‘Coffee with a Cop’ highlights police relations

For Coffee with a Cop Day, celebrated nationally the first Wednesday in October, the Riverhead Police Department dispatched officers to four eateries throughout the community. 

At Bean and Bagel Café in Calverton, Duffy’s Deli in Jamesport, El Deli Chapin & Grocery and Lolly’s Hut, both in Riverhead, uniformed officers engaged with community members as they ordered and ate breakfast. Their interactions ranged from snapping photos to fielding questions. 

Coffee with a Cop Day originated in California more than 10 years ago, when the Hawthorne Police Department sought a way to positively connect with the community. On Wednesday, according to Police Chief David Hegermiller, Lolly’s Hut saw the most activity, and the most frequently raised civilian complaint, he said, was traffic — especially on “Sound Avenue, which spills over to [Route] 25, which spills over to Peconic Bay Boulevard.”

“We might have hit that at the right time — it’s the season for traffic,” the chief explained. “That could be why it was on everyone’s mind. Plus we have more cars on the road.”

At El Deli Chapin & Grocery on Osborn Avenue, officers Allison Doscinski and Nelson Perez said residents, as well as their children, asked them about their day and whether they liked their jobs.

“Parents come up with their kids and they’re very timid at first but then they open up after a little while,” Ms. Doscinski said. “People ask about my personal life, I tell them about my dogs, anything to make them comfortable with us.”

“And they’ll ask, ‘Do you speak Spanish?’ ” Mr. Perez, who moved to Riverhead from Guatemala with his family when he was 7, said of the children who approach them. “I’ll speak Spanish and then they’ll get a little more like, ‘Oh, now I can talk to them.’ ”

“They definitely feel connected when someone can speak their language,” Ms. Doscinski added. “They’ll come up to me and wave and say hello but when they look at [Mr. Perez], they feel comfortable.”

The officers’ friendly interactions with community members at El Chapin underscores the Riverhead Police Department’s efforts to connect with Riverhead’s Spanish-speaking community members, as it enhances its relationship with its entire population of more than 30,000. Currently, Mr. Perez is one of only three Hispanic or Latino officers who are fluent in Spanish. According to the department’s “Police Reform and Reinvention Collaborative Plan,” people who identify as Hispanic or Latino make up more than 15% of the Riverhead community.

Chief Hegermiller said the department has been trying to recruit more Spanish-speaking officers “for a while.” Next year, the department will boost its ranks from 95 to 100 officers, but it is not yet known who may fill those five new uniforms.

The department’s makeup does not mirror the community it serves. More than 51% of Riverhead residents are women, but only 11% of the officers are is female, according to the department’s 2021 reform plan Nearly 10% of the Riverhead community is Black or African American, while this is true for just over 1% of the department.

However, Mr. Hegermiller, the department’s officers and even Mark McLaughlin, newly appointed chair of the town’s Anti-Bias Task Force, all say relations between the community and the department are in good standing.

“I really have a strong respect for our police department out here,” Mr. McLaughlin said. “I’ve seen other police departments, and I can’t say the same. Riverhead is just so community-driven … I think a lot of other police departments can learn from the Riverhead Police Department.”

In 2020, the department issued a survey to its community, the results of which were published in its 2021 reform plan. That plan was mandated by former governor Andrew Cuomo’s Executive Order No. 203, requiring police agencies statewide to examine their communities’ perceptions of local policing. More than 1,200 Riverhead residents responded to the survey. Half of them rated relations between the public and the police as “excellent,” with another 34% describing them as “good.”

“I think we’re in a good place,” Mr. Hegermiller said of the department’s relationship with its residents. “I’m very happy for the support that the community gives us, and we’re here to serve them the best we can.”

While the department does not yet have a sufficient number of Hispanic officers to represent that growing segment of the Riverhead community, many of the department’s officers have picked up conversational Spanish, according to the chief. Officers who cannot effectively and efficiently communicate in Spanish,have access to LanguageLine Solutions. Through mobile phones in their squad cars and those at police headquarters, the chief explained, all Riverhead Police Department officers and office workers can dial the service, which provides over-the-phone interpreting.

“Now they’re not afraid,” Ms. Doscinski said of residents seeking police assistance in a language other than English. “They’ll ask us now for an interpreter, where it was something we used to ask. Now, right away, they ask for it because they know we have it, which is nice.”

“I noticed that before I got on [the force] everybody that was Spanish-speaking was more on the scared side to talk to a police officer,” Mr. Perez added. “I always tell them, ‘If you have to call 911, don’t be scared. We have an interpreter literally on speed dial.’ It doesn’t have to be just Spanish, it could be Turkish, it could be Russian, it could be any language and it’s there.”