Photo one: Covington Police Department’s Community Liaison Unit consists of, from left, Officer Josh Knott, Officer Alex Rose, and Sgt. Rachel White.
Photo two: The Community Liaison Unit at a recent event at Kroger, where donated supplies were gathered for Thursday's giveaway.
Three-person liaison team elevated, formalized
COVINGTON, Ky. – Covington Police Officer Rachel White was headed to a neighborhood association meeting to give a presentation a few years ago when an emergency call came over her radio.
She had to peel off to respond. Immediately. … And just like that, her appearance before the association was canceled. It was never rescheduled.
Such was the challenge of being a community liaison officer with patrol duties.
“Being formal members of the Patrol Bureau, we were so tied to the radio that we’d be headed to a (community) meeting and be pulled to a call,” now-Sgt. White said. “That was our first priority.”
No longer.
At the direction of Chief Brian Valenti, the Community Liaison Unit has been elevated and formalized to become its own separate branch within the Department’s D-Team Bureau. Untethered from their radios (except in massive all-hands-on-deck emergencies), the unit will have more time and resources to strengthen the Department’s relationship with and knowledge of the Covington community.
Headed by Sgt. White, the unit also consists of current community liaison team Officers Josh Knott and Alex Rose.
The goal is simple, Valenti said: Closer ties to the people.
The impact, however, is multi-dimensional: crime prevention, better investigations and intel, collaboration with not only outside organizations but also other service departments within City Hall, a focus on quality-of-life issues for families that transcend typical police issues, better communications, safety, and ongoing improvements in the public’s attitude toward police, especially among younger people.
“Any time you invest in getting to know your community and its people better will pay dividends in the future in a variety of ways,” Valenti said. “And that’s especially true with youth.”
The officers will work flexible schedules.
White said community liaison officers in Covington have a long tradition of interaction with the community, including formal neighborhood watch groups and events like Covington Police Bookworms, which uses books as a vehicle to strengthen relationships between police and young children, and Sleigh Bells & Sirens, in which the Department collaborates with Covington FOP Lodge No. 1 to give presents to youth near Christmas.
She envisions the unit continuing many of these events and tasks and expanding into many others. To give a sense of the vision for the unit, she described an array of current and potentially new programs and services:
Community Relations: A monthly newsletter. Safety talks. Attendance at meetings and events held by neighborhood associations, schools, and other organizations. Creating lists of community resources where residents can get help, to be shared with officers across the Department. And events such as a free school supply distribution event to be held Thursday of this week (Aug. 15) called “Covington P.D. Bookworms Goes Back to School.” Being separated out will allow the Community Liaison Unit to plan more such events, and officials say several new initiatives are in the works.
Intelligence: Gathering and distributing information and data on crime trends and threats.
Collaboration: Working with other City departments such as Code Enforcement, Neighborhood Services, Parks & Rec, Fire, Legal and others to add officers’ knowledge, community awareness, and other resources to neighborhood quality-of-life issues and challenges, such as nuisance properties, littering, homelessness, vandalism, landlord-tenant relations, short-term rentals etc.
Police officers are continuously interacting with the public, White said.
“By passing along what we know and see, Police officers can help other City departments bring a more cohesive response to some of these quality-of-life issues,” she said. “We can help better the neighborhoods and make them safer.”
In that way, the unit represents a critical part of a broader, strategic approach to policing in Covington, explained Lt. Justin Bradbury, who was recently promoted to head the D-Team.
The Community Liaison Unit will help the D-Team take a look at events and geographic areas to identify trends to try to predict what happens next and where, so the Department can better allocate resources to prevent crime and more quickly solve cases, Lt. Bradbury said. That includes tools like crime-mapping.
Elevating Sgt. White’s team “is a fantastic opportunity for the Police Department to not only improve our outreach to the community but also begin to expand our capabilities to capitalize on the advantages that data-driven, intelligence-led policing gives to any agency that uses it,” Bradbury said. “Community outreach is more than feel-good events at which we interact with kids, at its heart it means knowing your community in a deeper way so you can better protect and serve it.”
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