One summer day while Brockport Chief of Police Daniel Varrenti was out on patrol, he met up with a group of elementary aged boys playing outside near Cooper Hall. Part of the ongoing focus of the Brockport Police Department’s community policing is to engage and interact positively with the youth. Part of this initiative is to talk with children in the community, build positive relations and give out toy police badges to help foster good relations with them.
The group of boys he met on this occasion included students from the Brockport Boys’ Academy Summer Program. This program selects boys from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. School #9 to help provide positive summer activities for them through a program that takes place at the college. Upon talking with the boys, it led the Chief to meeting the founder and Chief Administrator of the program, Mr. Burnice Green Sr.
In collaboration with the Brockport Boys’ Summer Academy, the Chief of Police and Lt. Mark Cuzzupoli hosted the group of 35 to 40 boys at the Brockport Police Station where they had a tour of the police department. The tour was received so well that at the end of the summer program the Chief and Lt. Cuzzupoli were invited to the Summer Awards Ceremony at School #9.
The boys and Mr. Green were very pleased with the collaboration with the Boys’ Academy and the Brockport Police Department and are looking forward to working together again next summer. According to Lt. Cuzzupoli, “providing tours to children help establish that the police are here to help them. Our goal is to help the youth feel more comfortable talking with the police.”
