The Perth County OPP's Coffee with a Cop initiative continues to be a hit in the community.
On July 11, uniform officers met with the public at the Tim Horton's on Wallace Avenue in Listowel. Constable Jillian Johnson says the events remain a great way for officers to connect with and better understand the communities they serve. She notes that there are many questions from the public including issues in the community among many other things.
"We talk about issues that people are seeing in the community, or questions that they have about different things, or even recruitment. We've had some people come out and chat to us about that. It just sort of opens the door to people chatting with us when they might not feel comfortable just coming to the detachment to ask questions or talk," Johnson explained.
Constable Johnson says they get to hear about many different issues and concerns the community may have, which includes an uptick in thefts and break-and-enters.
"So we're talking about ways to lock things up, or even something we're talking about a lot more now is marking your property. So if you have say, tools, putting something on the tools like your initials or a unique marking, so if they were to be recovered from somebody, we could say that tool for sure belongs to you," Johnson shared.
As for the rest of the events this year, Johnson says they'll continue moving to a different location on the second Thursday of every month until the end of the year.
"We rotate between locations between the different municipalities. So we were just in Listowel, the next one I believe will be in Perth East and then over in Mitchell, as we've been rotating throughout the county. So we'll continue to the end of the year and we're looking ahead to maybe continuing it next year because it's been so popular," added Johnson.
You can find the schedule for Coffee with a Cop on the OPP website and social media feeds.
