The North Charleston Police Department hosted a Community Roll Call Wednesday evening, an event that focused on getting to know people within the community.
"It's extremely important. This is part of the new community policing approaching and that's why we get officers into the community," Chris Monroe, with the North Charleston Police Department, said.
Monroe works in the Dorchester-Wayln area, where Wednesday’s event was held and said it was important for him to see people in a more positive setting.
“I’m out here every day,” said Monroe. “Meeting new people and new kids and trying to build relationships with them and start from the ground up.”
Monroe said opportunities like this can help show that he’s committed to the area he works in. “It’s good for them to see me out here as well that way it doesn’t look like it I’m just there to do a job and go home.”
For people who live in this area, they said something like this can change the way kids view police officers.
"It's pretty cool to let kids know cops are cool and doing their job and in the neighborhood patrolling,” Antwarn Bailey said. “If anything's wrong they can talk to them."
In the last year, Monroe said he has seen a change since the department put a heavy focus on community policing.
"It was all disdained and no one wanted to talk to police and now it's a totally different aspect. They see us out here and they appreciate it," Monroe said.
NCPD Chief Reggie Burges said the department is focusing on community, and not just official city business.
“We don’t have them come to city hall and they go to the academy,” Burgess said as he introduced new recruits.
“We bring them where they’re going to be working at,” Burgess said. “We bring them to see the people who’s in the community. That’s how we’re going to do it. It’s all about the community and the police. They say we get along, look at this, they say we can’t talk like this, look at this. We can do it, we can do it.”
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