By Aaron Sanderford

Posted Jan. 2, 2025

 

The Nebraska chapter of a national Latino-focused civil rights organization is pressing the Omaha Police Department to accept more formal input from the people it polices.

 

Local leaders with the League of United Latin American Citizens, or LULAC, say they want the City of Omaha to formalize a new citizens advisory committee for local police.

 

The group hosted a closed-door meeting to discuss the ideas Dec.  11. The meeting included invited guests from other communities of color, Omaha police and the U.S. Department of Justice.

 

The push for federal involvement from the Justice Department followed the February shooting deaths of Fernando Rodriguez-Juarez and Jonathan Hernandez-Rosales by off-duty officers.

 

Police said the men were killed after Rodriguez-Juarez fired a shot from a car in the direction of the off-duty officers and others in a parking lot. The officers returned fire with 21 rounds.

 

Some in South Omaha criticized the delay in letting paramedics help the men. Police said the officers were not sure the scene was secure. Others also were upset about public police discussion of the suspects’ immigration status. 

 

Neither officer involved was charged with a crime.

 

Oversight sometimes helps

 

Some academics who study policing credit citizens advisory boards in cities like Dallas, Texas, for boosting Latino community trust in police and improving public safety.

 

Omaha police sent a deputy chief and an OPD lieutenant on a trip to Dallas with LULAC national leaders in November to show them what the Dallas Police Department was doing, the group said.

 

While there, they visited with local experts from Texas A&M University on how the program works and why it’s effective. Dallas police are known for Latino engagement efforts.

 

Billy Mendez, who represents the Omaha chapter of the National Latino Peace Officers Association, told KETV that bringing together people from different cultures can’t hurt. Two members of the local LULAC council are Latino officers.

 

Police Chief Todd Schmaderer has previously said he is open to considering similar ideas. But adopting any such change would require sign-off from the Omaha Police Officers Association.

 

At the Dec. 11 meeting, Schmaderer told reporters he thought there was a lot of “common ground” that police and the communities they serve can find.

 

On Thursday, Schmaderer declined to share more about what he said were supposed to be confidential discussions. People familiar with the discussions said they continue but are complicated.

Unions sometimes resist

 

Historically, efforts to increase civilian oversight of police actions is resisted by the union that represents officers and negotiates protections for them in its local labor contracts.

 

Omaha police union leaders have said officers spend enough time worrying about their actions under duress and don’t need the additional cost or stress of outside reviews.

 

LULAC national leadership is working with Omaha police to share what sorts of structures have worked elsewhere, national spokesman David Cruz said. But they expect changes.

 

“We want to make it very clear that our lives have value,” Cruz told the Examiner. “We do not take lightly the injury or the loss of life of any person in our community.”

 

LULAC wants Omaha police to improve department processes for identifying, hiring and promoting more Latino police officers, said Elsa R. Aranda, director of LULAC for Nebraska.

 

Omaha Police Department data shared with the Examiner last week show that 83 of the 809 full-time sworn officers are Latino, or about 10%. That’s roughly the same percentage of Black OPD officers.

 

Latinos make up nearly 16% of Omaha’s population, compared to the nearly 12% of the city’s population that is Black.

 

What LULAC wants

 

LULAC also would like more say in the cultural sensitivity training officers undergo in dealing with people from Spanish-speaking backgrounds, some of whom are suspicious of police, Aranda said.

 

“Our people are doubly handicapped by the language and the lack of cultural knowledge … like if somebody yells at them in English, it’s scary,” she said.

 

Some who were not included in LULAC’s meetings have criticized the group for trying to speak for more people and groups than they represent and for being left out.

 

A handful tried to attend the December meeting and were turned away. LULAC said it broadened the number of people included and that at least 35 people attended its meetings on the topic.

 

The Justice Department did not immediately return a message seeking comment on the status of the talks — or the department’s role in them nearing a change in presidential administrations.

 

In other similar instances, the department has served as an intermediary or mediator. But it rarely discusses its role. Many expect it to fill a similar role in Omaha.

 

 

Aaron Sanderford is editor-in-chief for the Nebraska Examiner. This article is republished from Nebraska Examiner under a Creative Commons license. Nebraska Examiner is part of States Newsroom, the nation’s largest state-focused nonprofit news organization.