Brooklyn Park Police Go Fishing with Special Olympics Athletes
A day after Brooklyn Park Police are in the national spotlight for community building, they go fishing with Special Olympics athletes.
A good day to go fishing
There’s a saying that a day spent fishing is a day well spent. That was definitely the case for a group of kids and Brooklyn Park Police on Thursday, July 26.
Special Olympics athletes and police fished together at the fishing pond near the Community Activity Center. This is the second time officers and athletes have paired off in this event. The ultimate goal is to building good relationships.
“It’s not always that we get to go somewhere and have a great interaction with people,” says Community Engagement Officer Matt Rabe with Brooklyn Park Police. “It’s not all the time that people look at us with a smile like these athletes do. They love it. We love it. I have a passion for fishing and a lot of our police officers love to fish and to be able to share that passion is key.”
Cabela’s in Rogers also helped out by providing athletes with free fishing gear and a fishing lesson to kick off the day. The Knights of Columbus provided the lunch.
In the National Spotlight
What started with Brooklyn Park Police receiving donated boxes of candy bars, ended up turning into a story on NBC Nightly News.
Community policing might be an unusual topic for CCX News viewers, but perhaps not for most of the country. Brooklyn Park Police have a variety of outreach efforts, one of which is handing out candy bars to kids. The candy bars include information about officers on them.
These efforts were featured on the Wednesday, July 25, “NBC Nightly News” broadcast. Brooklyn Park police were very happy about the high profile story.
“What it means to us is really kind of a shot in the arm to the staff of saying this work is making a difference. And people are acknowledging it,” says Deputy Chief Mark Bruley. “People support this kind of work and it’s good for all of us.”
Deputy Chief Bruley says his rank-and-file officers say this outreach makes their jobs more fulfilling.
Brooklyn Park wasn’t the only department to receive positive coverage. A NBC Nightly News graphic showed police badges from Brooklyn Center, Crystal, New Hope, and Robbinsdale. The segment spoke about the departments handing out car repair vouchers instead of tickets to drivers they pull over.
