Third Annual Coffee With A Cop event builds positive relationship with community

By Kaitlin Hetterscheidt, NCW Life Channel
Original article HERE

The 3rd Annual Coffee With A Cop event took place at Pybus Public Market on May 16, giving Wenatchee police, Chelan County Sheriff’s Office and Washington State Patrol a fun way to interact with the community in which they serve.

Wenatchee Police Captain Jim West and city of Wenatchee Public Information Officer Annagrisel Alvarez said it’s events like these that have positive impacts on residents throughout the community.

“The reason that we do this is for a chance for local police officers to come down and mingle with the community so they can find out who their officers are, what their names are and have an opportunity to have a chat,” West said. “What we’ve found is that when people know who officers are and know them by name, they find that we’re very approachable and if they have something that’s going on they are more apt to come up and have a chat with us about what their issue is.”

Alvarez said she believes it’s important the community participates in events with their local police and city officials.

“It’s very important that the community gets involved in these types of events because we’re here to serve everybody,” Alvarez said. “Our police department is very active in the community and we just have that partnership with the city of Wenatchee as part of what we want to do as far as serving everybody.”

West said residents are more apt to communicate with local police agencies when they know and recognize local officers.