Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Cops out to earn a badge of trust
Boynton police work with kids
The first time Boynton Beach police officer Terrence Paramore played sports with kids in the Heart of Boynton, about two months ago, the children put their hands up over their heads to show they meant no harm.
Now, when they meet Wednesdays to play ball, they greet Paramore with high-fives and fist bumps.
The change is a result of Boynton police’s Neighborhood Officer Policing Program, which was started just over a year ago to build trust between the community and police by getting officers interacting with residents in positive ways, said Sgt. Henry Diehl, who runs the program. The city's redevelopment agency funds the program at $263,000 to lease out a police substation at 404 E. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd. and compensate the officers, including salary, insurance and pension, documents show.
Paramore and Diehl don’t respond to calls for service, said Assistant Chief Vanessa Snow. The officers’ purpose is solely to develop relationships within the community, their approach differing from other community policing programs in South Florida.
“We hear a lot of public
negativity about police within the community and with what’s going on around the country,” Diehl said. “It’s taking a proactive approach rather than a reactive approach.”
The program started out with Diehl and Paramore patrolling on Segways and bicycles instead of in police cars, which Diehl said encourages pleasant encounters between the officers and residents in the Heart of Boynton, the city’s primarily African-American and Caribbean downtown community.
The kids “see us out here on the field, on Segways and bicycles, and they’re not seeing us under negative circumstances, like mom and dad getting pulled over for a traffic stop,” he said.
But it has evolved, he said. Now the officers spend three days a week with neighborhood children, playing sports on Wednesdays in a program called “Sweat with a Cop.” They also help them with their reading and talk about the importance of behaving in school, among other topics, through the “Boys and Blue” and “Adopt a Cop” mentoring programs on Thursdays, he said.
Paramore visits Jalen, a fifth-grader at Poinciana Elementary School, for about an hour a few times every month, said Jalen’s homeroom teacher, Linda Cinicolo. Jalen is always eager to show Paramore his projects, progress reports and report cards, she said. “He has a big smile every time [Paramore] comes to see him,” she said. “To him, a cop is someone really important.”
Jalen has shown improvement in school, thanks in part to Paramore, she said. “I’ve seen big changes in the efforts he puts forward, and in his behavior,” she said.
The officers serve as leaders for Cub Scout Pack 243. On other days, they patrol the streets on the Segways, bicycles or on foot.
On that first day of “Sweat with a Cop” in February, kids were intrigued by Paramore’s gun and belt rather than a ballgame, he said. They didn’t know anything about cops beyond what they had seen on television, he said.
“Our job personally is to come out and show these kids we’re human,” he said. “We can show them we’re not just an officer with a gun and a badge.”
That’s what they did Wednesday. About 13 kids from Poinciana Elementary School raced across the field at the Carolyn Sims Center, playing football with Paramore.
The officers hold monthly and quarterly meetings to identify issues within the neighborhood and provide solutions, Snow said. The officers saw some residents needed jobs, so they partnered with the redevelopment agency to host a job fair at the Heart of Boynton’s Carolyn Sims Center in March.
The department achieves goals, such as hosting job fairs and reducing crime in the neighborhood, at an 80 percent success rate, Snow said. Some of the program’s continued goals are increasing community involvement and public outreach efforts, she said.
Kids have shown improvement in conduct and academics as a result of “Sweat with a Cop” and the mentoring programs, she said. “Overall, this has been an opportunity to integrate our personnel into the fabric of the Heart of Boynton in a non-threatening way,” she said.