The Perry Police Department has joined a new project in an effort to develop closer relationships with the community.
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Perry police are looking to go beyond their normal call of duty to build stronger bonds within the communities they serve.
Through a program called the trust initiative... they're hoping to take a proactive approach to developing those relationships.
41nbc's peyton lewis has more.
"we have terrific community support already in perry and i think a position of trust with most of the community, but i expect it will just get better as a result of what we're doing."
The perry police department joined a new project in an effort to develop closer relationships with residents.
The project is called the trust initiative, and was started by the georgia association of chiefs of police.
The goal is to invite law enforcement agencies to commit to building stronger communities and provide avenues on how to do that.
Mayor randall walker says he believes the trust initiative c1 3 b13 will create more communication between residents and those who serve them.
"well i think that we need to understand the needs of our citizens and communicate with them, and then get our police officers in those communities so that people do trust them, and what kind of relationships do we need to build throughout our community so that we can continually build on that trust."
The perry police department is working with mayor walker, a city council member, and 4 community leaders to create a trust task force.
The group has met a few times to discuss ideas on how to grow the project, and will continue to meet and create new ideas each month.
Chief steve lynn says the project fits perry's policing style perfectly.
"we have a community policing philosophy of treating people appropriately, perry is one of 7 police departments in georgia to join this initiative.
The lagrange police department founded the project after looking at the lynching of austin callaway in 1940.
This caused historic distrust of their police officers, and they wanted to address and solve the problem.
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