Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

Members of the Greenville Police Department, Georgiana Police Department, and Butler County Sheriff’s Office collaborated during a “Cops and Kids” event sponsored by Greenville PD.

The event provided attendees opportunities to learn about different police units, their specific functions, and how each serves the community. The children also met Chase from the television show “Paw Patrol” and Greenville’s K9, Tobie.

In an era where law enforcement officers face scrutiny with so many eyes on the profession as a whole, it is positive to see our local law enforcement give their time and energy to support community endeavors and engage our youth to teach them the important role our police and sheriff’s offices play when it comes to public safety.

Butler County Sheriff Danny Bond said it best during the event, “We’re not the bad guy everybody portrays us to be.” And he’s right. The way police are shown to behave in procedural dramas, big-budget action movies, video games, and other mediums is so far apart from what most in good standing with the law might experience in an interaction with one of our finest in Butler County.

By meeting these officers in a family-friendly and informative setting, it helps ease fears and teaches children the officers behind the badges are people, too, and very good people at that.

Kids weren’t the only ones interacting with law enforcement. Plenty of adults received opportunities to talk to them and express their opinions on a variety of subjects of importance to them, and also give them a pat on the back for the hard and important work they do protecting us all.

We hope to see more events like this one in the future or even an expanded version to include our firefighters and paramedics.