Coffee with a Cop at Santa Rosa Junior College connects police, people they serve

The recent arrest of a black high school student in South Carolina captured in a widely shared online video shocked the American public and led to a deputy’s firing. It also made Santa Rosa Junior College student Jovan Ivey nervous about police.

Ivey, who is studying business administration, has never had a bad experience with an officer and in fact was helped by one this year. Yet, as a woman of color, 28-year-old Ivey said that the footage showing a white deputy flipping the student out of her desk, then throwing her across the floor, upset her. On Wednesday, she told a police officer just that.

“It did give me anxiety,” she said to SRJC Officer Vincent Neuman, as they sat at a table in the Bertolini Student Center dining hall on campus. “But I have to consider that you’re human; you’re not an alien from outer space.”

She and Neuman were surrounded by dozens of other people talking with uniformed officers in a public social event dubbed Coffee with a Cop that was held by the SRJC police district and the Santa Rosa Police Department. Ivey asked Neuman about how he handles various scenarios, from the possibility of racial bias to an uncooperative suspect.

“Every day I have to tell people to not do something, and no one wants to hear that,” Neuman said. “I have to have a plan for how I’m going to react. I was a professional nanny for two years; it’s very similar.”

“No way, are you serious?” Ivey said.

Santa Rosa, Petaluma, Rohnert Park and Cloverdale police departments have all held Coffee with a Cop events this year at cafes and fast food restaurants.

The idea was conceived in 2011 by officers in the Hawthorne Police Department in Southern California. The concept has spread in recent years amid an era of scrutinizing police tactics brought on by high-profile shootings like that of robbery suspect Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., which uncovered rampant discriminatory policies in that Midwest city.

With people pulling out their cell phones and disseminating footage of tense police interactions, the public is getting a closer look than ever at how some officers respond in difficult situations.

Those incidents have spurred a nationwide examination of policing and a call to bolster public trust in law enforcement. President Barack Obama’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing convened this year, developing a range of suggestions about how law enforcement agencies can de-escalate tensions and create more transparency about how agencies work.

California is the first state in the country to start teaching officers about implicit bias - the concept that some biases are ingrained and not necessarily reflective of conscious attitudes - as part of its state-certified police training program. On Wednesday, the first group of officers started the inaugural implicit bias class, which was announced by state Attorney General Kamala Harris.

Ralph Brown, a spokesman with the state Commission on Peace Officer Standards and Training, said that while Coffee with a Cop isn’t part of official police training, it is a valuable tool to achieve the necessary connection law enforcement officers must have with their communities in order to do the job.

“We clearly have learned we cannot do everything by ourselves; 911 is not the panacea of all things criminal justice,” Brown said. “It’s mission-critical that law enforcement sit down and communicate with the community at all levels to ensure expectations are being met and that we’re doing the right thing, we’re engaging the community.”

For those who work in law enforcement, one effect of the national conversation about policing is the sense that good people doing a very difficult job are being unfairly viewed through the lens of single incidents.

“Now it’s cool to hate the police. Everyone wants to criticize us, video us,” said Hawthorne Police Sgt. Chris Cognac, who helps teach a class for police wanting to host social events over coffee. “Some guy does something wrong in Iowa, and I’m held to blame. We are human (and) we do make mistakes.”

Coffee with a Cop was developed by officers in Cognac’s department after a video captured an officer shooting a dog, spurring outrage. Since then, Cognac and another sergeant travel across the country and internationally to lead one-day classes in exchange for the cost of travel and lodging.

When asked why an officer would need a class to know how to talk with people over coffee, Cognac said it can be difficult for officers who have been trained to convey a “command presence” to have a relaxed conversation.

“We have to teach the cops that it used to be us versus them, but it isn’t that way anymore, we’re in this together,” Cognac said. “We have shared expectations as a society. I want the same things that you want.”

Cognac said the events are aimed at improving the image of police by having officers spend time with residents in an easy-going setting - a coffee shop or fast food restaurant - and not only when a person has dialed 911. It also allows people to vent concerns.

The class was created using everything the Hawthorne police at first got wrong.

Don’t hide behind a table. Don’t stand over a seated person. Don’t park all the police cars in front of McDonald’s (it’s not a robbery scene). Don’t bring balloons (it’s not a birthday party).

“Those are things that we’ve learned. You have to have it right in the middle,” Cognac said. “For shy guys, I hand them a pot of coffee, tell them to fill up people’s coffee cups.”

Don’t create what Cognac calls the “circle of death,” where uniformed officers stand in a circle talking to one another with backs turned toward the rest of the room.

Santa Rosa Police Sgt. Jeneane Kucker attended one of Cognac’s training classes held in Woodland, near Sacramento, earlier this year. Wednesday was the fifth such coffee event she’s organized in the city since then.

“We’re just like you - we have families, we have hobbies, and we have a really tough job sometimes,” Kucker said.

The Rohnert Park Public Safety Department canceled its first Coffee with a Cop event after a video of a Rohnert Park officer brandishing his gun went viral, sparking concerns about the tactics by some in the community. Officials became concerned that people from outside the city would hijack what was meant to be a conversation with residents about community concerns.

But they have since held two events, and Sgt. Jeff Nicks said the video has not been the primary topic of conversation. Traffic problems have loomed large in conversations, as has residential marijuana cultivation.

“When I go home at night and I watch TV and some of the things I hear on the news are frightening, I understand when our residents have concerns,” Nicks said. “This is a chance for them to have access directly to a police officer. The more that we do this, the more the community can build their trust in us. We are regular people who have the best job in the world.”

On Wednesday, a woman walked up to Santa Rosa Junior College Police Chief Lorenzo Dueñas in the student center and said, “I have a question for you.”

“Do you have quotas to meet diversity standards?” asked Lorraine Sekito, an HIV coordinator with the Santa Rosa Community Health Centers.

“No, we do not have quotas, but I’m committed to diversity,” Dueñas said.

Sekito said that she believes there should be quotas so cities aren’t relying on individual police chiefs to create diverse departments, and she and Dueñas continued to talk about the need for law enforcement officers to come from a broad set of cultural backgrounds.

“The community should be reflected in our officers, I agree,” Dueñas said.

You can reach Staff Writer Julie Johnson at 521-5220 or julie.johnson@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @jjpressdem.