Kevin Cronin shares his story about our local police

Presenter: KEPW-Whole Community News is featuring your stories about EPD. Speaking at a press conference May 15, Kevin Cronin:

Kevin Cronin: When I was 17, I held my sister’s hand as we walked into the police station and reported sexual assault from our stepfather. That was a really trying experience for my family. We were abandoned by my mother and then we had to fend for ourselves.

And the comments made about the casual violence against women do not make me feel safe for people that could have been in my situation today. I’m 36, so this was a long time ago, but it has been a defining moment in my life.

And so when Chief Skinner released his comments about the video, he couldn’t speak to the domestic violence in the casual conversation about assault and victimizing their fellow officers’ spouses and daughters. He couldn’t name it. If you can’t name it, how can you address it meaningfully in the department? I just don’t see it.

The other thing is that we know EPD has a pattern of workplace misconduct. There’s been a sustained misconduct complaint for toxic workplace nearly every single year under Chief Skinner. So what are the supervisors at EPD doing? It’s clear that it’s a toxic workplace.

So, my gripe with Skinner isn’t personal. My gripe with Skinner is that his leadership has led to this culture. We have direct and specific evidence that this is a pattern. And so I think it’s time to move on from Chief Skinner.

I think that it would do a lot to restore trust in our community. I know that some of us will never trust the police, but for some of us, it’s a good start in the right direction.

I just—I really want to move on from this and I really want a police that is at least approachable enough so that people can report sexual assault—or feel comfortable reporting sexual assault—in our town.

‘I can’t believe what your experience was, but I’m sorry.’ And I think that our elected officials do not know how to talk about domestic violence. It’s always, ‘I’m sorry that happened to you.’ And we don’t know how to talk about it further than that. We don’t know how to talk about it besides, ‘I’m sorry that this happened.’

We need to address it and we need our elected officials to take it seriously. And I don’t know what’s going to do that, but I’m hoping that this moment is a moment that our community can come together and say, ‘Hey, this is a problem, and we are going to take steps to address it.’

And so that’s why I’m asking for us to move on. Thanks so much.

Presenter: Tell us about your interactions with the Eugene Police Department. Contact us by email, news@kepw.org.