University Police officer advocates more diversity in law enforcement

A CSUS University Police officer said the only way to make police departments more culturally sensitive is to hire a more-diverse representation of law enforcement officers.

In a speech given Wednesday in the Foothill Suite to a group of 15 students and staff, Vic Vinson, a black University Police officer, said no matter how many cultural-diversity training courses officers take, what squads need are more black police officers.

“As the minority becomes the majority, it becomes vital for the ‘new majority’ to convince the ‘new minority’ that the control of society should not change,” said Vinson

According to Vinson, with the population growth of non-white and mixed-race Americans, more representation reflecting those numbers needs to seen in all areas of law enforcement, including the police force, the courts and the government.

“We have allowed ourselves to believe that there is nothing profitable for us [African Americans] in law enforcement,” Vinson said, citing the recent case of an unarmed youth who was shot 19 times by New York police officers.

Dressed in an embroidered CSUS police navy polo shirt with a taped sash covering his badge, Vinson has been a police officer for 13 years and at CSUS for five. Previously he worked in the Los Angeles Police Department, where he specialized in investigation of juvenile crimes, gang crimes and activity.

Vinson’s sash covered his badge in respect for a Sacramento Police officer who was shot and killed in Del Paso Heighs in the line of duty Tuesday.

“I was really interested in gangs because I felt like I could relate,” Vinson said. Vinson grew up in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York, where he said he “matured before I went down the wrong path.”

The event was sponsored by the Cooper-Woodson College Enhancement Program, as part of a series of events for Black History Month. Cooper-Woodson is a campus organization including faculty, staff, students and community members who are committed to upholding traditions represented in African American culture.