Law

You are a police officer in an agency that has been involved in community-oriented policing for several years. You are working in a neighborhood where there has been conflict between Korean Americans and African Americans. You have been summoned to a Korean American store where the Korean clerk has made a citizen’s arrest on an African American youth for petty theft. A group of African Americans has gathered to protest the arrest. They are angry, but they are not hostile to you and your backup officer. There are several ways you could approach this multicultural community problem and some of the ways would probably ignite the situation more than necessary. What do you think is the best way to handle the situation (i.e., with tact and sensitivity), given the animosity between the two groups?