On Thursday night, the City of Wasco and the Police Department reveled in its accomplishment of starting the department and held a meet and greet with the community at Wasco High School.
- Members of the Wasco Community were invited to the Wasco High School cafeteria to join the Wasco Police Department for an opportunity to meet members of the department and learn more about their plans to help the community and learn more about how the department came to be.
- 23ABC spoke with two Wasco residents in their late 20s who have lived in Wasco their entire lives. Both Lizveth Flores and Brian Solorio noted they're excited to see the department patrolling the streets of Wasco and they look forward to seeing the department build relationships in the community.
- Wasco Police Chief Charlie Fivecoat told 23ABC that seeing the plethora of people who showed up to the event was humbling and the department wouldn't be where it is today if not for a lot of hard work by various members of the community.
BROADCAST TRANSCRIPT:
I'm Sam Hoyle, your Wasco neighborhood reporter over the last eight or so months, I've gotten the chance to familiarize myself with the Wasco Police Department as they looked to start their first patrols in 43 years. You might remember those patrols started on April 18th of this. And you might be wondering why I'm saying all of this and standing in front of the Wasco High School Cafeteria, like did something happen? And yes, something did happen. On Thursday night, members of the Wasco community got their chance to familiarize themselves with the department as the city and department took a brief reprieve to hold a celebration of their accomplishment and meet members of the Wasco community at their grand opening.
Wasco Police Chief Charlie Fivecoat said seeing the public come out to the event on Thursday was humbling and noted the reason that the department and the public were able to celebrate on Thursday night was because of a lot of hard work by many people throughout the city
"This is not possible because of the work of one person or five people, it's what happens when a community and their agency come together and get behind a common goal to build something for everyone. It took every one of us to make this happen," said Fivecoat.
The evening started with a meet and greet where members of the public were able to talk with members of the department to gain a better understanding of what they do and how they plan to help the city.
23ABC spoke with two residents who've lived in Wasco for the entirety of their lives and in their minds, the city is now safer with Wasco PD out patrolling the streets.
"For me, this means that our community just got a tad bit safer, we needed a presence like this, our community is growing," said Lizeth Flores.
"I'm excited for it because it's going to focus on local communities. A lot of the sheriff's mostly rotated out so they weren't always familiar with the community I'm excited about the bond that we're going to be creating along with the policemen," said Brian Solorio. "I'm excited to see what the policemen are going to do here besides security, as well as the positive impact that they're going to have in our community because a lot of kids look up to these guys."
While Thursday was a good chance to meet members of the department, Chief Fivecoat said he wants the department to continue to keep building that relationship with the public and the way they plan to do that, just getting out there and talking to people.
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