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Citizens get opportunity to visit with police officers
By Jon Leu, The Daily Nonpareil
Original article HERE
It’s not often that the guy pourin’ the coffee is wearing a badge and carrying a pistol, but that’s the way it was at The Legends Cafe Friday morning.
Area residents who filled the Council Bluffs cafe for breakfast or just a cup of coffee Friday morning got something extra — an opportunity to meet and visit with some Council Bluffs’ police officers, including Police Chief Tim Carmody, as part of the department’s Coffee With A Cop program.
Carmody and his fellow officers are quick to note that community interaction with the residents they serve is an important part of police work.
Helen Brandenburg knows about the stresses that police officers can be faced with any time they are working. And she knows about the human side of those officers, the side that too few get to know. Her husband, Carl, served with the Council Bluffs Police Department for 13 years.
“These Coffee With A Cop events are great,” she said. “It gives people a chance to know these guys, to find out for themselves they are a great bunch of people.”
Capt. Greg Schultz, who was marking 20 years with the Council Bluffs Police Department Friday, stops at The Legends fairly often for breakfast or a cup of coffee. So does Jim Griffin, now 85, a Bluffs resident who served in the Iowa Senate from 1968 to 1977.
The two had never met or talked to one another before Friday morning.
When Schultz sat down, Griffin began talking about his pride and joy, his white 40th Anniversary Ford Mustang. Schultz mentioned a high school friend who was a big Mustang fan. It turned out to be an enjoyable conversation for both.
Officer Dave Burns, a 14-year veteran and one of the department’s community affairs officers, spent some time visiting with Brandenburg before moving to a booth where Erica Smith of Council Bluffs was having breakfast with a friend while home from Nebraska Methodist College.
The two girls didn’t know about the Coffee With A Cop event before they got to the cafe, but were enjoying the opportunity to visit with Burns while they all waited for their breakfast.
Burns, who helps orchestrate the events at various locations in Council Bluffs, said he enjoys the opportunities for residents to meet officers — to talk with them in a “non-official” capacity.
John Sanderson of Omaha was sitting at a table with Linda Rookstool, Jerry Helm and Linda Helm. They had just spent a few minutes visiting with Sgt. Ed Carlson, who was making sure their coffee cups were full.
“I think this is a great thing,” Sanderson said of the Coffee With A Cop event. “When you get a chance to talk to these guys, you see a side of them people don’t think about very much.”
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