Cops and cards: Program changes how youth view police [Video]

This is a good idea that more police departments should look into.

Some Baltimore City Police officers hung up their handcuffs Thursday and honed their game-playing skills.

A city police officer could be seen teaching card shuffling skills to a student at Guilford Elementary Thursday, while others helped with homework.

For the last three weeks on Thursdays, the officers have taken their lunch at the school. It’s part of the Big Brother, Big Sister program.

Students who seem to have formed a perception of officers from television find they are really not much different than other adults.

“It was fun for her to know I go home and cook dinner, go over homework with the kids, and she was like, ‘Really? I never knew a police officer did that,’” said Detective Sharon Talley.

But the stories about special assignments when big stars come to town are interesting.

“I think it’s kind of cool ’cause she’s been with superstars like people in Hollywood,” said Skyligah Hite.

Of course this helps the kids, but the police officers say it also helps the department by breaking down stereotypes and letting children know police officers are ordinary people.

“And some of them open up and talk, so you get a chance to interact with them. It’s just a great opportunity, person-to-person versus cop-to-kid,” said Deputy Commissioner Debbie Owens.

Read more and watch that story: Program Changes Perception Of Police Among Youths

Grandmother runs down purse snatcher with her car [Video]

Here is one from a reader. These stories are popular with readers… and I love them too. Another would-be victim comes out on top! This lady is a firecracker!

A 65-year-old Texas grandmother says she chased down a man who had just snatched her purse, hit him with her car and held him until police arrived.

“I was madder than hell is what I was,” Val Renfro said. “I didn’t think about anything else except, ‘He’s not going to get away with this.’”

Renfro had just finished shopping at Office Depot in East Fort Worth on Sunday afternoon and was getting in her car when Ricky Lee Sample stole her purse.

“The next thing I know, somebody just blindsided me,” Renfro said. She grabbed her cell phone, which she carries in her bra, and called 911 as he fled. “Someone just grabbed my purse out of the car,” she told the operator. “I’m going to chase him down.”

Renfro said she got in her car and screeched out of the parking lot. She spotted the man in front of a nearby movie theater. Her confrontation with the man was recorded in her 911 call.

“Where’s my purse?” she yelled. “You give it to me now. I got the police on the phone right now. You give me my purse.”

Sample tried to walk away.

“And I thought, ‘I’m going to lose this man, and the police aren’t here,’” Renfro said. “So he got right in front of my right fender, and I just pushed on the gas.”

She said he flipped up in the air. “I hit him,” she told the 911 operator. Sample kept running, she said. Like a scene out of a movie, customers leaving the theater joined in the chase. “Now there’s others chasing him,” Renfro told the 911 operator.

Later, when she saw the man again outside the police station on his way to jail, he apologized, Renfro said.

“Apology accepted,” she replied. “God bless you.”

Read more and watch that story: Grandmother runs down purse snatcher with her car