For months, activists, members of the public and even some police trainers have pushed for revisions to police training standards.
But Colin Comer, director of the Institute for Public Safety at the Central Missouri Police Academy, says current practices shouldn't change.
"In my 37 years of experience, I've always found calls for change to be knee-jerk responses to situations that may not justify such action," Comer said Thursday at the second public meeting of the Peace Office Standards and Training Commission, a regulatory agency that determines how law enforcement officers are trained. The meeting was held on the Lincoln University campus.
Gov. Jay Nixon in August directed POST to update its standards and hold public meetings to gather suggestions, according to the Associated Press.
Nixon's directive came days before the anniversary of the fatal shooting of Michael Brown, an 18-year-old black man, by Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson.
At the meeting Thursday, a panel of POST commissioners gathered thoughts from an activist, a handful of members of the general public, and police officers and trainers.
Don Love, a representative of human rights advocacy group Empower Missouri, said research by his organization showed officers perform consent searches on black drivers at a rate nearly 2.5 times higher than on white drivers.
In the research report, Empower Missouri recommended POST to allocate funds for training to reduce bias-based policing.
No concrete changes to current standards were provided at the meeting.
"We're trying to be really deliberate and not preconceive what the end result is going to look like," said Lane Roberts, director of the Missouri Department of Public Safety.
"I'd like to carry that intent through to the very last meeting," Roberts said. "We need to listen to everybody and then decide. Otherwise, we defeat the purpose."
Missouri police departments will start implementing changes to officer training by Dec. 1, Roberts said. POST's next public meeting will be at 1 p.m. on Sept. 24 at St. Louis Community College in Ferguson.