Durham Police Chief Jose Lopez recognized the challenges that remain for Bull City in his Chapel address yesterday.
Although he praised both Durham for being an engaged city and the University for leaving its footprint “just about everywhere” in the city, he called poverty, drug addiction and mental health issues the biggest issues facing Durham.
“[We need to] look at the youth who are really disconnected from society, who are not in school, who are not working and who live in a fantasy world and may commit a crime to supplement their income or supplement their addiction,” he said. “There are a lot of individuals who are depressed, addicted to a lot of different narcotics and drugs. And with a lot colleges nearby—and students there who use drugs, coupled with a lot of people who don’t watch after their property—it sets up a nice little situation for people to sell drugs and comfortably be able to purchase [them].”
Lopez said the prevalence of drugs leads to robberies and larcenies, particularly from “people who are on their way to buy drugs.”
Mental health is also a major issue that needs to be addressed in Durham, he said. Lopez added that in a mentally healthy community, crime would not be as directly linked to poverty and drug addiction.
“There are a lot of people we see out there that really need help. They need to get their lives in order and the police don’t do that,” he said. “That’s something that needs to be done by professionals and social workers. The police are a great agent, but you have to have someone to refer people to.”
The police chief addressed immigrant reform, as well, though he noted that “quite frankly it is not today’s issue—it has been in this country for many years,” and referred to “the Irish and the Chinese who [helped] build this country.”
He said that although he believes there does need to be immigration reform, it will not come from a local level. Until that change arrives, he said he would like illegal immigrants in Durham to feel more free to come forward and report crime without fear of compromising their own tentative position in America.
Lopez was at Duke for a discussion with Dean of the Chapel Sam Wells as a part of the Dean’s Dialogues series, “Listening to the Heart of Durham.” Lopez began the discussion by recounting the experiences that brought him to Durham in 2007 after serving in Connecticut at the Hartford Police Department for more than 23 years. Having applied for the position of police chief of Durham five years earlier, he decided to take the city up on its offer when the position opened again.
“I wanted to move to the South because I got into an argument with my snowblower and I did not want to be around it anymore,” Lopez joked before getting serious. “I looked at the statistics, looked at the police department, and from a professional law enforcement stance [DPD] looked like a very good organization.”
During the discussion, Wells addressed the media’s negative portrayal of the Duke-Durham relationship and how it affected the community’s interaction with the University.
“Many people watching will be quite frustrated with [the] very one dimensional stereotype of rich, white Duke and poor, non-white Durham, [because] obviously, none of those descriptions are accurate or helpful,” Wells said. “Nonetheless, they seem to lodge in the imagination of people, particularly [those] looking for a brief story or looking for information that confirms that kind of story.”
Looking forward to Durham’s future, Lopez said he believes that the city must focus on raising employment rates.
“We have to build on this economy, and we have to build from the outside,” he said. “There is no gold here.... A lot of corporations are looking for a home [and] this is a great home for them. We have to look at the job situation here in this county—there are a lot of people here who really need blue collar jobs.”
Lopez said he is pleased by the positive contribution that law enforcement can make to the community.
“You have to care about people. You have to want to make a difference,” he said. “Law enforcement is the only occupation where no matter what you do, whether you’re arresting [someone] or whether you’re solving a crime and assisting a victim, that you’re making a positive difference in someone’s life.”
This article has been corrected. A previous version of this article misidentified Jose Lopez. He is chief of the Durham Police Department.
Get The Chronicle straight to your inbox
Signup for our weekly newsletter. Cancel at any time.