This work began on Aug. 16, when Sheriff Jim Quattrone invited Chautauqua County pastors to an informal breakfast meeting to ask them for help to find solutions and ways that would involve the Jamestown community to help better public relations. This invitation then grew to include the Jamestown mayor, city law enforcement, the YWCA, Black, Indigenous, and People of Color residents, and the Baby Cafe.

A follow up meeting was held on Sept. 8 at 11 a.m. at the Baby Cafe’s new office at 120 West Third Street. Multiple representatives of various Jamestown African American churches, the sheriff’s department, the mayor’s office, and Chautauqua County Government were in attendance.

Quattrone said the goal of these meetings is for the sheriff’s department to work together with the faith community.

“We want to get the faith community working together in an effort to get community involvement,” Quattrone said. “I’d like to say this was my original idea, but honestly the federal government has suggested getting involved with the faith community.”

Multiple churches and organizations were represented to help brainstorm ideas for collaboration.

Quattrone gave an example of an incident in Monroe County that involved a police officer that ended with a death. Monroe County has an advisory board, and Quattrone said the board is made up of pastors who stood shoulder to shoulder with law enforcement and talked to the community and found a way to resolve the situation.

“This is something we want to do and some of you were at the breakfast,” Quattrone said. “We are looking at Columbus Day weekend with Faith and Blue weekend, but that’s a specific weekend. We would like to see it go throughout the year as well.”

Grant Writer for Baby Cafe, Catherine Harrison said she was glad to have their organization be able to help in the department’s efforts.

“We went to the breakfast with Sheriff Quattrone, and he said, ‘let’s do something with the community that shows African Americans, BIPOC, marginalized communities that the police are just as human as we are’, and that’s the way I felt too,” Harrison said. “So I was trying to get as many together as we could for brainstorming and to see what we can come up with to have something for the community with the police department and law enforcement.”

Suggestions of holding community events were brought up, along with the idea of officers just stopping and saying hello during their rounds in the community. Pastors brought up that officers have to desire to be a part of the community and how much they want to be will make it easier to open doors to allow the department to be able to do that. Respect was also a big part of the conversation, and that respect has to be taught, not just for the community respecting police, but vice versa as well.

“One of our core values is unconditional respect,” Quattrone said. “And I talk specifically about our jail, because sometimes it’s really hard for our corrections officers to show that unconditional respect. What I try to drive home is that sometimes if our COs show unconditional respect, modeling it, and some of the people, sometimes the reason they’re incarcerated is because they don’t know how to show respect, and it might be the first time that they’ve been able to see that.”

Quattrone added that when the officers show unconditional respect, then they go home in a much better mood. He also talked about police reform from a few years ago, saying that officers have to take care of themselves as well, so that they can respect each other and those they might be arresting.

A situation was brought up where a teenager who was told about the meeting immediately assumed that if the police were involved then someone was getting in trouble, rather than meeting to collaborate with the community. This is another thing Quattrone and his department are working to change.

Other community events suggested included having officers supply diapers and make blankets for baby showers at Baby Cafe, and a safety program about car seats and Safe Child ID. Another idea suggested was a “touch the truck” event, where kids could come and meet with the officers and see what they do.

Trust is a big issue that the police face with the community and they are working to change that. Relationships between the department and the community are much better than it was 22 or 23 years ago, multiple people said, but they added that the relationship has to be intentional in trying to break walls down.

“I think one of the things we have to break from the law enforcement perspective is a lot of times we think we don’t have enough time to go do these things,” Quattrone said. “Initially it gets tough because we’ve got all of these calls backed up. At some point we have to get away from that and not to say ‘hey we’re going to put the calls on hold’, but if we can start doing these community connections, eventually it reduces the number of calls we’re going to be getting, but I don’t know how long that takes.”

Additionally, Quattrone said sometimes officers are not sure how to connect to the community.

“It’s like our kids, you know, sometimes they don’t know what they need and we have to influence them,” Quattrone said. “Sometimes we have to do that with law enforcement.”

Other event ideas included something in Jackson Taylor Park and something focusing on human trafficking. Altogether, there was a focus from everyone at the meeting on getting more churches and organizations involved, along with getting the word out about Baby Cafe. Plans are in the works to get more people involved in the Faith and Blue Weekend on Columbus Day, and to see if they can get more officers to bring supplies and blankets to Baby Cafe for an upcoming baby shower.