Delphi Police Department officers visited Delphi Community Elementary School during movie night to further connect with the students of Delphi.
Sgt. Alex Parkinson and officer Jensyn Reef visited the elementary school during movie night recently with a mission to interact with the young students and normalize the presence of police within the school walls.
“We’ve received a lot of questions lately about DPD officers being in the schools or at various sporting events,” the department released. “Many of our officers attend these events on their own initiative to interact with the students and community.”
The department continued to release that every officer is required to walk through a school every day while on shift as a means of normalizing the presence of police within the school in the event of an emergency that may cause panic for students who are unfamiliar with the presence of law enforcement.
“We want the students to be used to seeing and interacting with uniformed officers on a regular basis,” the department released. “In the event of an incident at a school, we don’t want the kids to be intimidated (by) uniformed officers.”
The department continued to release that another goal of the initiative to introduce officers into the schools during their shifts is to familiarize the officers with the schools, which would provide an advantage in traversing the schools in the case of an emergency to increase the efficiency and care able to be implemented by the officers.