A FEW DAYS ago I spoke with a friend who is a retired cop. He was on his way to a forum on race, policing, and community relations at a local, predominantly African-American church. He is African-American.

He told me he was proud of his service as a police officer. And he told me that “90 percent of cops, no maybe more, are great cops.” But, he said, a small percentage of those who become cops should not be cops at all.

And then he told me about the time he was arrested and how he was in cuffs in about two minutes — after a routine traffic stop. He was cleared; the charges were dropped, but it shook him up.

He said that a police chief might have the highest and best of intentions, but getting enlightened attitudes to filter down to all the officers on his force would always be a tough job.

If you want to see if your police force is progressing on race, he said, or even whether a tragic incident is predictable, ask two questions: How does the force treat black cops? And: Do black and white cops, who are not partners, have dinner or lunch together?

There are not enough command officers in the Toledo Police Department, this gentleman said. But worse, black and white officers do not know each other.

I have to wonder aloud, again, would it not be useful for TPD officers, and city workers in general, along with parishioners at downtown and center city churches, to engage in the “Dialogue for Change” program, or some variation of it? We don’t know each other very well, white and black folks, and we need to talk more to fix this. It’s not a police problem; it’s an American problem.

I also spoke, a few days ago, with Oregon Police Chief Mike Navarre. As most people know, he is Toledo’s former chief, as well. He talked about how we can make cops and the innocent people they police more safe. He emphasized four things:

1.) Recruitment

You have to get the right people.

He used almost the exact phrase my cop friend did: Some people are just not cut out to be cops.

You have to screen those people out, but also be able to recruit from a wide sociological swath, Chief Navarre said. We need to widen the net, but even as we expand the pool, tighten the selection process. Not easy.

Many more types of people, Mr. Navarre added, should consider the possibility of being recruited to be cops. But they need the right motivation as well as psychological and physical profile.

Police chiefs need wide discretion, he added, so they can hire young people who had minor infractions as kids.

2.) Training

Mr. Navarre is convinced of the importance of rigorous training. It has to be more than classroom stuff, he said. He told me that the FBI does “reality-based training” and “scenario-based” training. Both are quite useful, he believes.

A huge part of training, the chief believes, as Toledo Chief George Kral also maintains, is communicating — the art of saying to the person stopped: This is what I need from you, and this is what you can expect from me. And saying both things in a respectful way.

Some cops will think this is Kumbaya stuff. Actually it is prevention of escalation and violence technique.

3.) Fitness

The chief believes in a continuing emphasis on — indeed requirement of — physical fitness.

He doesn’t like out-of-shape cops. He says a cop in good shape is less likely to use a gun.

4.) Manpower

Finally, from his work with police chiefs on the state level, the chief has concluded that too many small police departments are not properly manned. And police officers with adequate back-up make fewer mistakes.

If one man is covering the whole town from midnight to 8 a.m., the town is not big enough to have a police department, he said. Some small town departments, he believes, should be merged with other towns, or shut down and town policing turned over to the county sheriff.

Bill Bratton, who has just retired as New York City’s top cop, and who, legitimately, could be called a law enforcement genius, had three great principles — in Boston, New York City, and L.A.: Comprehensive training and re-training for police officers; enforcing social norms that uphold neighborhood integrity and street viability; and recruiting cops who look like the people they police. Mr. Bratton is high on practical steps, derived from the craft of policing, like Mike Navarre’s. He also gets pretty feisty when “activists” bash cops or get in the faces of the cops who are protecting the activists’ right to protest.

In the United States, in the election year of 2016, we are loath to admit that two ideas usually set against each other can both be true. But of course, that is the truth about truth — it is more often binary than uniform.

● Being a cop is the noblest and toughest thing in the world.

There is also a systematic racism at work in our society, often manifested in the administration of justice.

● We need more dialogue between the races and, yes, more sensitivity about race on all sides.

But even more we need honest dialogue. Not politically correct talking around each other.

● As much as we need dialogue, we also need to focus on the kind of sound and practical steps Mr. Navarre describes.

Two things can be true: Black lives matter and blue lives matter.

And so do the not-so-small investments we make in our safety forces and best policing practices.

Keith C. Burris is a columnist for The Blade.

Contact him at: kburris@theblade.com or 419-724-6266.

First Published August 7, 2016, 4:00 a.m.