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ing force, that we’re part of the commu- nity and we’re here to help. This was a great time to forge bonds with the com- munity and show that we’re all on the same team.”
The bonds did come. Or at least a whis- per of bonding did. Fitzpatrick reported that some residents just sat there and watched in shock. And he acknowledged that he heard some residents walking by softly say “thank you,” as if they didn’t want anybody else knowing they were showing appreciation for the police.
But a little appreciation was enough for now.
“We spent four or five hours doing this, and it was time well spent if it can help the City in some little way,” Fitzpat- rick reasoned. “Maybe this can help stop someone from going, ‘OK, this is a neigh- borhood where I can commit a crime’ because it’s too cleaned up around here.”
Markovich recognized this first out- reach with the church as a substantive beginning. For him, the reckoning in- cluded exchanges with half a dozen peo- ple from the neighborhood who cared enough to stop and ask what the FOP was doing.
Here was the genius of this endeav- or in full bloom. When Catanzara ad- dressed the bevy of clergy at the House of Hope Church in April, he envisioned
Lodge 7 President John Catanzara takes a break to chat with some of the younger members of the community.
opportunities to provide churches with the resources that could lead residents down this path of not fearing the police.
“A couple of them were standoffish at first, but after about 15 minutes of con- versation they came around and we kind of had some common ground,” Mar- kovich recounted about his experience with the residents. “I cleared up some misconceptions they had
about what police do.”
He found it to be the start of an educa-
tion process Chicago Police Officers have longed for. At last, residents whose skep- ticism had been inbred were seeing that officers are human, too.
“Because of the information they have been given, whether it’s by their relatives, friends or people in the neighborhood,
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