BAY MINETTE — During one in a series of community meetings in June meant to familiarize residents with the city's new administration, Bay Minette Police Chief James Rosier described a shift in his department's core philosophy.

They are moving away from 1990s-style militaristic policing and toward a model focused on community protection, he said.

Rosier, who has been on the job for several weeks, introduced the Guardian Initiative, a program designed to rebuild trust between citizens and their officers.

The initiative emphasizes that the primary mission of law enforcement is service rather than subjugation.

"In the '90s, the world of policing began to change and became more militaristic, and we kind of lost our way and forgot that we're servants of the community," Rosier said. "We are their guardians... we treat the citizens that we're protecting like the citizens we're protecting, not like an enemy to be conquered."

While the department is modernizing its standard operating procedures to increase transparency, the philosophy is already being put into practice through specialized partnerships.

Although not officially a part of the Guardian Initiative, the department's recent collaboration with Alta Pointe Health serves as a primary example of this "guardian" mindset in action.

Under the partnership, patrol officers are equipped with iPads to assist individuals experiencing mental health crises. Instead of defaulting to an arrest and taking an individual to jail, where they won't receive mental health support, officers can press a button to connect a person in distress with a trained practitioner or doctor via a real-time video conference.

Rosier shared a recent success story where officers encountered a man in "dire straits." Rather than taking him to jail, officers used the iPad technology to get him immediate counseling.

"Your police officers, they care," Rosier said during the community meeting. "They grabbed an iPad, and they took that extra time. They stood by for that extra hour while the practitioner spoke and put the guy in the car and drove him to Mobile."

Because he received timely psychiatric care, Rosier said the man is on track to return to his community and resume his daily life. Rosier attributes this outcome to officers seeking creative solutions beyond traditional incarceration.

As part of the broader initiative, the chief plans to make the department's rules and procedures available online so the public can understand exactly how they are being served and how they should be served in the future.

"We just want to make the police department as transparent as the law will allow and as community-friendly as the community will allow," Rosier said.