There was a touch of tension in the air when Springfield’s new police chief Don Kliment approached the podium of Unity for Our Community in the fellowship hall of an Eastside church last Saturday morning. This event marked the first meeting between Kliment and the increasingly influential group born a year ago in the living room of Ward 2 Alderman Frank McNeil. Though the audience numbered only about 50, it included an assortment of respected community activists. T.C. Christian was not there in person, but copies of his Pure News USA–with its scathing editorial about Kliment’s appointment, titled “A Fox in the Barnyard”–were available on a newsstand in the hallway.
Unity president Mike Williams admonished the crowd as he introduced the guest speaker: “I think everybody deserves a chance to show that they can do the job. We all have concerns about our new chief. We all have concerns about our city. . . . But I’m pretty sure he’s going to tell us what he has in mind, and we’re going to suggest to him what we have in mind. We ask that everybody be respectful, and let’s have a positive meeting with our new police chief.”
Kliment began by thanking Unity for the invitation to speak, then he scanned the room and starting naming faces he recognized–McNeil, former council candidate Candy Trees, Eastside activist Faith Logan–“I used to know them when I worked at Mr. B’s IGA,” Kliment said. A murmur rustled through the crowd. “That’s where I started when I . . . ”
Kliment’s voice trailed off as the murmur crescendoed and drowned him out. All through the room, people turned to tell each other, “That’s where I know him from!” There was a sound of laughter and, with it, relief. The tension disappeared.
Kliment’s education in law enforcement, his 23-year record at the Springfield Police Department, his seven-year tenure as president of the police union, and his reputation with the rank and file as a “fair and consistent” insider–all these credentials meant less to this crowd than the fact that Kliment had been a stock boy who worked his way up to assistant manager some 25 years ago at Mr. B’s.
For generations, Mr. B’s was not just the only grocery store on the east side–it was a place where “Grandmama could call down there and say, ‘My grandbaby’s on his way,’ and they would have the groceries ready. And at the end of the week, Grandma could come in and pay,” Williams said later.
“I guarantee you there were thousands of times they could’ve sent little kids away in police cars for taking candy and stuff that they called their parents instead. The community loved ’em,” Williams says. “And he worked there! I think that brought a comfort factor.”
What Kliment didn’t mention is that he not only worked at Mr. B’s, he also lived around the corner at 1504 Loveland, in a little house with a nice front porch, from 1977 until ’87, long after he had quit the grocery store to become a Springfield police officer. He wasn’t assigned there as a neighborhood officer; he simply chose to live on the Eastside.
Of course, the Unity members still had questions. They probed Kliment like a parent grilling a teen, asking the kind of questions that required specific answers and left the chief little wiggle room.
“I don’t believe there will be any credibility to the Springfield Police Department until we get a [citizens] review board. . . .And I don’t believe there will be a credible police review board until there is full disclosure to whoever the reviewers on that board are,” said Eddie Price, chairman of the Association of Minorities in Government. “I would like to hear what you would envision a police review board being.”
“My personal vision is to have a committee that does get full access,” Kliment responded, adding that he hoped some threshold of seriousness would be established–specifically, the board should concentrate on complaints concerning use of force, in-custody injury or death, and racial problems.
Price pressed him again to repeat his pledge that the review board would have full access to investigations.
“Sure,” Kliment said. “That’s the only way they can see what was done.”
Another Unity member asked Kliment why SPD takes so long to shut down known drug houses.
“Because there’s so many of them, to be quite honest,” Kliment responded. He promised to assign more officers to SPD’s narcotics unit, which currently has just four patrolmen and a sergeant. “As soon as I can find some bodies,” he said, “that’s where they’re going.”
On some questions, however, Kliment was less forthcoming, muffled by a combination of the his then-unconfirmed status (City Council unanimously confirmed Kliment the following Tuesday night), the pending race discrimination lawsuit filed against the city by a group of black current and former SPD officers, and his own tendency to speak like a meter is running and assessing a nickel-per-word fee. Eloquence is not Kliment’s strong suit (and he knows it–“I’m really naïve to the political part of this,” he says). A cross between John Wayne and a ventriloquist, Kliment doesn’t say much, and his lips hardly move when he speaks. But he means every word he says.
Pressed about minority recruiting, and about the union’s relationship with minority officers, Kliment was careful to not make promises he couldn’t keep or divulge details of arbitrations on behalf of black officers. At one point, Assistant Chief Rob Williams–the highest-ranking black officer at SPD–spoke up in Kliment’s defense.
“The most important thing is . . . he comes to the table and he doesn’t have
all the answers. That’s a first for me,” Rob Williams said. “I’ve been down
here 17 years, and most of the chiefs have that Type A personality where they
come down there with all the answers. Because he doesn’t have all the answers,
he’s going to actively listen. . . . And once you start doing that, once people
know that he’ll be actively listening to them, then we start having meaningful
dialogue between him and other groups.”
This article appears in Jul 17-23, 2003.
