A string of police shootings of unarmed black people has put a national spotlight on racial tensions with cops. Dover is no exception, with mistrust on the rise after police-involved incidents that have prompted the NAACP to call for outside investigations.
Now, city officials and black community leaders are trying to bridge that divide. As Delaware Public Media's Annie Ropeik reports, they started on Thursday night by looking to Dover's next generation.
Under bright floodlights in a vacant lot off downtown Dover's main drag, two sides of the city are coming together for something familiar: basketball.
A team of mostly white, young cops is jostling for the ball with black teenagers in maroon pinnies while dozens of locals cheer them on.
Announcer: The score is five to three maroon team, five to three… (cheers)
On the sidelines, referee La Mar Gunn is catching his breath. He's president of the Central Delaware NAACP and came to the Dover police department with this idea.
"We just said hey, let's just go to the people where they are and do something as simple as basketball and just get folks interacting," Gunn says. "Showing you don't have to be afraid of the black community, you don't have to be afraid of the police officers."
...which, at the moment, teens like 17-year-old Kairi Buie clearly aren't.
"I think it's good that we get to beat up on 'em," he says, laughing.
But he says this is good for the neighborhood, too -- showing kids they can play without fear of violence.
"Let's go to the people where they are and show them ... you don't have to be afraid of the black community, you don't have to be afraid of the police."
Buie was playing some hard offense against Dover police cadets like Logan Spicer in the last game. The 19-year-old is on the sidelines now, with Band-Aids on his elbow after a hard fall -- but he says it's all in the spirit of community bonding:
"I mean, they see us in their worst moments," he says. "Hopefully they're gonna see that we're actually people underneath the uniform and that they can talk to us like regular human beings."
Logan's dad is Captain Lee Spicer, a 19-year veteran of the Dover Police Department. He says he hopes this lets cops and cops-in-training, like his son, "see that there's good people in this community that work hard and they want everything we want.
"I hope that we can build that relationship and give 'em a good service," the elder Spicer says.
"Hopefully they're gonna see that we're actually people underneath the uniform."
And he hopes that'll start with the kids. Because while they're having fun tonight, eating pizza and candy, some adults are still skeptical. James Wagon, 47, is a lifelong local.
"It's a front, right now, this is a front," he says. "This is just to make it look good. Like a young boy didn't just get shot up here by the cops." He's talking about 21-year-old Terrance Fletcher, shot in the leg in August by a white Dover police officer as he fled, allegedly with a gun.
Wagon wishes the city would put a civic center in this vacant lot -- but Dover Mayor Robin Christiansen says it's going to become houses for families to own. Fourth district city councilman Roy Sudler is ready to work with the mayor on that -- but he still wants to see more direct engagement with his constituents.
"This is a front ... to make it look good. Like a young boy didn't just get shot up here by the cops."
"These events will help to bring us closer together so we can curb the violence and the crime in the city of Dover," Sudler says.
For now, the NAACP's youth director, Mark Harmon, is glad to see the city take this step.
"Especially because I know a lot of the police officers, just seeing them intermingle with the older kids and the younger kids -- it's one of those things where it's just like, why hasn't this been happening all along?" Harmon asks.
But he thinks sometimes it takes tragedy -- violence -- to bring a community together.
And it might be too late to convince adults that things can change, but kids are still deciding. Fifth-grader D'Arione Robinson says games like this will make the neighborhood safer:
"We ain't gotta have no feuds. It's just one family."
"I think it's a good way so you can get all the good and the bad kids and gather 'em up together, so they can do good stuff instead of sitting in the house or coming around here shooting people," she says. "I just think it's really good for the kids here."
Her brother, 16-year-old Davione, says they used to live in Dover, then moved to Camden. It's safer there, he says, and he can play basketball for Caesar Rodney High School. Still, he's glad to see this going on with the police in his old neighborhood:
"I feel as though it's better, like, coming together," Robinson says. "We ain't gotta have no feuds, it's -- everything, just one family, basically."
The police department hopes that view will spread through more events like this. Next, they're hoping to bring local kids to the station for a movie night.
