Coffee with a Cop continues to grow as residents, students learn from Greeley police

By Trevor Reid, The Greeley Tribune
Original article HERE

Greeley police officers always have to be able to think on their feet.

Coffee with a Cop — where residents come and go freely to talk with local police officers — is no exception.

Greeley police officer Wes Doney can attest to that, going from a conversation with a 5-year-old who sees first responders as heroes to a conversation with a 20-year-old wanting to understand the law enforcement perspective on gun control.

Many children with little police badges pinned to their shirts roamed around Saturday morning in the back room of John Galt Coffee Shop, 709 16th St. Doney talked to Isaac Van Drunen, 5, of Greeley about school and the city. Isaac played with police toys he was gifted Friday for his fifth birthday.

Payton Chacon, 20, of Greeley, was curious about gun control and schools. Hoping to become a police officer some day, Chacon was interested in how police respond to such situations.

“It was interesting to hear the facts,” he said.

Dozens of people came and went from the event, showing noticeable growth from when the program started more than a year ago. Stacey Brown, a librarian at Riverside Library in Evans, attended the event to find out more information for plans by the Evans Police Department to start its own Coffee with a Cop program.

A group of four students from the University of Northern Colorado studying promotional health talked to officer Arpad Bality about DUI enforcement. The students will use some of what they learned for a semester-long project about drunk driving. Bality taught them about what police look for on the streets, as well as how police try to educate the public to reduce drunk driving. Now, Greeley police are working to educate drivers about the dangers of road rage, he said.

“It ultimately falls down to personal choices. … We have that freedom, but with that freedom comes a little bit of responsibility — or a lot of responsibility,” Bality said.