Community engages with local police officers
BROADACRES – The morning’s activities allowed for community members to enquire with police and other organisations on various matters.
Another successful Coffee with a Cop initiative was hosted by Douglasdale Police Station at Broadacres Shopping Centre.
Members of the community were encouraged to chat with police officers and various other stakeholders on 26 May about the concerns they have in their area.
Spokesperson for Douglasdale police, Captain Mpho Tshetlhane and station commander Brigadier Veeshani Arikum were both impressed by the turnout of community members.
“We are with different stakeholders today to interact with the community of Broadacres. We have had challenges with crime here before like armed and business robberies. With us coming here, we also ensuring visibility around the centre so that the community can feel safe,” said Tshetlhane.
“The concept was created to bridge the gap between the police, private sector and community. It’s been a very positive turnout here, and I think after this we will have a better relationship with the community at large as things like this will assist us a lot.”
A community member present at the initiative, Makwena Kgomo works at the shopping centre. She said, “I really enjoyed today’s initiative because there were some things that I didn’t know about when reporting matters to the police.
“Something like this will definitely change the environment of the community and encourage them to come to the shopping centre as well.”
Centre manager of the shopping centre, Julie Pretorius and operations manager, Izilda Kokin said the centre wanted to establish a relationship with the police and the tenants. “Today is about bringing us together to find out what and where we can improve on because we need to work together to keep Broadacres safe. And something like this is good because it encourages people to voice their opinion on what’s going on,” said Kokin.
