Residents of Marion, Indiana, are using an incident that fueled racial tension in their city to spark change. People came together to discuss many ideas at a town hall meeting Tuesday night, June 23.

Several months ago, the fire department held a rope tying exercise. During the activity, then assistant chief Rick Backs tied together a noose and threw it on a table. But firefighter Mike Neal, who is black, said it was thrown directly at him.

The assistant chief admitted to tying the noose and called it a lapse in judgement, but said it was not directed at anyone in particular. He was demoted after the incident, although some were calling for him to be fired.

The city does not currently have a policy on how to handle such a situation. One of the new ideas broached at the town hall meeting was to create a zero tolerance policy. Town leaders and residents want to establish rules and guidelines regarding how to handle such situations in Marion in the future.

“The ‘good ole boy’ mentality of that’s my buddy, I can’t fire him, has got to go,” stated Javon Washington, one of the organizers of the meeting. “You do wrong, you lose your position. It’s as simple as that.”

Residents and leaders came together not just to talk about the issues facing the city, but to hopefully discuss solutions as well.

State Senator Greg Taylor attended, encouraging the crowd to take a stand by pushing lawmakers to support legislation against hate crimes, something Indiana does not currently have. But organizers said they know laws don’t always protect people from incidents such as the church shooting in South Carolina.

“If we seize the opportunity now, going forward things like this that we’re dealing with now will be a non-issue later on,” said Washington.

Other ideas discussed at the meeting included drawing up legislation in the form of a human rights law that would focus on hiring practices for minorities, as well as how police treat people. To go along with that, some are lobbying for the police department to wear body cameras so that there is visual evidence of interactions between officers and the public.

Source: WISH TV