ALBANY, N.Y. (NEWS10) — The law enforcement community has celebrated National Night Out on the first Tuesday of August for over 40 years. This year the Albany Police Department took over Swinburne Park for their largest event ever.
“It builds the strength between law enforcement and the community,” said Albany resident Kevin Moore.
National Night Out began back in 1984 to bring law enforcement and the neighborhood together for an annual community building event. This year kids got to enjoy a number of events from face painting to corn hole to basketball and much more.
One young girl said she was excited for the “Bounce house. The one with the purple thing.”
The kids also had the opportunity to meet the Mounted Patrol Unit, K9 unit for emotional support and got to ride a horse of their own. Not to mention all the food that was available, hot dogs, ice cream and more.
Natalie Moore said she tried the “pizza, popcorn, and cake bites.”
One woman who moved here 12 years ago form the Caribbean came to the event in the park with her granddaughter. “It makes people feel more comfortable relating to them because sometimes people are scared to approach them. I don’t know why, but as long as they have that rapport, you feel comfortable,” said Paulette Dussard.
Making a cameo appearance, McGruff the Crime Dog was there along with the ever-popular Oscar Meyer Wienermobile. Of course, the APD had a few of their other vehicles there as well. But Chief of Police, Brendan Cox said this year was different than years past, “Normally there are about 15 different events throughout the city, and we go from event to event and kind of get to spend just a couple of minutes at each place and say ‘Hello’. This year, our officers, especially from the Neighborhood Engagement Unit, recognize that we can really do better.”
The chief said they packed it all into one big fun party. “They’ve been working with different community organizers to make sure that we had invited the right folks to come in and to table, because this isn’t just about the police, this is about the community. This is about being together. So, yeah, this just takes a lot of planning, this takes a lot of coordination. And I give the credit to the men and women of the department for really putting this together and really putting the hard work into making sure this takes place,” said Cox.
Albany Mayor Kathy Sheehan was also at the event mingling with the community. She tells NEWS10’s Reporter, James De La Fuente her first National Night Out event was truly a rememberable one. “It’s unfair to talk about the first one because the first one actually happened to coincide with a historic rain event that actually shut down all the venues. I remember well, I was at the Delaware Public Library on Delaware Avenue, and the skies opened and everybody ran for cover. And I had to declare a state of emergency. We had flooding all over the city. So, this is much better, much calmer. And I do like the idea of having one main location, because to get from neighborhood to neighborhood to neighborhood is a lot of work. And what the police department is doing and the type of engagement that they want to have, having a central location is really, I think, a great idea.” Sheehan liked the new event design she went on to say, “I’m signing off on this. You know, look, the next mayor is going to have a lot of decisions to make, but I think that the chief’s decision to really focus all of the resources in one place has really brought out a huge crowd and people really seem to like it. And again, there are still some smaller events that are fan favorites that are happening in neighborhoods across the city.”
But the event is not all fun though, Chief Cox said the event is instrumental in community policing efforts, “While we’re certainly doing outreach to our very young kids, we’re also doing outreach to the older kids. We’ve had a goal here; we want to break down barriers with our very young that they know they can trust our officers.”
Cox said he wants to increase recruitment efforts in the city by hiring retired officers. He said they can do just about everything an officer can do but make an arrest. “New York state civil service created a special patrol officer. In essence, it’s a peace officer position. To be able to put them in positions that one, will free up other actual police officers that are current police officers to be more out on the street. But also, to be able to supplement units that do things like community engagement, units that do youth engagement,” said the chief.
The plan to hire retired police officers was approved by the Common Council on August 4. He said if all goes well the city has 10 open positions to fill, starting Wednesday August 6, 2025.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by PostX News and is published from a syndicated feed.)
