About a dozen members of the Southold Town Police Dept. turned out at Mitchell Park in Greenport on Wednesday morning with loads of equipment and technology — ATVs, patrol cars, motorcycles, mountain bikes, police boats, drones, a fingerprinting station and the department’s mobile command center — for the annual Southold Police Kids Funfest for children ages 6 to 12.
“With little kids, it’s always ‘don’t touch, don’t touch,” said Sharon Sailor, one of the event’s organizers. “This is totally the opposite: this is hands on. They go through the mobile command center, into the [patrol] cars. They touch everything, and they sit on everything, and they get a feel for policing.”
A decade ago, Ms. Sailor and Arlene Klein founded the non-profit Paul Drum Life Experience Project, which provides free weekly classes in the summer for local youngsters. They launched the policing event five years ago. The non-profit is named for Ms. Sailor’s son Paul, a colorful and enthusiastic young man with Down Syndrome who was an ambassador at Wednesday’s event and is said to know everyone “from [age] nine to 90” in Greenport. Earlier this year, Mr. Drum served as the grand marshal of the Greenport St. Patrick’s Day parade.
Southold Police Lt. William Brewer said the event is a win-win for everyone involved.
“It’s a great opportunity for our officers to get out of the car and be able to interact with the kids, have a positive experience with them, and be able to show them all the stuff that we have available to us — whether it’s the K9 [dogs], the drones, the ATVs, and all the stuff that really makes their eyes light up.”
He said the ATVs and the drones are especially popular attractions.
“They are fascinated when Sgt. [John] Crosser uses the drone, and seeing themselves on camera and hearing themselves through the speaker [attached to the drone] — different things that they don’t normally see. They get so used to seeing us in a police car, so to be able to be out here with the bicycles and all the equipment — that just has a certain amount of excitement, or ‘cool’ factor, for the kids.”
Two department officers gave a K9 demonstration to show the children how they train a pair of five-year-old German Shepherds police dogs. K9 dogs are used by police to help locate drugs or explosives, search for crime scene evidence and track down missing people.
Mr. Drum, his mother and their family run Front St. Station restaurant, across the street from the park. Originally intended for kids in the Greenport Summer Day Care and After School program, the annual policing event has grown in popularity and size in recent years.
Five years ago, Ms. Klein and Ms. Sailor invited now-retired Southold Police Chief Martin Flatley to come talk to kids about police work.
“We asked Chief Flatley to come teach a class about how to become a detective, and he started working with the kids and teaching them about the police department,” Ms. Klein recalled this week.
“He had the [mobile] command center and he brought a few officers, and the K9s, and the kids were enjoying themselves immensely. We said, ‘this is too good an experience for just some kids to enjoy. Let’s spread it out and get the whole community involved.”
The detective class is one of a number of programs that the Southold Police conduct with local children every summer, including a bicycle safety rodeo and career day at department headquarters. But detective training is a perennial favorite, Lt. Brewer said.
“They talk about the importance of fingerprints and some of the things that detectives do in looking for clues. It makes it fun for them to understand that sometimes, [detective work] is like a little game where you try and solve a mystery,” he said. “So it’s awesome to be able to inspire kids and be able to have that positive interaction.”
Another big hit with the children is the department’s mobile command center.
“It’s got computers, radios and everything we need to operate in the field, almost like a mini [police] precinct.”
The lieutenant said the department often takes the mobile command center on tour at local events like the Strawberry Festival, to teach young kids about policing.
Ms. Klein, a long-time member of the Greenport Rotary, said it’s valuable to establish a relationship with local police at a young age.
“They meet these officers and they realize that these are neighborhood men and women,” she said. “These are their brothers, their fathers, their uncles and aunts, and these kids love to climb inside these vehicles and see what’s going on.
“Honestly? I think the police enjoy it as much as the children. They’re so gentle and so gregarious and so giving to the kids. To me that’s amazing.”
Still, one aspect of the program required a tweak this year.
“When they allowed the kids to hit the sirens [in the patrol cars] — they loved that,” Ms. Klein said with a smile. “But it got a little noisy and people were complaining last year. So this year, right before the K9 demonstration, for a few minutes, they’re just going to let the kids rip.”
By the end of the two-hour cop camp, a warm familiarity had set in between the two groups.
“Our goal is that the police get to know the local kids,” Ms. Klein said. “And for the local kids to say, ‘Hey, that’s John. He’s my friend’s father. He’s not a bad guy with a gun.”