At community barbecues, kids see St. Paul cops as ‘normal people’

From a picnic table in St. Paul’s Frogtown, a 21-year-old woman looked around a park. There were people of all ages eating hot dogs and hamburgers, little kids petting police horses and slightly older ones tossing a football with St. Paul officers.

Tay Carter, of St. Paul, had taken her young children to a recent Safe Summer Nights barbecue.

“Nowadays, with people our age, it’s instilled in kids’ heads that cops are bad people,” Carter said. “So it’s good to see the children getting to see that they’re normal people.”

Safe Summer Nights events are scheduled each Thursday in St. Paul.

The one Carter attended happened at the end of June, before long-standing tensions between communities of color and law enforcement became even more pronounced when a St. Anthony police officer fatally shot Philando Castile, who was African-American, in a Falcon Heights traffic stop.

The community’s concern over cases like Castile’s especially illustrates why Safe Summer Nights is important, said St. Paul Police Chief Todd Axtell. The idea of the weekly community cookouts in St. Paul is bringing police officers and residents together to get acquainted over a meal, rather than in times of trouble.

A REASON TO GATHER

Tom Campion approached Axtell with the idea for Safe Summer Nights in 2014.

Campion is a partner in the food wholesaler Superb Meats, based on St. Paul’s West Seventh street, and he offered to donate food and find volunteers. He thought officers could knock on doors in the areas they patrol and invite residents to the cookouts.

“It starts there — they get to have a different conversation, rather than being there with an arrest warrant or for a DWI,” Campion said. “They get to go up and say, ‘Hey, come join us for a barbecue.’ ”

And, after working in the food business for 39 years, Campion said he also knew that “no matter what color, creed or race, food is always a common denominator to get people together.”

Tang Yang and her family went to the Safe Summer Nights at Ryan Park after an officer dropped off a flyer about it at their nearby home.

“I think it’s pretty awesome to get the community to come together like this,” said Yang, who had never heard of the events before.

MORE THAN FOOD

Since its start, Safe Summer Nights has served about 35,000 meals in St. Paul, Axtell said.

And after the first successful summer, Safe Summer Nights became a nonprofit organization and received funding from the Otto Bremer Foundation, Campion said.

They’ve also held the community-police barbecues in Minneapolis, Eagan, Burnsville, Columbia Heights and elsewhere. Still, every Thursday they’re back in St. Paul at a different location each week.

The events are more than food and conversation. St. Paul Parks and Recreation sets up its 30-foot-tall climbing wall and a bouncy house. The St. Paul Fire Department has set up a display showing how to prevent kitchen fires and how to react to a grease fire. There are also police motorcycles, the bomb squad and other equipment on display.

At Ryan Park, Axtell said he talked to two young girls from the neighborhood. They told the police chief they want to become police officers.

“We want to first of all build relationships, but also have the potential to hire a more diverse work force and become more reflective of our community,” Axtell said. “These interactions, they build relationships. People become proud of our officers and then they really want to emulate that.”

IF YOU GO

Safe Summer Nights barbecues are scheduled each Thursday, 5-7 p.m., in St. Paul. The ones left for this summer are:

• Thursday, Rice Street Recreation Center, 1021 Marion St.
• Aug. 4, Hazel Park Recreation Center, 945 N. Hazel St.
• Aug. 11, Dunning Recreation Center, 1221 Marshall Ave.
• Aug. 18, Neighborhood House, 179 E. Robie St.
• Aug. 25, Conway Recreation Center, 2090 Conway St.

For more information, go online to safesummernights.org