After this week's tragic event in Dallas many police agencies across the country are sending out their officers in teams of two. It’s an effort to keep patrols safer in light of the recent violence against them. But the Green Bay Police department is putting together their own kind of team, for another reason all together.
Every Saturday an event known as Bring Your Own 5 congregates at Fisk Park in Green Bay. It’s a basketball tournament put on for free and the local police are helping to make it happen.
The basketball rims at Fisk Park were removed a few years ago when trouble was getting too common in the area. But through a couple of relationships formed since then the rims and the players are back.
"This here is bring your own five," says Clayton Trepanier of Green Bay who has been participating in the pick-up game ever since it began last summer.
It's a weekly pick-up ball game put on by volunteers that anyone can come to and enjoy.
"My idea was to bring everybody together. Every color and every age," says the Program Director of Bring Your Own 5 Sharon Harper.
In attendance on a weekly basis is their biggest supporter, the Green Bay Police.
"This is an opportunity for us to meet with them on neutral ground and have a little barbeque, play a little basketball and enjoy a little camaraderie," says Chief of green Bay Police Andrew Smith.
You might be asking yourself, why the police though?
"I am from Chicago and we didn't trust the police. I didn't even like the police," says Harper reflecting on her experience with law enforcement before making it to Green Bay.
Harper says Bring Your Own 5 is all about building those relationships back up between cops and the community back up.
"I realized that these police are totally different. They want to help the community," adds Harper.
And by bringing police to the court their also shaking stereotypes that many hold about cops.
"If the kids think of them as friends they can talk to them about things going on in their schools in their community in their neighborhood," says Harper.
"Lately it's been a lot of criticism of police and citizens and all that and it just shows that all police isn’t bad," adds Trepanier.
Bring Your Own 5 happens every Saturday through August at one o'clock over at Fisk Park. You don't need a team to show up and don't be surprised if a cop jumps in for a quick game or two.
