The Statesboro Police Department (SPD) is looking to continue building a stronger, more steady bond between themselves and community members in light of the current news regarding numerous police brutality stories.

SPD Professional Standard Sergeant Jake Saxon wants the Statesboro community to feel comfortable around law enforcement and feel that they can trust them through adversity.

“We do a lot to maintain a better community with the Statesboro community. We try to interact with the community with many different events,” Saxon said. “We want the community to feel like they can come to us and feel safe and also have an open dialogue about issues that they see and so we will be able to address certain problems and create better solutions.”

The SPD has reached out to their community members by hosting numerous interactive sessions events, including the recent Bulloch’s Night Out event on Sept.10.

They have also held citizen’s police academies, where accepted applicants go through a 13-week course on the ins and outs of the Statesboro Police Department.

According to USA Today, two out of three Americans believe that police officers don’t do a good job when it comes to fair treatment, force and accountability.

Sofia Aguilar, freshman chemistry major, believes that is difficult for some people to trust police officers based off what has been shown in the media.

“I can’t watch those videos on television. I feel like we are all humans and we all deserve respect, doesn’t matter if it’s a white cop and a black man or vise-versa,” Aguilar said. “People see these videos and they automatically assume that this is what they are going to get when they interact with a cop and that’s sad.”

Sasha Diederich, junior biology major, believes the relationship between the Statesboro PD and community members could grow with more community interaction.

“I would like to see police officers in the community and in the GS area a lot more. I would like to see more interaction between police officers and others,” Diedrich said. “Where I am from, they do things like police coffee hours, but here I don’t really see much of that here.”