‘Coffee With A Cop’ promotes engagement in community

By Alyssa Spirato, WTVC
Original article HERE

Saturday morning, residents had a chance to sit down and have coffee with a cop at the Chattanooga Police Department.

It’s all part of their coffee with a cop event.

A-A-R-P hosted the meet and greet.

They say it’s an opportunity for officers to sit down and hear ideas directly from the community.

The group Happy Hands showed up to help teach officers sign language, something that police believe will pay dividends out in the field.

“It’s very important that we interact with the community so that they better understand us and it helps us to better understand them. There’s so many different types of groups, so many different types of people and if you only see one group, one type of people day in and day out, you start to believe that’s all that there is out there and that’s just not true,” said Tim Tomisek.

Happy hands says the goal is to come up with ideas that will help officers communicate with the hearing impaired during encounters with law enforcement.