A town-hall style gathering Thursday between law enforcement and youth focused on preventing “another Ferguson” in the South Bay. Damian Trujillo reports.
A town-hall style gathering Thursday between law enforcement and youth focused on preventing "another Ferguson" in the South Bay.
Students from the Silicon Valley Technical Education Center attended the forum and asked tough questions of police and prosecutors.
The forum, called the "Magna Carta to Ferguson," comes on the heels of riots in Ferguson and Baltimore this year.
Police said the idea of the gathering is to establish trust in the community and spark conversation and dialogue with residents.
"Martin Luther King said when groups don't get along, they don't get along because they fear each other," San Jose Police Assistant Chief Sgt. Eddie Garcia said. "And they fear each other because they don't know each other, and they don't know each other because they don't talk."
Meanwhile, the police department is also dealing with its own controversy.
The department has opened an investigation into this past weekend's arrest of a man suspected to be on drugs. The arrest that turned violent was caught on cell phone video.
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On Thursday, Garcia told students at the forum that most of his officers are good cops and said any cops who do not follow the law will be held accountable.
