North Texas police chief's 'Cook' book outlines best media practices for police transparency
DALLAS - For years, White Settlement Police Chief Christopher Cook was the public information officer in Arlington's police department.
His practice has been that the media is not the enemy but a bridge for law enforcement to the community it serves. Now, he's teaching that to police chiefs across the state of Texas through his new book.
The Department of Justice asked Cook to come up with a guidebook for police following his congressional testimony after the George Floyd controversy in 2020.
Every police chief in Texas will get Cook’s book, "The Art of Strategic Communication," and sit in his training.
"The one thing that I'm really trying to convey to leaders across the profession — and a lot of police leaders are already doing this — is that we talk through the media to the community," Cook said. "Bad news does not get better because you stick your head in the sand, and you don't want to talk about it."
The White Settlement police chief has been teaching this art to all 2,700 police chiefs in Texas.
The guidebook discusses how to openly respond to critical incidents, like officer-involved shootings.
Cook recommends telling the facts you know and to release the video sooner rather than later. While some departments do, some big and small don't.
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"That is usually the first step in, number one, healing and, number two, that really brings the community temperature down because you're being transparent," he said.
As chiefs sat in class this week, Cook says the number one topic from North Texas police chiefs has been police chases.
Police pursuits can be dramatic and also dangerous. Policies vary from department to department and can sometimes have bad endings with innocent people being hurt or killed.
Cook says whether the facts or good, bad or ugly, "you have to get in front of it."
Greg Stevens is director of the Texas Commission on Law Enforcement, a state regulatory agency for all peace officers.
"We are learning that valuable lesson that if we're not talking somebody else is, and that's often going to be incorrect or inaccurate information," he said. "The more that we can educate and inform and reach out to the people that we serve, the more success that we can have in that partnership of law enforcement and the community."
The book serves as a guide to police becoming their own storytellers, and by doing so, building transparency and trust.
"There's a bunch of other stuff in the book, too, that helps them build trust. From videos, audio podcasting, social media: all of that stuff is there, too," Cook said. "But most important to me is when you have a critical incident, especially if there's a high-level controversy, you know getting in front of things."
Cook says even if it's a bad situation when the facts are presented in a way where the public can see what's happening and when police are forthcoming in answering the hard questions, trust in that department goes up. He says police everywhere have to learn to work with the media to share their message.