ORLANDO, Fla. — A third-party consulting firm is gathering ideas on how the Orlando Police Department can improve community relations, and what they want to hear from residents.

Monday evening Orlando attorney Caila Coleman was one of several dozen people participating in a virtual listening session about how the Orlando Police Department can better address systemic racism in their policing.

“To actually see if they’re actually listening to see what the community’s concerns are,” Coleman said. 

Coleman marched with protesters last summer in Orlando to demand criminal justice reforms here in Central Florida. 

After those protests, the Orlando Police Department hired the Bowman Group to consult with them on how best to enact reform.

The company then organized Monday's listening session to "gather the experiences and perceptions of community members on a number of topics involving the way the police engages with the community."

Coleman is also a member of the OPD review board, which reviews police misconduct cases and recommends punishment.

She and other board members suggested in the meeting that they need more authority to truly hold officers accountable.

Coleman gave an example of how some officers who are being suspended use their days off to serve the suspension. 

“If he wants to serve his suspension he can do it on the weekend that he wasn’t even going to be working," Coleman said. "So as review board members, we’ve looked at that as like a slap on the wrist."

As the discussion went on, many people of color shared how they had been mistreated by OPD officers, including Coleman herself.

“But the way they spoke to me was extremely rude,” she said, detailing an experience when she was trying to help a friend interact with police downtown. 

“It’s something that’s in that training that makes police officers automatically think that we as citizens just are against them,” she said. 

Many others shared similar experiences, citing how they felt like officers treated them differently because of the way their skin color. 

Some of the main suggestions included: better training for officers to combat their own bias and treat people of color with respect; more programs where police can interact positively with young people; and sending mental health professionals to respond to cases of severe mental illness.

Coleman is hopeful that if the department hired this company to do this, that they’ll actually take their suggestions seriously.

But she said it has to start with OPD. 

“Because we can speak until we’re blue in the face, but unless they decide they want to change, we’re not gonna see a change,” Coleman said. 

The Bowman Group said they will use the suggestions to help make their recommendations to the police department.

For anyone who missed Monday's meeting, the Bowman Group is going to have another one on Wednesday at 6 p.m.