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Scott Thompson: ‘Coffee with a Cop’ makes marginalized feel unsafe, so we don’t do it?

A downtown Hamilton café has cancelled a sit-down event that allows the public to ask uniformed police officers questions face to face. Don Mitchell / Global News

The Mulberry Street Coffeehouse in Hamilton has pulled out of an event designed to bridge the gap between the community and the police.

The cafe said it pulled out of the Coffee with a Cop event because it got complaints from some customers saying this said having cops present in the cafe invaded their “safe space” and made “marginalized communities” feel uncomfortable.

The first question is, what is it about cops that makes one feel unsafe, and, if so, who does make you feel safe? And the second: what kind of clientele frequent this coffee shop if cops make them feel unsafe?

No matter what differences of opinion are or your view on them, how will common ground ever be found if the two sides don’t communicate?

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How is a solution ever found, if a hand is slapped while reaching out?

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Also, I find it interesting the “marginalized community” appears to have put together enough of a political presentation to convince the owners to comply, leaving one to wonder what organization is really behind this.

It’s reflective of the attitude of the so-called “ungovernables” anarchist group that beat up Locke Street for no reason a while back.

So what has been accomplished here?

The Coffee with a Cop meetings and discussion that were to take place at Mulberry will still happen, just in a different coffee house.

The sad reality is the very marginalized the Mulberry is trying to protect will not be represented, therefore their voices not heard.

How sad.

Scott Thompson is the host of The Scott Thompson Show on Global News Radio 900 CHML​.​​​

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