Community Outreach Unit working to improve communication, relations

The Columbia Police Department’s Community Outreach Unit continues its work to try and improve safety, communication, and relations throughout the city.

Officers Scott Lenger and Tony Parker patrol the northern part of Columbia, one of the areas the city identified as areas to be improved.

Their area includes Derby Ridge Road, Auburn Hills and Bodie Drive. Lange Middle School, Battle High School and Derby Ridge Elementary are the schools the officers visit often in that jurisdiction.

ABC 17’s Sara Maslar-Donar rode along with the two officers Thursday as they patrolled the neighborhood. The two walked and rode around, mostly talking to the kids playing outside.

They said in the past four months they’ve been able to build greater trust with the kids.

“When you get to middle school you start deciding which way your life’s going to take which is unfortunate,” he said. “But having those positive role models at a young age and at that age gives them a good process on which way to go and we hope we can steer them to be good and productive members of society.”

Lenger said he’s seen that trust translate from kids to their parents and other adults. Similarly, he said kids were starting to trust other patrol officers who aren’t part of the unit.

“A story that I was told by one of our units was that they were out doing their normal proactive patrol and they were sitting in their car,” Lenger said. “The next thing they noticed was a whole bunch of kids ran up to their car wanting to see them, wanting to talk to them. It was a positive experience that for me is a huge win.”

In the past four months, Parker and Lenger said they’ve seen the quality of life improve in their patrol areas. They’ve not only be working on their relationships with the residents, but they’ve also tried to fix up different parts of the neighborhoods as well.

Bodie Drive especially has seen a neighborhood wide trash clean up.

“We got the community involved with us, the kids that live out in the area to come help us clean up that area,” he said. “We see now the areas that were dirty stay a little bit cleaner now. One lady told me it’s not where you live, it’s how you live and that’s a great philosophy to live by.”

Lenger and Parker said the improvement they’ve seen since February is encouraging.

“Just the way we’re treated is different and I’ve noticed the difference, even since I started law enforcement,” Lenger said.”People come talk to us now. It’s not officer anymore. It’s Scott or Tony. Or Officer Scott and Officer Tony.”

They said they’ve built the kind of relationships where people will let them know who might be causing trouble or who they can talk to in order to curb some of the local crime.

“I think the strides that we’ve done in four months have proven that this type of policing is effective and it works,” said Lenger. “It’s just, we’ve got to get it citywide.”

Parker and Lenger have a neighborhood barbecue planned for Sunday, June 5. They said it’s just another way they can talk to people and get people to even talk to each other.

Training for the officers in the unit finished in February; they’ve been on active patrol since.