LIMA — For the Lima Police Department to be successful, community partnerships are essential.
That was the message from Lima Police Chief Kevin Martin at a Public Officials Dialogue held Wednesday at the Lima/Allen County Chamber of Commerce.
“I wanted to take advantage of this opportunity to be able to speak about the partnerships we have both in the private sector as well as the public sector,” Martin said. “In the private sector, we have both nonprofit and for-profit partners that are involved with us.”
One example to which Martin pointed was the upcoming barbecue and open house to be held from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Friday at the Community Oriented Policing Substation at the Maplewood apartment complex on Brower Road. Born out of an idea from Oliver Lee, the open house features business and community sponsorships helping with food and other needs to help give residents the opportunity to meet with police officers in a laid-back social setting. The event will also feature a public-sector partnership, as Allen County Children Services will be having a school supplies giveaway for children.
As valuable as those initiatives are, for Martin the biggest community partnership for the Police Department goes even deeper.
“The partner I wanted to emphasize the most was that of the individual residents within the city,” he said. “Regardless of what others would say, we want to hear from you of what’s going on with you and what’s creating problems or what’s deteriorating your quality of life within the city. If we don’t know what those problems are, we cannot effectively police those issues.”
Martin said during the meeting that solutions to community policing issues can often come from outside the department, a trend he hopes can continue.
“What are their ideas as to solve those problems?” he said. “What are other people willing to do to get involved with us to help solve these problems? The recent homicides we have had are not just police problems. They are community problems, and we need the entire community to be involved in identifying those problems and solving them.”
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