Community policing starts with service
By Ethan Smith
Published in News on November 7, 2017 5:50 AM
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News-Argus/CASEY MOZINGO
Michael Parks and Kenny Prevost nail down boards to make a ramp for a family that lives on Woodbine Street Monday morning.
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News-Argus/CASEY MOZINGO
Yonny Campos, center, fills in dirt around a post as he and other representatives from the Goldsboro Police Department build a ramp for a family on Woodbine Street Monday morning. Another group of people from the community policing class built a ramp on Odom Farm Road.
Nine police officers kicked off the Goldsboro Police Department's third community policing class of the year by building ramps at two different homes Monday morning.
Capt. LeAnn Rabun, the instructor for the course, said the undertaking was the class's group project, which all of them do.
The officers -- from A, C and D shift, as well as the Investigations Bureau and Gang Unit -- will also spend some time in the classroom learning about what community policing is.
They will then split up into smaller groups and perform another set of projects in the community.
Officers in the course partnered with the First Baptist Church to make the project come to fruition.
Five of them stopped off at 204 Woodbine St. at Jewel Grantham's home.
Mrs. Grantham said her husband fell and broke his hip Sept. 17 as they prepared to go to church.
He's since been at Willow Creek, she said, and hopefully can come home soon.
Her husband broke his ball joint, and therefore will need a ramp to get into the front door of the home.
So the officers were there to help make it a reality.
They made quick work of it, finishing by lunch, and the second set of officers finished their ramp at 214 Odom Farm Road in the late morning.
Completion of the course allows officers to achieve a higher classification -- Officer 1, Officer 2 and Master Officer -- but does not mean they move up in rank.
Two other groups have completed the course this year, one group finishing in the spring and another finishing in the summer.
Those groups completed various other group and individual projects, doing everything from cleaning up yards to putting citizens through "shoot, don't shoot" scenarios and building a memorial at Pfc. Dan Bullock's grave, who was the youngest person to die in the Vietnam War.
Rabun said the next course will be in the spring of 2018.