Students spend morning with coffee, cops

By Hana Keleta, Daily Toreador
Original article HERE

Cops with CoffeeWhile some students attended classes, others spent their Friday morning with those who protect and serve.

The Lubbock Police Department and Texas Tech’s Risk Intervention and Safety Education (RISE) teamed up for an event allowing students to grab breakfast and coffee with local police officers and chat about issues students face today, or ask any questions they had.

The collaboration was called Coffee with Cops.

Dane Rivas, a senior agriculture communications major and the student marketing director of RISE from Tahoka, got the idea of Coffee with Cops when he was at a conference last October for the National Organization of Pure Educators (NASPA), where he saw a small school from the northern United States do something similar to Coffee with Cops.

“I instantly loved the idea,” he said. “We came back after the conference and couldn’t stop talking about it. We talked to director of RISE about it, and she was like, ‘go for it.’”

Rivas and his team started planning the event by doing lots of research on who they could contact, he said. After sending a few emails and voicemails, they received a call back from the LPD, saying it would be more than willing to put on the event.

“We wanted to bridge the gap between the Tech students, the Lubbock Police Department and the other police departments that serve Tech students and the community,” he said. “We want to show people that they are people too, they aren’t people you should be afraid of because they want to help you and be there when you’re in need. “

This is RISE’s first semester doing Coffee with Cops, and it is going well so far, Rivas said.

“We want to make this event a semesterly thing,” he said. “The DPS department has a big grill, and we might even bring that out during the warmer times, so we can do a big grill out with all of them.”

Amy Ivey, the administrative lieutenant of the Lubbock public relations officers, said RISE contacted her by email, and she was able to help make the event happen.

Ivey has been a police officer with Tech for six years now, she said.

“I’ve been part of patrol, and now I’m public relations,” she said. “My big thing is I enjoy going out and talking with the faculty, staff and students. Getting involved with certain groups and putting on presentations are a few ways we let them know what we’re here for and what services we offer.”

Most of the criminal activity seen on campus is theft, she said.

“Everyday we see students getting their laptops and phones stolen,” she said. “Unfortunately, we do see drug and alcohol offenses as well, but mainly theft.”

Police officers on campus go out and let students know at orientation, or at any program or presentation, to make sure they have their belongings with them at all times, Ivey said.

“Lock your bike up, don’t leave your cellphone or laptop unattended, even if you just need to run across the hall,” she said.

Tiffany Viesca, a sophomore theatre major from Ventura, California, asked the police officers mostly about the department sizes.

“I learned today that the Tech Police Department only has about 49 officers in their department, so they partner a lot with the city and the county,” she said. “I also learned that it takes over 150 police officers for every football game, and that one of the officers here has been to 180 consecutive football games.”

Viesca did not realize how involved the police officers are, she said, because she does not see them often.

“I see a cop car once in a while, but I never realized how present they always are, which is good,” she said.