Skip to main content

Duke Police Chief Visits White House

John Dailey participates in national conversation on policing best practices

Duke Police Chief John Dailey recently visited the White House as part of a national conversation about community policing. Inset photo courtesy of John Dailey.
Duke Police Chief John Dailey recently visited the White House as part of a national conversation about community policing. Inset photo courtesy of John Dailey.

Duke University Police Department Chief John Dailey was among more than 100 law enforcement leaders welcomed at the White House this week as part of a nationwide collaborative effort to discuss community policing.

Along with Dailey, about 150 others heard from Ronald Davis, office director of the Department of Justice’s Office of Community Oriented Policing Services and others.  Davis discussed aspects of President Barack Obama’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing and offered best practices for policing. The group was created in 2015 as a way to offer recommendations on police policies and procedures to enhance interactions with communities they serve.

This week’s briefing event was the seventh in a series of gatherings since the release of the task force’s report in May 2015. Among the findings highlighted at Tuesday’s meeting were topics on implicit bias, officer safety and public trust. Duke Police has received training from the Office of Institutional Equity for several years on the topics.

Dailey, who joined Duke has chief of police in 2009, was invited after applying to be a part of the series of meetings. While he didn’t have the chance to meet President Obama, he said it was an honor to visit the White House and be a part of an effort that includes peers from all over the country.

“The president has started significant work to progress policing,” Dailey said. “Until now, there hadn’t been an event of this caliber to bring together such a collection of police leaders from all types of agencies. It’s an opportunity that I will always remember.”