Coffee with a Cop ‘humanizes’ officers, helps police build rapport with community

By Lexy Brodt, Wisconsin State Journal
Original article HERE

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A regular meet-and-greet program run by Madison police aims to break down barriers and ease tensions between the public and police, but occasionally the meetings yield valuable information.

In 2015, a woman stopped by a Williamson Street coffee shop “Coffee with a Cop” event with her two children, concerned about the overnight appearance of hypodermic needles near her house on Jenifer Street.

The officer at the event informed the Central District Community Policing Team, led by Sgt. Alex Berkovitz. An officer began doing night patrols, keeping an eye out for activity and observing suspicious traffic in and out of a particular house. After two months of investigation, the team was able to make multiple arrests and dissolve the drug house at the center of the problem.

“(The investigation) came about informally through Coffee with a Cop,” Berkovitz said.

Coffee with a Cop — an extension of community policing that allows residents to get to know their neighborhood officers — can be a useful informational outlet for the police. It gives people a non-threatening opportunity to tell officers about problems in the districts they police, Berkovitz said.

People will express concern about noise at a local tavern, for example, or the well-being of a mentally ill or elderly neighbor. Police are then able to check in, connecting the person with the right social service agency or resource.

The concept — which has taken root in many departments across the country — aims to break down barriers to communication between police and residents through informal weekly or monthly meetings.

At a recent meeting, Andre Lewis and Ken Snoddy, officers in the Central District’s Community Policing Team, sat at a long table at the rear of Madison Sourdough on Williamson Street, sipping coffee and engaging with anyone who stopped by.

A couple wanted to know how to improve the safety of children in the neighborhood, their own young children sitting on their laps. A woman grabbing her daily coffee sat down to discuss traffic concerns in the neighborhood, as Snoddy took notes.

Jassem Shahrani, 38, who visited the Coffee with a Cop on East Johnson Street twice over the summer, said the concept is a great way to “break down the barrier between an authority figure” and the general public. Shahrani, who grew up in Madison, said the meetings help “humanize” officers and let residents get to know them on a personal level.

At another event on the West Side last month, up to a dozen or more people scrunched into the back hallway of a Steep and Brew to talk about ways to keep offenders from re-offending, and how the officers address truant kids in the neighborhoods they patrol.

The North District’s Coffee with a Cop is run monthly by neighborhood officer David Dexheimer and is the most popular iteration of the event in Madison, sometimes drawing up to 30 people. City Council members and community leaders often attend the events, which lately have involved different segments of the department, such as the Traffic Enforcement Safety Team and the Special Investigations Unit.

At one meeting last month, Lori Anderson, the supervisor of the department’s property room, talked about the kinds of evidence police keep on file, from old lasagna to a severed finger.

With the number of homicides in Madison reaching a record this year, a major topic of conversation this summer has been gun violence, with some citing shootings that had happened just outside their doors or down the block in what they considered otherwise safe neighborhoods.

But the sessions are also a good place to vent about everyday issues, such as traffic problems, bike safety or drugs in their neighborhoods, attendees say.

The Hawthorne, California, Police Department is credited with starting the Coffee with a Cop phenomenon about six years ago. The program is now in place in departments in all 50 states, according to the Coffee with a Cop website.

But similar events have long been held here and elsewhere. Madison Police Officer Scott Favour — who held Madison’s first Coffee with a Cop — said he came up with the idea more than 10 years ago, holding an event every Saturday on the West Side.

“I thought it would be nice to have an informal way for people to talk to the police without any sort of agenda,” Favour said.

Meeting an officer face-to-face offers a learning opportunity for both parties, as well as a way to make people feel more safe in their neighborhoods, said Wendy Reichel, who regularly attends the West District’s Coffee with a Cop.

“I feel a sense of comfort because I know the people that are behind the incidents, that are helping us and responding,” Reichel said.