Public Information Officers Section

Cowboy Up: Using Outreach to Get Up, Dust Yourselves Off, and Win Back Community Trust

Location: C141/143/149, KBHCC

Philip Smith

Assistant Chief of Police
Evansville, IN Police Department
Evansville, Indiana, United States
TM

Taylor Merriss

Special Projects Coordinator
Evansville, IN Police Department
Evansville, Indiana, United States
Billy Bolin

Chief of Police
Evansville, IN Police Department
Evansville, Indiana, United States

The past few years have been really tough on our profession; we have had to weather a pandemic, civil unrest, and a barrage of negative attacks from the media. Many, if not most, of our agencies have endured a mass exodus of officers leaving for early retirement or new careers altogether. Our presentation will highlight many examples of outreach and social media that are working in our community. With this conference being in Dallas, Texas, we thought it appropriate to use a cowboy term to sum up where our profession is right now: Cowboy Up, which means pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and keep trying. It’s time for our profession to cowboy up.