Conversations were brewing with Police from the Limestone Coast Local Service Area at their recent ‘Coffee with a Cop’ event.

The Coffee with a Cop events are held in conjunction with the Mount Gambier Marketplace at the food court bi-monthly.

Sergeant Jade Hill said the event was a great opportunity for community to come along and enjoy a free cuppa while having a chat with their local police.

“They can ask us questions, they can learn about us as people because we are people, so rather than just seeing a uniform it is a good opportunity to build rapport with community,” Sgt Hill said.

“It also gives them the opportunity that if they do not necessarily feel comfortable coming into a police station it puts us out into community, so they have got that availability and access to us.”

Sgt Hill said she had conversations regarding various topics, including home security, crime stoppers and the phone numbers to call to access police.

“There were lots of questions about road safety as well, so overtaking lanes, the recent serious crashes and fatalities in our region, there were a lot of really different questions that came our way,” she said.

“We had a lot of kids asking about if they got lost and some of the kids were learning about police and emergency services at day-care and Kindy and things like that as well, so it was nice for them to actually be able to come up and see us.

“It has been really beneficial for us to engage with the younger generation as well so they learn from us and learn that we are safe people to come to should they need us.”

Sgt Hill said police officers from various specialist areas attended to cater for people with specific questions and said the attendance grew each time they hosted the event.

Police also provided take away material including information about home and business security, rural security and road safety information, bike passports, fridge magnets with emergency contact numbers, activity books, pencils, stickers, and bookmarks.

Sgt Hill said it was important for the police to engage with the community because they worked very closely with them.

“It is lovely that a lot of our community members are our eyes and ears when we cannot be everywhere,” she said.

“For people to know we are safe people to come to, that we are reliable, they can come to us and provide us information, it might be some intelligence that we need to be aware of so we can deploy our resources as we need to.

“I think because it is in an informal environment, people maybe feel a little bit more at ease to approach us and come and talk to us as well, so it has got benefits for everybody, us as police and community.”

Sgt Hill said people enjoyed engaging with the police officers and said Muffin Break, 25acres and Donut King also supported the event.

“Everyone has been really pleased to come along and have a free cup of coffee, have a good chat and walk away with some really good education,” she said.

Coffee with a Cop ‘May the 4th Be With You’ is approaching on May 4, which will run from 10am until 11am at the Mount Gambier Marketplace.

“We are actually going to bring up the police car and have that inside the marketplace next to the food court, so that will be really good for community to be able to come and access that and see what the police car is like and have good discussions with police officers at the time,” she said.