Plymouth Police give out Coffee with a Cop

By Rich Harbert, Plymouth Wicked Local
Original article HERE

A customer stopping for coffee at the Jolly Bean Café almost drove off Wednesday morning after seeing all the police officers inside. With a slightly overripe inspection sticker on her car, the woman was not keen on getting noticed.

But instead of a ticket, she walked away with a free cup of coffee (and some friendly advice to visit the Registry of Motor Vehicles as soon as possible), courtesy of Police Chief Michael Botieri and National Coffee with a Cop Day.

For two hours Wednesday, Botieri and a handful of his officers greeted the public and footed the bill for cups of brew at the café in the Camelot Industrial Park. It was part of a national initiative started in Hawthorne, California, three years ago to open lines of communication and start meaningful conversations with community residents.

Jolly Bean Café owner Amanda Roy offered to partner with Botieri on the initiative after running into some of his school resource officers helping deserving students buy back-to-school clothes during the department’s Shop with a Cop campaign in August.

Botieri said the Coffee with a Cop campaign was way of giving back and paying forward. “People are always giving me coffee. My turn to buy,” he said after surprising another customer with a coffee.

Wednesday saw a variety of customers, from well wishers like Dante Ventresca, a local student who made a thank you sign, to a man who not too long ago spent some time in a police holding cell.

A retired attorney who recently moved to town stopped by to get a better sense of how the department worked. Several people took the opportunity to thank police for their difficult job of protecting the streets. “You guys do an awesome job and get no respect,” one man said. “Just keep on truckin’ and we’ll get through it.”

The Hawthorne, California, Police Department started the Coffee with a Cop program in 2011. The Department of Justice Office of Community Oriented Policing Services started sponsoring it as a national campaign in 2016. Law enforcement agencies in all 50 states and five foreign countries were expected to participate in this year’s third annual event.

Botieri said he would like to continue the program and expand to other coffee shops in town.

Hearing all the thanks was nice, he said, but showing people that police are approachable was even more important. “Hey, we’re all people,” Botieri said.