‘It’s hard being a Black police officer,’ says Tacoma cop who opposed Thin Blue Line flag
Helen Stieben knew she wanted to work in law enforcement from the time she saw her first female police officer as a third grader at Fawcett Elementary in Tacoma.
Back then, there weren’t as many police officers who were women, she said.
“That was it,” said Stieben, a police officer with Tacoma Police Department for 16 years. “Everyone knew from that point on that that’s what I was going to do, and I didn’t even talk to her. The influence that (police officers) have is huge.”
Stieben, now 55, is using the same influence as an officer to make change in the wake of protests across the country over police brutality and in support of Black Lives Matter.
Stieben, who is Black, garnered attention last month after she helped lead the charge to remove the Thin Blue Line flags from patrol cars. She also was one of three officers whose TikTok videos were under investigation by the department after complaints that officers were violating department standards by being in uniform.
Tacoma Police Department spokesperson Wendy Haddow told The News Tribune on Wednesday that the results of the investigation into the videos will be shared by the end of the week. Two officers, Joshua Avalos and Sam Lopez, have removed the videos showing them in uniform.
In an interview with The News Tribune this month, Stieben shared her reasoning for supporting the flag’s removal, her experience as a Black police officer and how she thinks Tacoma could benefit from officers who are a part of their communities.
“As police officers, we can’t keep doing what we’ve been doing,” Stieben said. “We have to work with our communities.”
‘Home-grown cops’
Stieben was born and raised in Tacoma, attending Lincoln High School with Tacoma Mayor Victoria Woodards and current Seattle Police Chief Carmen Best in the 1980s.
She worked as a police officer with the Seattle Police Department for seven years before joining Tacoma PD in the early 2000s.
Stieben considers herself a “social cop” — one that loves to be out in the community, connecting with people.
“I think home-grown cops are the way to go,” Stieben said. “When you are born and raised in your city, and you know your city, and you know the people, and you go to calls and they recognize you — it makes things so much easier.”
Stieben said she responded to a call this month where she recognized someone she went to elementary school with.
“I said his name and I said, ‘How long have I known you?’” Stieben said. “His demeanor completely changed. We were able to get done what we needed to get done because he knew me.”
Tacoma could benefit from more of that, Stieben said. But it’s not quite so simple, she added, citing a struggle to hire officers since the recession in 2008.
A draft staffing study conducted by Matrix Consulting Group earlier this year and obtained by The News Tribune recommends increasing the number of officers dedicated to patrol from 175 to 187 to increase time spent engaging with the community.
“Typically we’re short staffed, and we don’t always have that time to make connections,” Stieben said.
It’s unlikely any new positions will be allocated to the police department in light of a $67 million budget deficit from COVID-19, but Stieben said making those connections is needed now more than ever.
Stieben, who has four kids, is part of the youth outreach team with the police department that resulted from the Project PEACE initiative meant to connect officers and residents.
Stieben is not a school resource officer but says she supports what they do, despite recent calls from some people to remove them from Tacoma Public Schools.
Stieben understands concerns from families about having armed police officers in schools, but said that now, more than ever, officers need a chance to develop positive interactions with people.
Decision to speak out
When Stieben saw the video of the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis police custody at the end of May, she said something inside her clicked. She took some time off to process what she’d seen.
“It’s hard being a Black police officer, because you feel like you either have to be on one side or the other, and for a long time I was on the law enforcement side,” Stieben said. “... All of a sudden it hit me. I thought, you know what? When I take off this uniform, I’m a member of this community. And I’m a Black member of this community.”
She added, “It’s not just that people are dying in police custody. It’s that every day, Black people have to think about what they do and how it’s going to affect people. And it becomes second nature.”
Days after Floyd’s death, Stieben posted a video on the social media platform TikTok about the Thin Blue Line flag, which has become associated with the “Blue Lives Matter” movement, a pro-police group that formed in response to Black Lives Matter. Stieben started posting videos with her 17-year-old daughter as a way to connect with youth and start conversations around law enforcement.
In the video, Stieben said it was her goal to get the flags removed from patrol vehicles.
“You know those things that you look at everyday and you just really, truly don’t look at them?” she asked in the video. “Well, this is one of them.”
It wasn’t an easy conversation to have, Stieben said. Some officers spoke out against removing the flags, insisting the symbol honors fallen officers and supports the dangerous work done by law enforcement.
“It was very heated. I think they felt like I was betraying them and that’s not what it is,” she said. “... We don’t necessarily need a little flag on our police cars to tell us what the Thin Blue Line is. We know what it is. If (removing the flags) is going to help the community come forward and be more comfortable with us, then we need to do that.”
While Stieben’s video spurred the discussion, department leaders discussed whether to remove the stickers months ago and did so in June.
Stieben hopes that she and her colleagues can continue discussions around race both inside and outside the department.
“I think that we can be a team, community and police. And that’s how we should look at it,” she said.
This story was originally published July 24, 2020 at 5:05 AM.
