This is cool to see as GRPD works to rebuild community trust in the wake of a few community reports.

Thursday night, the Grand Rapids Police Department hosted a “Pop-Up Open House” at Cesar Chavez Elementary where they invited everyone to come enjoy themselves and some free food with the officers around the Roosevelt Park neighborhood.

WOOD-TV reports they had hot dogs from Jonny B'z, they had the horses from the Mounted Unit out for kids to pet, and they even had a karaoke machine installed in one of the police SUVs

GRPD Sgt. Cathy Williams told WOOD-TV,

"We've heard that there's some fear of the police, so we really wanted to hit the Grandville corridor as our first neighborhood to really break down those barriers.

This is our first one and some of the community members here are real hesitant on police, so we're really encouraged by the amount of participation.”

 

The event was free and the police hope to do even more events to show ALL the residents of Grand Rapids that they are one of us, and not here to deport or arrest just because they show up somewhere.

source: GRPD & WOOD-TV

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