Alice to host Coffee With a Cop on June 9

Residents in Alice had a chance to bring traffic problems, neighborhood concerns and youth-safety questions directly to officers on June 9, when Coffee With a Cop offered a quieter setting than the usual call for service. The event was built for open conversation, with no speeches, no preset topic list and no agenda beyond giving neighbors time to talk face to face.

That kind of exchange matters in Jim Wells County, where residents may know officers by sight but still not know whom to approach when a problem starts building on their block, near a school or along a busy street. A casual coffee table can make it easier to ask about speeding, suspicious activity, disorder in a neighborhood or how to reach the right person inside the department before a concern turns into a bigger public-safety issue.

Coffee With a Cop began in Hawthorne, California, in 2011 and has since spread to all 50 states and beyond the United States. The organization says 15 countries have joined the movement, and National Coffee with a Cop Day, launched in 2016 as part of National Community Policing Week, is held each year on the first Wednesday in October. The program’s statistics page says 97% of attendees loved the event.

Alice has used the format before. Police partnered with Starbucks in Alice for a Coffee With a Cop event in October 2022, then joined Chick-fil-A in Alice for a “Chick-fil-A with a Cop” event in February 2024. The Alice Police Department also announced a Citizens on Patrol program in 2022, adding another layer to its community policing efforts.

Taken together, those efforts show a department trying to build trust in small, practical ways, not just show up when something has gone wrong. For residents who do not usually call the station or stop an officer on the street, a coffee-and-conversation setting can be the easiest entry point into public safety talk, especially when the issue is a neighborhood concern, a traffic complaint or a question about youth safety. In a town like Alice, that low-pressure contact can make police feel more reachable when it matters most.