someone just spending some time with them, I think they’ll remember forever. And I think that’s huge.

In your experience working as a patrol officer and later in investigations, what trends are you seeing in delinquent activity and how have they changed over the last several years?

As a patrolman, I’ve dealt with juvenile issues, whether it be assault, maybe some theft, disorderly conduct, things like that, you know, kids just kind of acting out. To now, it seems as though maybe that’s turning it into a little more violent thefts and minor assaults and disorderlies and things like that. We can clearly see recently with some of our homicides, it does involve younger kids, which is just terribly unfortunate

But I think some of why that is, is years ago you would see kids being more active outside doing things, whether it be at a park or at the courts, or maybe more involved in other extracurricular activities that aren’t even sporting events, whether they enjoy music or art or whatever else it is. It just seems like there’s people that are less involved with those kinds of things, so kids are spending their idle time now with something else that’s not one of those extracurricular activities. With that free time, maybe they get bored and they decide ‘Well let’s go do this. Let’s go do this.’ And maybe sometimes that turns into some sort of criminal activity.

Whatever you’re involved in, a lot of times there is someone there coaching you, teaching you. So now you have this mentor that’s helping steer you in the right direction, making sure you come to practice or your classroom time, and now this person is helping guide you, giving you something to do and keeping you on the straight path. And, like I mentioned before, also showing each one of these kids that they care about them, and that’s huge for a lot of kids — just having someone want to care for them, to feel like they’re valued, that someone’s looking out for them, looking out for their best interest.

It takes away some of that feeling of hopelessness, or that no one wants to just listen to them. So getting involved in those things, I think would help. It teaches kids communication skills, teamwork skills, independence. When we don’t do that stuff now, they’re filling that time with something else. Not always bad, by all means. We still have lots of people that do great things and that’s good that they’re involved in a lot of these things, but they’re filling that idle time with something. And I just don’t think it’s quite as much as it used to be 10 years ago or 15 years ago, and we just have to figure out a way to get these juveniles and these youth involved in some of these things and help them see the value in doing them.