Alachua County Sheriff’s Office deputies drank coffee with the community Wednesday, sparking energy and conversation.
Deputies held their first Coffee with a Cop event from 8 a.m. to 10:30 a.m. at the Chick-Fil-A on Archer Road.
“This is an attempt to humanize us and get the community to understand what we do and why we do it sometimes,” said Sgt. Brandon Kutner, an ACSO spokesman.
“The reason we’ve done it now is we want the opportunity to build a strong relationship with the community in times when there's no crisis,” he said.
In 2011, Sgt. Chris Cognac of the Hawthorne Police Department in California wanted to connect with his community.
“We had an idea of ‘let’s get together for coffee,’” Cognac said. “We started out at a local McDonalds, and it ended up being pretty nice.”
Four years later, eight countries have embraced the program, including the United Kingdom, Australia and India, Cognac said.
Cognac and Chief Robert Fager flew from Hawthorne to Gainesville on Tuesday, where they trained deputies in communication and cultural barriers.
“It’s the concept that’s important to us, the actual event is moldable,” Fager said.
Suzanne Gray, a former Gainesville resident of nine years, drove to the event from DeLand to support her daughter, an ACSO deputy.
“The negative publicity that is shown on TV and in the news media is grossly unfair, in my opinion, because it leads one to believe that all cops are bad,” Gray said.
