![\"officerfriendly612.jpg\"](\"http:\/\/chicagopressrelease.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/01\/efb1a5f912dly612.jpg.jpg\")
One first-grader says she feels scared, eyeing the uniformed men and women whose presence often signifies problems.<\/p>\nThe primary school students file into their Englewood school auditorium where a half-dozen police officers are waiting.<\/p>\n
One first-grader says she feels scared, eyeing the uniformed men and women whose presence often signifies problems.<\/p>\n
The principal overhears a little boy tell his peers, “I’m not afraid of no police.”<\/p>\n
But by the end of the 30-minute gathering with the officers, the Randolph Elementary School children were cheering and giving the officers high-fives and handshakes. <\/span><\/p>\n The presentation launched a new “Officer Friendly” program, a revival of sorts of the popular police icon who swept into Chicago classrooms in the 1960s and 1970s to the delight of schoolchildren.<\/p>\n While programming for young children has long been a part of community policing, the folksy name faded.<\/p>\n But police are using it again in Englewood, one of the toughest neighborhoods in the city, with an updated mission: not only to bring a message of safety and citizenship, but also to help repair a fractured relationship between police and the community.<\/p>\n “He’s been resurrected,” Englewood District Cmdr. Keith Calloway said of Officer Friendly. “With the young kids, they really love the police. Somewhere along the line we are losing these kids.”<\/p>\n The Officer Friendly program was started in Chicago in the late 1960s. Officers talked to children about traffic safety, playing with matches, “stranger danger” and even the importance of properly disposing of gum.<\/p>\n Calloway remembers the visit Officer Friendly made to his own grammar school, complete with the coloring book and a shiny gun. Then Calloway found himself looking for a way to reach the youngest children on the gang-ridden blocks of Englewood, where police are engaged in a daily battle with crime.<\/p>\n He knows that young children often see police officers when they are arresting a relative or stopping a neighbor. Scandals involving police misconduct and abuse damage public perception. And rap songs deride the police.<\/p>\n So while many children still stare starry-eyed at officers, police also see a hardened glare on the faces of younger children who cross their path.<\/p>\n “We get called to incidents that are not the best incidents in their lives,” said Englewood school liaison Officer Rafael Yanez. “If they could have more positive memories … ‘he was there and he taught me not to speak to strangers. To be careful when I cross the street,’ ” that would build trust.<\/p>\n Calloway said six patrol officers plan to repeatedly visit the neighborhood’s roughly 30 elementary schools, targeting pre-kindergarten to second-graders.<\/p>\n Randolph Elementary Principal Michelle Smith said the safety tips are just as important as reshaping impressions of police. She said some students don’t know things like the difference between “good touch” and “bad touch,” or how to get help in an emergency.<\/p>\n On Wednesday, Officer Angela Wormley asked several students if they knew their home addresses. One girl recited several numbers but no street name. Another student replied “Chicago.”<\/p>\n Wormley told them to ask their moms for the correct information — and said she’d be back to check up on them.<\/p>\n –<\/em>Annie Sweeney <\/em><\/a>and <\/em>Angie Leventis Lourgos<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n Photo: Police Officer Angela Wormley uses illustrations to communicate with youngsters today at Randolph Elementary School in Englewood during the re-introduction of the “Officer Friendly” program. (Tribune \/ Abel Uribe)<\/em><\/p>\n Read the original article from Tribune News Services<\/a>.<\/p>\n The primary school students file into their Englewood school auditorium where a half-dozen police officers are waiting. One first-grader says she feels scared, eyeing the uniformed men and women whose presence often signifies problems. The principal overhears a little boy tell his peers, “I’m not afraid of no police.” But by the end of the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-207588","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207588","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=207588"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207588\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=207588"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=207588"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=207588"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/img><\/a>
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