New Canaan Police To Launch ‘Coffee with a Cop’

Seeking to forge and foster positive relationships between officers and civilians as divides between the two have yielded violent clashes elsewhere, the New Canaan Police Department soon will launch ‘Coffee with a Cop.’

New Canaan Police Chief Leon Krolikowski

The new program, which has launched successfully in neighboring Norwalk, is designed to bolster already “exceptional” relationships between officers and civilians in New Canaan, according to Police Chief Leon Krolikowski.

“The majority of the community and our officers are well-respected and appreciated, but violence around the nation affects everybody, and just because New Canaan is a relatively safe town, that doesn’t mean that officers are not concerned about their safety and how the public views them,” he said.

Krolikowski referred to incidents that have seen five police officers killed and nine wounded in Dallas on July 7, then three officers killed and three injured in Baton Rouge 10 days later. The Dallas shootings brought the total number of law enforcement officers who had died in the line of duty to 31, compared to 18 for the same point in 2015, according to the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund.

New Canaan Police Department Officer Ron Bentley serves as the downtown’s Community Impact Officer. Credit: Michael Dinan

The idea of bringing ‘Coffee with a Cop’ to New Canaan was Officer Ron Bentley’s, the chief said. Bentley, a 1994 New Canaan High School graduate who has served as a coach of the Rams’ varsity baseball team, since last month has served as NCPD’s ‘Community Impact Officer.’ In that role, he has regularly patrolled downtown New Canaan, connecting with merchants and other workers, as well as the wide demographic of shoppers that frequent the area.

‘Coffee with a Cop’ will be an informal meet-and-greet with police, and likely will launch in New Canaan in September at Zumbach’s Gourmet Coffee on Pine Street, Krolikowski said.

“It’s an open discussion with whoever chooses to the be there from the community,” he said. “Ron Bentley will be there and I will be there and we’ll open up a dialogue about what’s going on.”