Author: Bryan N.

Rivera
Date: March 28, 2018

What I’ll Do As “Police Commissioner Day”

Before I begin my essay and go into details of what I’ll do as police commissioner please

allow me to introduce myself. My name is Bryan Rivera. I was born and raised in Spanish

Harlem. My family and I were taught not to trust police officers duo to bad media coverage that

police officers were getting nut just from New York but around the United States and even the

world. At the age of 7 I experienced my first bad news. This news wasn’t my mother telling me

that I couldn’t get a toy I wanted or someone telling me I couldn’t get candy I wanted from the

store. This new was the type of news that put adults to tears. I found out that my father passed

away. This bad news came to me at such a young age. I was still trying to make since of things

about life and now life threw me my first curve ball. This news hurt me then and still bothers me

now. While in the process of moving to the Bronx my mother told me “When you see a cop

make sure you’re not wearing a hoodie, keep your hands where he/she can see them, speak as if

you were talking to me with respect while knowing he/she has authority over you and please

whatever you do never act suspicious”. As a child I never understood why my mother said these

things, but as I got older I finally understood why. She taught me these rules because of the bad

media that officers were getting. She didn’t want to bury her son like she did my father. Now that

my reader has met the author, let me tell you how I feel around cops now.

Now as a 15 year old young man I feel I can be safe around cops knowing they’re

everyday people doing their jobs. After meeting many 40th Precinct officers I found out that

police officers are regular people who have families. Police officers are in a type of job that is
very challenging and stressful. Helping people is not easy. One person who really inspired me to

trust cops is Officer Danny Lopez of the 40th precinct. Before meeting Officer Lopez I never

really had bad experiences with officers. I was going by word of mouth. Although I feel

comfortable around police officers now, it wasn’t always like that. It took me to meet Officer

Lopez who explained to me and other teens how it is to be a police officer and their life

experiences before being a cop that opened my eyes.

As commissioner for the day I would implement a program that would encourage officers

to not only talk to the people in the community they serve but meet them in a way that would

give them a better bond. This program would let police officers play many different sports and

have activities with the community. Having this program will help reinstate the bond with police

officers, the media and communities around New York and maybe around the United States.

This will help put favor of the NYPD back into the community, in which we need. The favor of

the NYPD in the Bronx community shows trust, trust shows a bond a bond leads to better media

coverage on police officers. A big factor in this issue is that police officers are being negatively

portrayed as nothing but people who like to abuse their power. It took community policing to

change my views on officers but the only way we can change everyone’s view is by getting more

positive media coverage of police officers.