These are tough days to be a cop.

Post Falls Police Chief Scot Haug said officers are policing in the most trying times he has seen during his 35 years in law enforcement.

"It's very unfortunate that the second-deadliest day in law enforcement happened yesterday, with five Dallas police officers being killed," Haug said Friday. "But I think it does go to the point of the necessity for us, at a national level, to step back and think about how we are policing in America."

The events in Dallas added an element of timeliness, Haug said, to a briefing he and Coeur d'Alene Police Chief Lee White were invited to at the White House in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday. There were 36 other police executives from around the country at the briefing, which centered around a report created by President Barack Obama's Task Force on 21st Century Policing.

"This is a task force put together in December recognizing that there are problems in American law enforcement as we've all seen," Haug said. "You need to have the community working together to be effective. One of the problems across this country is that we don't have those relationships in place that are necessary, so you see the deterioration that you are seeing lately."

"It's something that has been on a lot of police chiefs' minds for a long time," White added. "This isn't really a new concept, but every once in a while we try to change things up and evaluate what we are doing so we make sure we are doing our very best to be as responsive to our community as we possibly can."

The five-hour meeting, according to Haug, focused on six areas identified by the report where law enforcement agencies can address the core problems with policing nationwide.

"Do we feel comfortable that we are implementing and using a lot of these strategies? I would say yes — all of them, probably not — but the majority of them, yes," Haug said. "Generally speaking, law enforcement in Idaho does a good job of implementing many of the strategies mentioned in this report."

He and White outlined the six:

1. Building Trust and Legitimacy in Law Enforcement

Haug and White both emphasized the importance of embracing a law enforcement culture of guardianship, instead of having officers take on a warrior mentality. When looking at the foundations of law enforcement in America, Haug said the institution was created so officers can serve as guardians in their communities.

"For one reason or another, some law enforcement officers in this country have gone into it with that warrior mentality," Haug said. "But we're there to keep the community safe, provide protection, build relationships and work together."

In addition to a shift in mentality, Haug said law enforcement agencies nationwide need to establish a culture of transparency and accountability in everything they do. When incidents occur, such as the officer-involved shootings that took place this week in Minnesota and Louisiana, Haug said it’s important to get out in front of the incident and release every piece of information that can be released.

"We need to make sure the public gets to see not just the 30-second clip the person standing on the street corner took, but talking about what the officers responded to and dealt with as well," he said.

Seeing officers as humans and members of the community is of great importance as well, White said.

"It's a huge part of what we do," White added. "When we are not out making felony arrests our primary goal is outreach to the community and making sure people trust police officers and that our community members feel safe. We saw a huge part of that when Greg Moore was shot. The outpouring of support that we saw in our community was unlike anything I've ever seen before."

Haug said his department promotes non-enforcement activities such as "Coffee with a Cop" and virtual ride-alongs in a similar relationship-building effort.

"The way we've looked at it in our department is that we have a relational bank account that we have to make deposits in so that when we make a withdrawal we don't get overdrawn," Haug said. "When you have a healthy relationship with your community, it's a safer community. I mean, how would you like to be a police officer in Louisiana where those officers shot that man? I'm not casting judgment on that situation, but their account is overdrawn."

2. Policy and Oversight

Haug said it’s important to make sure law enforcement agencies’ policies and procedures reflect community values. Training on those practices and policies is also vital, including in de-escalation when it comes to a tense situation.

"If you use proper de-escalation techniques, many times — not all the time — it can be resolved with non-violent measures," Haug said, adding his department practices real-life scenarios on a regular basis. "Many times officers are placed into situations that are dynamic and rapidly changing. They're expected to make split-second decisions and without proper training, mistakes can happen."

3. Technology and Social Media

Using technology to improve police practices and community support is vital. Social media is a huge component of community building, and Haug said the Post Falls Police Department is proactive in its use of outlets like Twitter and Facebook.

White said community members will likely see a dramatic shift over the next few weeks in how the Coeur d'Alene Police Department uses social media. It will be more proactive in asking residents to follow the department on Facebook as a way of getting messages out quickly during critical incidents.

"Those little things can pay huge dividends in making sure that the community not only feels safe, but in making sure they trust cops," White added.

4. Community Policing and Crime Reduction

Haug said law enforcement officials need to promote a culture and daily practice of what he calls constitutional policing, which means ensuring officers are responding to situations following the letter of the law.

In addition, Haug said, they need to avoid using law enforcement tactics that stigmatize youth, particularly when it comes to how School Resource Officers are interacting with students. School Resource Officers are being used in more and more schools nationwide, and Haug said they need to make sure school administrators are able "to handle things that they have handled for 100 years and not make a criminal out of a student who acts out in school."

"When you or I were in school and got in a fight, we went to the principal’s office and got expelled or whatever the appropriate punishment was," Haug said. "We learned from that. It was a life-changing event many times, and we moved on. But we didn't end up with a criminal record because of it. You can end up graduating from high school with a criminal record. That has impacts on you getting gainful employment, whether you can go to college, and has a psychological impact as well."

5. Training and Education

"We're dealing with changing laws, new cultural norms, things that we've never seen before," Haug said. "One of the biggest problems that we face is increase in mental illness and how we handle those issues."

Agencies must find solutions to the common occurrence of mentally ill individuals being put in jail when they should instead be placed in treatment or sent to the hospital, he said.

"We talked about engaging community members who specialize in these areas to come in and talk to the officers about what their experiences have been when dealing with law enforcement," he added.

6. Officer Wellness and Safety

The third most common cause of officer death is from heart attack, Haug said. As such, he added there needs to be an understanding that officer wellness is essential to their safety, and to the safety of the community as a whole.

"Half or more of officers across the country that die, die in preventable incidents," Haug said. "We need to have officers understand that when you operate with risky behavior, there are consequences and you are putting the target on your family. When they are driving unsafely, not wearing their seat belt or body armor, they are leaving behind their family and the family gets to pick up all the pieces."

Haug said he was honored to be asked to attend the briefing in Washington and it was a positive discussion overall. He was able to speak with many of the other participants, and said he learned a lot from them about what they’re doing to change the cultures of their departments.

"I am proud to live in Idaho and I'm proud, as president of the Idaho Police Chiefs Association, to know that policing in Idaho is already doing many of the things we talked about," he said. "It makes me even more proud to work with local law enforcement here in Kootenai County that I know is already way far ahead in implementing these things."

"One of the things that Scot and I talked about was that the relationship between the police departments and the commnity is better here than it is in many places across the U.S.," White said. "I think, by and large, our people understand that cops are community members — they just happen to wear a badge and have handcuffs on their belt."

The result of continuing to implement these changes, Haug said, is trust being built.

"What I like to see in policing is that when a policeman is driving behind you, you are not in fear of what the policeman is going to do," Haug said. "We need to change that culture so we're not in fear of police but in support of police."