Bridge building

By Carlos Rodriguez, The Brownsville Herald
Original article HERE

Several Brownsville police officers swept into a local McDonald’s last week and started mixing it up with customers there. It was a crime-fighting operation, to be sure, but the officers weren’t called to the scene and there was no disturbance. Rather, the officers were engaging in a “Coffee with a Cop” initiative to meet the customers, hear their concerns and answer their questions.

The idea began in Hawthorne, Calif., and is spreading across the country. This is the second Coffee with a Cop event in Brownsville.

We trust that both the officers and the public found it a valuable effort to strengthen bonds between them.

In many parts of the country those bonds are quite frayed.

Effective policing depends on cooperation between law enforcers and the communities they are sworn to protect. And that cooperation requires trust between the two.

However, that trust has been damaged in many parts of the country

There was a time when those bonds were a given, when people personally knew the officers who patrolled their neighborhoods. Over time, however, police began to change from community patrols to heavily armed, paramilitary units that, some critics have charged, no longer see the people they encounter as citizens to protect but rather as potential criminals to monitor. Reportedly beginning with the Los Angeles police force led by Daryl Gates, police became more aggressive in their interactions with the public, overly polite but impersonal.

At the same time, people using the increasingly ubiquitous personal video cameras — virtually every cellphone has one these days — began recording and publishing instances where police apparently used excessive, sometimes lethal, force against unarmed people. These days it’s not uncommon to see crowds in some part of the country protesting police tactics and policies.

The erosion of trust between law enforcement and the public is not only unfortunate but dangerous. In cases in which split-second decisions can mean life or death, both police and the public they engage now might expect the worst, and be more likely to confront rather than cooperate with each other.

The situation has gotten so bad that the Texas Education Agency recently deemed it necessary to produce and distribute a 16-minute video and lesson guide on how to behave when a police officer approaches, such as during a traffic stop. The material is required for all Texas public high school students.

Fortunately, local police have worked to rebuild and maintain the trust with their communities. They have built community network centers such as those in Brownsville’s Southmost and West Side areas so residents can report incidents or access other police services more easily. They have increased bicycle patrols in order to deal with the public on a more personal level. And they have advised and worked with residents to establish and maintain neighborhood watch groups.

“Coffee with a Cop” is one more effort that can bring, and keep, police and the public on the same side with regard to maintaining mutual respect and cooperation. We hope those efforts inspire other cities to take similar steps.