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Pittsburg State University celebrated National Coffee with a Cop day by inviting Pitt State Police Department as well as local law enforcement to the U-Club. Students received the opportunity to talk with law enforcement in a laid-back atmosphere while also enjoying free coffee and bagels provided by Einstein Bros, through Sodexo.
“I hope more than anything that they know we’re people too..,” said Stu Hite, Chief of Police at Pitt State. “We’re here in the community, we’re here on campus, we’re here if you need us. We hope you don’t need us, but if you do, we don’t want you to be afraid or hesitate to call us.”
National Coffee with a Cop day was Wednesday Oct. 2. Sodexo hosted the event in the U-Club from 8:30-10:30am.
“Sodexo, Einstein Brothers asked us if we would be interested in hosting or having them host National Coffee with a Cop day,” Hite said. “I honestly didn’t really know that was a thing when they approached me about it, but I thought what a great opportunity to engage with the community and the campus community faculty, students, and staff… They asked me to invite our law enforcement area partners from the Sheriffs’ office, Pittsburg PD, KBI, so they asked me to reach out to them. We had an overwhelming response from all of the agencies and every one of them was represented here today,”
Law enforcement from around the area were invited and many attended the event to celebrate the day.
“I’ve had some great conversations with students,” said Danny Smith, Sheriff of Crawford County. “It was fun to actually sit down and I talked to a couple girls this morning, it was great we had a great conversation… I told some stories and I think there’s a lot of aspects of our job that they don’t’ really know about so we got to tell some stories and they get to know us a little bit and how down to earth we are, a lot of times usually when we’re seeing people they’re having a bad day and so when you can come to an event like this and it’s not because of responding to something and you can do it on terms like this it makes a really nice pleasant event.”
Students walking through the U-Club noticed the event happening and stopped to get free coffee and bagels as well as stop and talk to the law enforcement agencies that were present.
“In the beginning, I was just learning about them as a person, what brought them to Pitt, how long they’ve been doing it,” said Cole York, junior in marketing. “As far as cop questions go, we asked what was the funniest thing they saw on duty, what was the scariest thing they saw on duty. I asked them if the TV show Cops was realistic or if it’s pure entertainment, the answer is entertainment. They said LivePD, though, is pretty realistic.”
Other students attended the event because they heard of it through e-mail and wanted the opportunity to talk with law enforcement.
“I think I got to learn things from their perspective like things that they see that happen as well as things that they go through rather than just what we go through,” said Savannah Kratzberg, junior in international business.
Coffee with a Cop had a steady stream of students throughout the morning, going through multiple pots of coffee and bagels. Students were gathered around with law enforcement engaging in conversations throughout the morning.
“It really just reassures me that cops are human,” York said. “They’re just like everybody else. I think that’s what the real point of this event was, was to get people to relate to the cops more… The better connection the cops have with the students here on campus I believe the students will feel more safer.”
Hite hopes to continue the event and have one more frequently for students and law enforcement to get more connected in the community.
