October 8, 2018

BPD brews up warm relations with community

By Mark Reagan, The Brownsville Herald
Original article HERE

Coffee with a Cop Breakfast goers visiting the McDonald’s at the Four Corners Thursday morning were joined by some special guests.

More than half a dozen Brownsville Police Department officers showed up during the busy breakfast hour to chat with patrons about their concerns, complaints and just generally, about how it was going.

This was the second installment of coffee with the cops for the department.

“The effort was to sit down with one of the officers and basically voice your concerns, or questions you might have, no agendas, no nothing, just a one-on-one with the community and it brings us closer to the community,” Brownsville PD Spokesman J.J. Treviño said.

The idea for Coffee with A Cop was first brewed up by the Hawthorne Police Department in Hawthorne, California, while that department sought out a better way to more successfully interact with citizens there.

On Thursday, Brownsville police officers openly embraced the concept.

Women and men in blue Brownsville PD uniforms could be seen in the McDonalds sitting at tables with dozens of customers holding conversations and answering questions while other officers greeted customers entering the eatery.

Community Affairs Police Officer Sgt. David De Leon said the response from the community at the event was great.

“The public allowing us to come to their tables and they have good questions, everything from, you know, inquiring about our department and a female had a question about being a female in law enforcement and, you know, it’s been a great response being our first year,” De Leon said.

De Leon spoke with the newspaper after answering questions from two men who were concerned about a criminal case where they thought justice had not been done. Another main theme, which was appropriate for the 4 Corners, an intersection marred by accidents, was traffic.

“But the questions, there’s concerns, whether it be from traffic at different times of the day down International Boulevard and we get a chance to explain what we can enforce and what we can’t, in the sense that it’s not against the law,” De Leon said. “You know, we talk about city ordinances and the different entities we work with, whether it’s a criminal offense or a city department so the folks here are able to ask very good questions.”

And those conversations aren’t just going in one ear and out of the other.

“We are also taking notes as to what suggestions are being made, if it’s something that we can fix or bring to other divisions and something we can tackle ourselves,” De Leon said.

But there’s another aspect to Coffee with A Cop as well.

Everyday conversations with police officers can help remind people that police personnel are human, too.

“This is a time to get to know the officers. We are human beings also. We have lives,” Treviño said. “We live in the community. It’s just something that I think will help everyone, the officers as well and the community as well.”