Police officer introduces Bradenton to kids in a colorful way
It’s not uncommon for children to accompany a parent as the adult has the unfortunate experience of having to report a crime committed against them at the Bradenton Police Department.
A police station can be a little intimidating to young eyes and it doesn’t help when that young heart is likely feeling the stress associated with their parent being a crime victim.
For Bradenton police officers roaming through the building, stopping to offer a smile and comforting conversation to the child is the norm, but they would like to do more. So about a year ago, Chief Melanie Bevan began brainstorming on what her department could do better to provide comfort to those children.
An idea was born and has now come to fruition in the form of a coloring book that introduces children to some of the officers who patrol popular areas of the city like Riverwalk, downtown Bradenton, LECOM Park and more.
The 13-page coloring book kicks off with a welcome coloring page of Mayor Wayne Poston, transitions to Bevan at the Bishop Museum of Science and Nature and concludes with retired BPD officer Kimberly Camacho, who wrote and illustrated the book.
“I think it’s a neat way to connect with the kids and when the chief brought the idea to me, i just ran with it,” Camacho said. “We picked different sites that Realize Bradenton advertise and are more popular sites people visit. It’s a great way to raise interest in the city for the kids and bring families together while giving a little personal information about our officers.”
It’s essentially a unique community policing program and is a different way to connect the community to the officers.
“People sometimes just see the badges and don’t realize we are human and we enjoy doing different things,” Camacho said, while noting the project took about three months to do from conception to reality.
Bevan said the books serve a dual purpose.
“One thing we are gearing this for is when our officers are out at scenes that may involve children, it’s a way to console or comfort or really just connect with them,” Bevan said. “We can hand out these books and some crayons and maybe they can go take a few minutes to color a picture.”
Bevan said the secondary purpose is just to connect with the community’s children in a more general and fun way.
“The unique thing is that coloring books are everywhere,” Bevan said. “But these are of us and it’s Bradenton. It makes it unique and meaningful.”
The book features puzzles and eight other officers, but Captain Brian Thiers said when asked there is no internal jealousy for those officers who did not make it into the book.
“We just see the potential of this,” Thiers said. “We like to be at the creative forefront of community policing and humanizing law enforcement.”
Bevan said the department has initially ordered 1,000 copies of the books and they are available at the department to any child who wants one. The money is being taken from the forfeiture and seizure funds, which means criminals are essentially paying for the program.
No matter how the child gets one of the books, all are eligible to submit one of the completed pages for a special contest by the department. Bevan said the prize will be one of their Baseball Buddy vouchers, good for four tickets to a Tampa Bay Rays game, courtesy of the Rays and Major League Baseball.
Any child nominated to the police department for doing community service or an act of kindness is eligible to receive the tickets outside of this contest.
In addition, the child will win a day with BPD and get some time out on the water with the department’s marine patrol officers.
There is one condition to the contest. The word finder puzzle must also be completed, because Bevan said, “There is a very good safety message in there.”
She added there may be one other condition.
“I’ll put a special emphasis on how they color page 2, which is me,” Bevan joked. “The younger and prettier they make me look, the better it will go for them.”