Coffee, cookies and juice with a cop day in Battle Ground

By Dan Trujillo, The Reflector
Original article HERE

Oct. 3’s National Coffee With a Cop event turned into cookies and juice with the cops as about a dozen children toured the Battle Ground police station, got their fingerprints taken and met Luca the police dog.

“It’s just a family fun event. Something you can do at night. Instead of watching TV, come down and talk to the police officers, see the police dog, tour a police car and a police station and see where your tax dollars go,” said Battle Ground Police Chief Bob Richardson.

The children received honorary badge stickers for attending the event. Some of them said they want to be police officers when they grow up.

“I think it’s good for kids to get exposure to police officers at a young age,” Richardson said, “make sure that they understand that a police officer is their friend. And maybe in another 20 years, we’ll hire a couple as police officers.”

The officers learned a thing or two as well. The kids showed a lot of interest and enthusiasm learning what these men and women do every day to protect and serve their community.

“Just realize they are appreciated in the community,” Richardson said. “We have a very police-friendly community. Our council is very supportive of us, and that’s what I want to see.”

The highlight of the event was when Sgt. Chris Crouch brought out Luca, a German shepherd from the Czech Republic trained to find evidence using his sense of smell.

“I really liked watching the dog sniff things and the fingerprints and the food,” said Stephen Matthiesen, an 11-year-old from Woodland. Stephen’s mother, Theresa, works for the city of Battle Ground. She knew her son wanted to tour a police station. He asked lots of questions.

“This is great for building relationships early on, understanding that police officers do really good things for the community. They’re not just, ‘Oh, the big bad cops are going to get me if I do something wrong,’” she said. “I think these events are really important in building those relationships, especially for the little ones. And it builds dreams, too. If they want to be a police officer, they get to kind of see what it’s like.”

The Battle Ground Police Department offers these Coffee With a Cop events three or four times a year. Sometimes, it’s an open gathering and discussion and other times there will be a specific topic involved. The previous meeting in the spring focused on emergency preparedness.

“Just whatever the flavor that’s in the news, we’ll have something,” Richardson said.

Richardson looks forward to these talks because it gives him and the officers an opportunity to interact with members of the community and ask them what is going on in their neighborhoods.

“I think it’s good for all of us to have open communication because sometimes people start talking about an issue in their neighborhood. They’re part of our community and we’re not aware of it. It’s all about communication,” Richardson said.

“People have a lot of questions about what we do because their perception is what they see on television. It’s important for them to understand that police work is a lot different than what you see on a TV show,” he added. “We have families we go home to after work and we have the same issues everybody else has, but we’re trying to do a very difficult job and make everybody safe.”