Upper Darby Police Chief: No Need For Racial Profiling

Philadelphia (CBS) - Upper Darby Police Chief Michael Chitwood said his department does not need to use racial profiling during an interview with Dom Giordano on Talk Radio 1210 WPHT and that the officers under his command are more than capable of dealing with members of the community without such tactics.

"Until I'm mandated, or until there is a problem that develops, my philosophy is treat everybody the way you want yourself and your family to be treated, if you do that, you're going to be ok. You're going to be fine. We, the department, we, the township, spend an inordinate amount of time in trying to bring people in, trying to bring community members, to make them part of what we're doing, the citizens police academy, diversity training, all types of other training, but you know what? No matter what you do, all the records you have, all the data you have, all you need is one incident and everything blows up."

He does not feel profiling will help officers do their jobs, and may even create more problems.

"I don't have any problem doing it. My problem is that I don't have a problem, so why do I need to create a problem? My officers are trained to deal with community members regardless of who they are or where they're from. Upper Darby is very unique. We have, probably, 55-60 languages spoken, representing 70 countries. If I've got to start profiling data on particular people we stop, that's ridiculous."

Chitwood also stated the opioid epidemic is one of the worst crises to hit Upper Darby in his time there.

"I've been doing this police work for 53 years. I have never, ever, ever seen a problem as significant and as tragic as the opioid problem, in particular, the heroin problem. It just keeps on getting worse. Every day it's getting worse. Education, enforcement, rehabilitation, it's not working."