A small, peaceful protest appeared at an event which allowed the public to chat face-to-face with Hamilton police.
The fourth instalment of Coffee with a Cop happened Tuesday afternoon at Café Oranje downtown on King Street East near Spring.
The event took place a week after another downtown café cancelled the same encounter with officers, citing negative response via social media as the reason.
READ MORE: Downtown Hamilton café cancels ‘Coffee with a Cop’ event due to ‘community response’
Café Oranje owner Mina Falcone told Global News Radio that the Tuesday event went well with a lot of positive feedback despite the small demonstration.
“There was a peaceful protest outside by those who feel that perhaps it wasn’t appropriate or just want to highlight some of the issues that you know the police services do have,” said Falcone.
“But I was quite happy to have them there. I mean, I think … we need to talk about these things openly. We can’t just have a happy, smiling … event that’s all positive.”
Falcone says she agreed to host one of the ongoing Coffee with a Cop sessions prior to the Mulberry Street Coffeehouse nixing its May 14 event, and said they wanted to continue being a “safe space” going forward.
“I learned about it about two years ago and actually wanted to do it a while ago,” Falcone said. “I didn’t even know what had happened with the Mulberry one when I was approached because I had already thought that this was a good idea.”
Meanwhile, Trish Mills was one of the autonomous members who joined a counter event protest right out in front of the café. Mills told Global News the motivation for the demonstration was “to offer an alternative narrative than the public relations agenda the Hamilton Police Service (HPS) had.”
READ MORE: SIU investigating fatal police-involved shooting in Hamilton
“We wanted to draw attention to how these types of “community engagement” sessions from police are used to put friendly faces on the violence they perpetrate every day on the streets, from harassing and assaulting street involved folks and sex workers to carding and even how they respond to service calls.” said Mills.
Mills went on to say protestors considered their appearance to be a success.
“From the moment we set up, we had a lot of people stop by and engage, ask questions, and share their own stories.”
Hamilton Police’s Crime Prevention Unit thanked patrons who came out for the chat via a Twitter post. The service ran the event to coincide with National Police Week in Canada, which connects police with the public and raising awareness of the services they provide.
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