A Matter of Trust

Each May, communities across the country pause to observe National Police Week—a time to honor the service and sacrifice of law enforcement while strengthening the connection between officers and the people they serve. In Ridgewood, that spirit is evident year-round, as the Ridgewood Police Department goes beyond its public safety role to actively educate, inform, and engage residents. Through outreach programs, community events, and open dialogue, the department fosters trust and partnership, helping ensure that Ridgewood remains safe and connected.

Connecting With Children

When Ridgewood Police Department Detective Sergeant Anthony Mormino speaks to schoolchildren and youth groups, he likes to ask a deceptively simple question: What’s the most important item on a police officer’s toolbelt?

The kids will give him the once-over, paying close attention to his own belt, and most often the first guess is “your gun.” Wrong. Well, it must be the handcuffs, then—right? No, still wrong.

“It’s the radio,” he tells them. “Without the radio, I don’t know that you need help. I can’t call for help. We can’t help anybody.”

And that opens the door to a discussion that goes well beyond police work into insights that can help kids from elementary school through high school not only stay safe but deal with challenges of every kind.

“I always tell the kids, ‘Listen, I know you don’t carry a radio on your belt, but you have a mouth. So if you are having a problem, if you don’t talk about your problem, if you don’t ask for help, that problem is never going to get better’,” he explains. “And you almost see the brainwaves, and you see the kids thinking, ‘Ah, that’s a good point!’”

Helping kids make connections like that, both within their own minds and outwardly with police officers, is more than just good PR for the RPD. Such interactions reflect a strategy to build trust in the police while also encouraging cooperation that makes the officers’ job easier and the public safer.

“It’s a cornerstone of Chief Lyons’s vision,” Mormino says, referring to RPD Chief Forest Lyons. “We understand that cooperation with the community, especially with the kids, makes our job easier. It’s give and take. That’s why every decision we make is meant to try to better the community, and to protect that trust between the community and the police department.”

The strategy is drawn from a concept known as community policing, in which engaging, non-enforcement-oriented contact between the police and the public is meant to foster trust and transparency for the benefit of all.

“It’s the school resource officer, it’s the presentations, it’s the preventive things,” Mormino says. “It’s putting yourself out there and being human.”

And Mormino really puts himself out there—literally, sometimes, such as when he sat on the edge of a dunk tank at a community event until a few well-thrown balls tripped the lever, causing his ultimate splashdown.

A Different Approach

For other officers, such as Sean Amaruso and Hector Perez, helping the public see the person behind the badge can mean heading up events like Pull-Over Properly (POP). Conducted with special-needs advocacy groups Access Ridgewood and Spec Wired, POP simulates traffic pullovers in the Graydon Pool parking lot to help new and learning drivers who have developmental disabilities understand what to do when they’re pulled over.

As with many of the RPD’s outreach initiatives, POP serves multiple objectives. While the stated purpose of preparing the special-needs driver to know what to expect and, therefore, suffer less anxiety and dread when they get pulled over by police is essential, that same preparation may lessen the risk for an interaction that puts both the driver and the police officer in danger.

“They go through the steps in a motor vehicle stop, and that’s important. These kids may not be the most vocal or the most communicative, but it gives them a little bit more courage to say, ‘Hey, officer, I’m on the spectrum,’ or however they want to explain it to us, ‘and the lights are making me anxious’,” Mormino says. “Nine times out of 10, that’s going to help the officer understand what’s going on and not take some furtive movement as a negative one, or as a sign of disrespect or noncompliance.”

RPD personnel are training to learn more about working with neurodiverse populations in every situation, all the time. Again, it’s not an image campaign but a forward-thinking approach to providing the best, safest public service for every member of the Ridgewood community.

“We’re seeing a lot more call volume concerning children on the spectrum, and we’re learning to think outside the box.” Mormino says. “Usually, from a law-enforcement perspective, we want to isolate, we want to contain, and we want to control. And that’s not always the best when communicating with a resident who may have challenges communicating in a way the officer is accustomed to.” 

A Place for All

Community policing, working with special-needs youth, and even taking a turn in the dunk tank may seem like activities that are inherently beneficial to the community, but there’s another side to them.

Consider the interactions law enforcement professionals typically have with the public. “Normally, as a police officer, you’re going call-to-call, you’re answering 911 calls, you’re doing motor vehicle stops—all important stuff, but it’s not necessarily the stuff that people want to see you for. Something bad is going on, or you wouldn’t be there,” Mormino points out. “That is the reality of being a police officer. You’re never going to be everyone’s best friend; no one wants to get a ticket, and we get that. But you’re seeing the worst of people for the majority of your day, of your career.”

Tasks that provide an officer with a break from those more typical, infinitely more serious law enforcement duties could actually help ward off stress-related burnout and other mental health issues for which they are at higher risk than most of us. A research paper published in the journal Police Quarterly found that police personnel are nearly twice as likely to experience symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder and depression, as well as lower quality of life, compared with the general population.

Positive interactions essentially flip the script. “Rather than dealing with people on their worst day, or the 5% I had to take an enforcement action on, you’re dealing with the 95% of good people,” Mormino says. “It changes your thought process. When somebody comes up to you, it’s not like, ‘Oh no, what is this going to be?’ Instead, it becomes: ‘This is probably just someone who wants to have a conversation with me. I’m very lucky. I love my job’.”

For more information, visit rpd.ridgewoodnj.net/159/police.

Harris Fleming is a freelance writer who lives in Waldwick with his wife (a Ridgewood elementary school teacher) and teenage son. He once worked part-time for the University of Richmond campus police, checking IDs to ensure only students and staff used the track facility. And, he was entrusted with a radio.