Cop art: Opening doors with a painted vehicle
Improving ties with neighborhood inspires hood, doors
What happens when you let a bunch of kids and a graphic designer named Scorpio Steele design a police car?
The car rolls out of the garage with a baby-blue paint job, as well as sunflowers, falcons, bicycles, children’s faces and a white bronco with an orange mane painted on it.
The flashy Denver Police Department car — designed by children who live in the Sun Valley neighborhood, officers and the graphic design firm Ink Monstr — will turn heads.
The “art car,” to be used as a public-relations tool by the police, was unveiled Wednesday morning to cheers and applause.
“We at the Denver Police Department are strong believers in community policing, and what better way to further that than by having a community police car,” said Cmdr. Paul Pazen, who leads the department’s District 1, which includes Sun Valley.
Ink Monstr, headquartered on West Holden Place, assigned Steele to work with children who hang out at the Sun Valley Youth Center. Steele also took walks through the neighborhood, which sits in the shadow of the Denver Broncos football stadium, to find inspiration.
“The kids wanted the car to be yellow and green,” Steele said. “But rather than have it look like a taxi, the yellow and green are in the flowers and the trees.”
The design also includes a bright-orange falcon, the neighborhood elementary school’s mascot, on the hood and a lightrail bridge, which represents the connection between the neighborhood and downtown Denver, Steele said.
The painted faces on the car are of actual neighborhood children, representing all races and ethnicities — just like Sun Valley’s residents.
Paul Deferse, an 11-year-old who worked on the project, declared the redesigned patrol car “cool.”
“They’ll be driving around the community in a car made by us, and we’ll be like ‘We designed that,'” he said.