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Coffee with a Cop can break down barriers | Opinion
By Albert B. Kelly, NJ.com
Original article HERE
With everything that has happened in the last few years involving police and their communities, as well as shootings across the country, you might think that any response to the divisiveness would have to be something really big, dramatic or even earth-shaking.
But what if the starting place were really very simple; so simple that people might dismiss it as worthless, or at best naive? That might well be how some people will view “Coffee with a Cop” taking place at the Bridgeton McDonald’s at 56 E. Broad Street at 4 p.m. March 28.
To view Coffee with a Cop as not worth our time and attention might be to miss the obvious: A lot of important bridges get built when people have an opportunity to sit down together to break bread, or simply share a cup of coffee and talk.
Let’s face it, sometimes the only interaction civilians have with a police officer is when they are in some type of need or distress. When that’s the case, it becomes easy to view “the uniform” and officers as interchangeable pieces in a larger system. Yet, these men and women in uniform are pretty much like people everywhere. They have goals and aspirations, families, bills to pay, kids to raise, spouses and homes, and everything else that goes into making a life.
In the same way, sometimes the only interaction a police officer has with the larger community is when responding to some type of call or situation, usually while encountering people who are fearful, angry or in some type of distress. When that’s the case, it is easy to become cynical or hardened so that the problems become interchangeable. Everyone becomes a potential “perp” who must be watched, or who will cause incidents that will require the officer to fill out paperwork. Yet, most folks out there on the street are just trying to get by. They, too, have families and people who love them, as well as dreams and aspirations mixed in with the fears and worries they carry each day.
If officers live somewhere outside the community where they serve, the town where they work is always a click or two removed from the place they call home. How that impacts things I’m not entirely sure, but when “home” at the end of a shift is somewhere else, there are very few chances to encounter the community other than when dispatched.
On the other side of that coin, residents can, on some level, view police as an outside force unattached and disconnected from the struggles of a given neighborhood. Residents may only encounter police when they’re on patrol or responding to a call — which is much different than running into them at the checkout line in the grocery store.
Coffee with a Cop matters because it’s a non-confrontational opportunity to sit down and talk, and maybe listen. In the point of the spear between the community and the police, there will be body cameras, statutes, litigation and everything else that calls for choosing sides. What there are too few of are relatively quiet moments to talk and listen.
My hope is that many in our community will stop by the Bridgeton McDonald’s on Tuesday, March 28, to have coffee with a cop. I also hope that parents and youth leaders will bring children along, so they can meet and speak with the officers, rather than having their views shaped only by headlines.
I am grateful to Anna Ford-Keels and her husband, Elmer, the owners of the Bridgeton McDonald’s, because they are committed to the Bridgeton community. They’ve put roots down here and they are doing their part to help us succeed.
Whatever the state of community-police relations, it gets a lot better when you can know a person’s name, shake hands, exchange some ideas, or maybe share a little about yourself and why you showed up. Sharing a cup of coffee won’t solve everything, but establishing a connection is a place to start.
Coffee with a Cop is something we’ve done occasionally and something I would be enthusiastic to see on a regular basis.
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