Print |
E-mail to a friend
FEATURED
Bowling Green PD reaching out to internationals
BOWLING GREEN, Ky. (AP) — Newcomers to southern Kentucky’s largest city are getting some help learning the ins and outs of American life thanks to a new outreach effort by police here.
The Bowling Green Police Department recently named officer Monica Woods as its first international communities’ liaison. Woods’ job will include reaching out to the more than 20 different international groups in the area, particularly the growing Hispanic population.
“These are people who culturally might have different expectations of what to expect from law enforcement,” police chief Doug Hawkins said. “We as a department have not done as well as we could with (the Hispanic) community.”
There are an estimated 5,000 Spanish-speaking residents in the area.
Woods, who speaks Spanish, plans to help educate those who may not understand such basics as driving rules. She also hopes to bridge cultural gaps.
“I want to help remove those barriers and to help others within the department to do so,” she said.
Though there have been outreach efforts by police in the past, they’ve often been sporadic.
With Woods working fulltime to improve relations, members of the city’s international community will have someone they can contact daily if a problem arises, police said.
Woods is targeting schools, churches and other community groups, seeking to reach out to as many different areas as possible where newcomers congregate.
“I look at this as a fundamental change in the way the department does business,” Hawkins said.
Woods will receive help from several other officers, but she doesn’t expect the new post to produce immediate results.
“It could be overwhelming if I looked at this as something where we needed to see instant results,” she said. “But I look at this like building a house. At this point we don’t even have the plans drawn yet. We just have the foundation.”
