In a continuing effort to improve police and community relations, the Zone 5 station will open its doors to the community for an open house – open to everyone in Zone 5 and beyond.
“Citizens, officers, their families, lawmakers, anyone who wants to come,” Zone 5 Commander Jason Lando said. “We just want to give the community a chance to come down, meet our officers, see our station, see our equipment and help bring the community and the police closer together.”
Thursday’s open house will feature not only Zone 5’s equipment, but also specialty vehicles borrowed from the special deployment division.
“We should have the S.W.A.T. truck here, the bomb squad truck, some police motorcycles -- our vehicles will be available and our station will be open for people to just come check it out,” Lando said.
Zone 5 covers the eastern portion of the city, including Homewood, Larimer, Friendship, Garfield and Highland Park. The relationship between some in the communities and the police has been tense; this open house came about after hearing feedback from the community at public meetings.
“One of the recurring themes from the citizens was that they don’t feel like they know the police like they used to,” Lando said. “They want to get to know the officers -- the people that patrol their neighborhoods -- and we thought, what a great idea to just open up our station and invite people down and just make a nice evening out of it.”
Lando said this also gives the police a chance to show a side that is not often seen.
“Unfortunately, for the most part, we only get to see stuff on the news when an officer somewhere does something wrong,” he said. “I want the community to understand that they have some fantastic officers that work in this station, really in the whole city.”
This is the first in a series of community open houses at Zone 5; it takes place Thursday May 28 from 5 to 8 p.m. at the Zone 5 station on Washington Boulevard.
