Cop Stop started as a conversation I had at a local park with a Germantown Police Officer while waiting to pick my children up from school. At the beginning of the school year, dismissal traffic was extremely chaotic. Seeing how dangerous this was for the children walking home from school, I contacted the Germantown Police Department to see if we could get an officer to oversee the issue and help with traffic control.
Officer Cook was at the park every day to help! As the weeks and months went by, we got to know each other and became friends. We were the only married couple in the shop where he worked and we lived off base. We decided that we would have his friends β who lived in the barracks β over on Friday nights for dinner. Everyone would bring a steak and we would grill out and spend time with each other.
We have continued this Friday Night tradition with friends and neighbors wherever we have lived. Bob and I made an appointment with Deputy Chief Rodney Bright and told him that we wanted to open our home to provide a place for Germantown Police Officers to come and have a home-cooked meal in a relaxed setting. Seeing as this fell right along with the community policing that GPD does, he was very excited to support us in this.
So, the next Friday night, Cop Stop began. We gathered our neighbors and cooked; Officers showed up β even Officer Cook, who was off-duty, brought his family β and we kept on providing a meal. Every other Friday night. More officers came. I asked my children what they wanted to start calling this meal we were having with our new friends. As we kept serving, more and more officers came.
In April , I started hearing that there was a need for Cop Stops on the east side of town as officers were switching with each other in order to come to our home on the west side of town. I posted on the Germantown Bulletin Board Facebook Page what we were doing and that I was looking for one family on the east side to commit to hosting Cop Stops once or twice a month.
