By Emily Monacelli
Kalamazoo Gazette
KALAMAZOO (AP) - A Kalamazoo company has launched a campaign encouraging people to share the positive interactions they have had with police officers.
Rhino Media has announced the creation of The Good Cop (www.thegoodcop.org), a website where people can share their good interactions with police officers and nominate police officers to be highlighted on a monthly basis.
Rhino Media asked the Kalamazoo Department of Public Safety to work with them to launch The Good Cop, a project encouraging people around the United States to share stories of positive interactions with police officers.
Rhino Media owner Kevin Romeo said Jeremy Angeletti, a project manager at Rhino, approached him about the idea of The Good Cop, highlighting police officers that are doing good things.
Angeletti has transformed that idea into a website and social media platform, with a Facebook page and a Twitter hashtag, #goodcop.
"We know there's tons and tons of good people in our society and the people who are stepping up in law enforcement and putting their lives on the line, we so respect you and we so honor you," Romeo told the Kalamazoo Gazette.
Angeletti also created a mini film featuring Kalamazoo Department of Public Safety officer Sara Choi, Capt. Jim Mallery, Sgt. Anthony Morgan and officers Rick McCall and Joe Paul. In the movie, McCall talks about coming up to the scene when Kalamazoo PSO Eric Zapata was fatally shot, and Choi talks about a child abuse and homicide case affected her personally as a mother.
"We know that human beings are fallible human beings and we're all capable of good things and bad things but we believe that police officers do a tremendous role in our society," Romeo said. "We have tremendous respect for them. We just want to share those positive stories and give people a platform to share them."
Angeletti said the idea came out of a conversation he had with a friend who is a KDPS officer.
"Just hearing from him I thought, man, it's a real shame that one isolated incident pops up and seems to cast a shadow on a really noble industry," Angeletti said.
Angeletti said one plague of social media is the "Internet mob," where people pounce on one negative story and that's all that appears on social media for weeks.
"The impetus behind The Good Cop is to create one unified voice," Angeletti said. "I've learned throughout this process how many people are absolutely supportive of law enforcement and really want to commend them for the job they're doing. So The Good Cop, #goodcop and here in Kalamazoo, #goodcopkzoo creates one place that they can all share that support. It's unifying all this sporadic encouragement that's happening on social media through one channel."
KDPS Chief Jeff Hadley said he hopes the Good Cop movement gets people really thinking about the good experiences they have with law enforcement.
"Probably the most fundamental thing for me, and it's probably pretty selfish, is that our officers feel supported," Hadley said. "I think that's so important to them personally, for their spirit and for the manner in which they approach their job, that they feel supported by their community. It makes them feel good about the work that they do and the very challenging work that they do. It makes a difficult job a little better, and hopefully it brightens people's day."
Published: Thu, Sep 24, 2015
