Ferguson, New York City, Cleveland, Chicago, all cities where volatile confrontations turned deadly for African-American males after altercations with law enforcement.  Situations that created protests, and in some cases violence and unrest.

Closer to home Vince Peterson and two others are working to repair the rifts by putting police and the community on the same page.

"We have black lives matter, we have blue lives matter. But in all honesty if we don't learn to come together and work together we're all going to be black and blue before it's all over with," Peterson said.

Peterson of Warren is with Adult Parole and Probation, the U.S. Marshal's Task Force, he's a hostage negotiator for the Crisis Response Team and is also a church pastor.

It was some 14 years ago when along with two partners Jake Jones and Pastor Darryl Rodgers, Peterson created the New Jack City Approach to policing. It's a take off the movie "New Jack City." In the film the police department needs a new type of officer with a new way of thinking to deal with a new problem on the streets.

Peterson says the New Jack approach is more relevant now than ever before.  That's because this is a fresh approach for police when it comes to working with African-American males for law enforcement officers of all races and ethnic backgrounds.

"The New Jack Approach is to get officers to understand that African-American males come with different value systems in some cases, different beliefs and different ways of expressing themselves, and once we understand that then to have the ability to converse whether it's in a hostile situation," Peterson said.

Communication and mutual respect is key. It's also about encouraging officers to create better environments in the future by meeting members of the community in other settings like a church or the barbershop. In one instance Warren Patrol Officers took a few minutes to shoot hoops with some neighborhood teens. A good chance to get to know the people who live in the neighborhood when things are peaceful, rather than when a dispute is going on.

Veteran police officer Lieutenant Dan Mason from Warren says the New Jack approach is not only effective, he believes it's smarter policing because all calls don't need to end in an arrest.

"One of the nice things about it is that I know early on as a police officer that you would see someone that might be loud or boisterous and you might assume it's aggression and that it might be danger, however, this teaches you that someone might just be high energy. I believe that anytime you appreciate somebody's background and their culture and you give them a chance to express themselves without reacting to that --- or without trying to take a harsh control over that person I think it alleviates a lot of anxiety between the public and the police officer," Lieutenant Mason said.

Lt. Mason believes this is training that could benefit every police officer, not just officers working in larger urban areas or cities.

"The traditional police training had always been a kind of command and control where when we show up we tell you what to do and we expect you to listen -- and just younger generations and different cultures a lot of times don't have that same understanding of how the police are supposed to operate, and don't have the same appreciation. This kind of gives us a chance to step back and reassess our approach to the situation and I believe that in a lot of situations in the future it might keep something from becoming volatile, or something from spilling into anger and aggression towards the police," Lt. Mason said.

The program doesn't lose sight of the fact that the public needs to have a respect for the law just like they want to be respected.

Pastor Darryl Rodgers says, "We'd like for police officers to come home at night and we'd like for young African-American males to come home at night, that's the goal for both."