(Radio Iowa) – Sioux City police chief Rex Mueller was part of a local group that participated in a discussion with people from across the state in Ames Thursday about community relations between police and minority groups. Mueller says the statewide group will address the concerns brought up since the death of a Minnesota man in police custody. “Iowa is forming with policy agency heads and local advocates an equity task force to figure out and find out how we can better serve in the wake of George Floyd’s passing,” Mueller says.

Local N-A-A-C-P President Ike Rayford and Monique Scarlet of Unity in the Community went with Mueller to the event.”I’m hoping that we learn things that we might not be doing or things that we could be doing better. But on the other side of that…Ike tells me that when he goes to N-A-A-C-P conventions, the access that he has to us, the relationship that we enjoy in our community — he says he gets to brag,” Mueller says.

He says not all communities have that kind of relationship. Unity in the Community and Sioux City Police have partnered for several years to promote understanding between minorities and local officers, and that paid off during the recent protests surrounding the death of Floyd. Mueller says they got to the point where they were talking with the organizers and they had a lot of positive give and take. “And thankfully we’ve got a community that is open to listening to and communicating with us. And it made the situation a lot better as the days of those protests went on,” according to Mueller.

The protests in Sioux City led to a renewed effort to equip Sioux City police officers with body cameras. The city council discussed the issue at their meeting this week.