Three finalists for Norristown police chief outlined similar community-driven strategies they said they had used to rebuild trust with Black, immigrant and Muslim communities in prior assignments.
Michael Trail, chief of police in Lansdale Borough, described foot patrol work in East Baltimore and said he prioritized everyday conversation over enforcement to build relationships: “I talked about people stuff because we're humans,” Trail said. He said that approach led residents to bring information to police and that partnering with a local mosque helped the department recruit a community member into a city position.
Mark Benjamin, a Norristown native and retired Atlantic City officer, said he visited civic association meetings, explained police use-of-force policies and distributed his cellphone number so residents could contact him if they did not see patrols within an hour. “If they didn't see a police officer in 1 hour, they were to call my cell phone,” Benjamin said, describing an effort to show responsiveness.
Rich Klauser, who served as a deputy chief in Norristown and later became chief in New Britain Township, pointed to a policing strategy adopted after 2013 that included procedural justice, clergy engagement and bilingual community liaisons for Latino residents. He said Norristown introduced initiatives such as Coffee with a Cop, a teen police service academy and visible name tags to humanize officers.
All three candidates emphasized outreach before crises and said that prior relationship-building made conversations after high-profile incidents more constructive. Trail described kneeling with protesters and joining local NAACP leaders and clergy to hold listening sessions after the murder of George Floyd; he said such prior relationships were “extremely important.” Klauser said Norristown’s work from 2014 to 2021 had established trust and that he intended to “bring that stuff back.”
Candidates also raised barriers to trust: language gaps in immigrant communities, fear of immigration enforcement that discourages reporting, and national incidents that can erode local relationships.
The town hall format invited residents to rate candidates’ answers and will forward aggregated feedback to the hiring panel.