Every Friday from early July until late August, Syracuse police officers and teenagers face off. But the battles weren’t on the streets — they were on the basketball court.

This year was the first year of the Hoops and Heroes Program. Representatives from the Syracuse department of parks, recreation and youth programs, the police department and Say Yes to Education worked together to create the program. The goal was to increase dialogue between Syracuse youth and the police, said Jesse Brantley, youth recreation director of the parks and recreation department.

Common Councilor Chad Ryan, chair of the parks, recreation and youth programs on Syracuse Common Council, said he believes the program has the opportunity to be successful because it is different from other police-community dialogues.

“If you get these kids to go shoot hoops, shoot the breeze, be competitive and trash talk a little bit in a friendly way, they can look at the officer and be like ‘yeah that’s a normal person,’” Ryan said. “And the cops can look at those kids and see they’re good kids.”

This month, the program requested an additional $3,726 in funds from the Syracuse Common Council. Ryan presented the motion, which was unanimously approved.

The additional funds will be used to expand the program into the springtime and provide more clinical activities.

Currently, the program is limited to one summer league, Brantley said. Sixty high school students, between the ages of 13 and 15 years old, from every neighborhood were recruited and paired with six volunteer coaches from the police department.

In addition to being coached by the officers, the students were given the opportunity to speak to other city officials, including Commissioner Lazarus Sims and Syracuse Police Department Chief Frank Fowler. The students also had discussion sessions before each game, during which they spoke to each other about police issues.

“These kids get an idea of who the police are and it’s more personal,” Brantley said. “They develop a relationship.”

In addition to developing relationships between young people and police officers, Brantley said he hopes the league can have other positive effects on the youth in Syracuse.

“We don’t get a lot of athletic kids, we get a lot of kids who would have been just hanging out on a Friday, getting into God knows what,” Brantley said. “We want to give them a chance to get into alternate activity instead of being out, getting them off the street.”

The Say Yes to Education program is also involved with Hoops and Heroes. Ahmeed Turner, the program’s scholarship director, said it’s because Say Yes to Education officials believe Hoops and Heroes can introduce high school students to career opportunities within the police department after graduation.

Turner said the city needs to utilize as many options as possible to get students’ attention and engage them. He added that sports are always something that get teenagers engaged and thinking about life after high school.

But the program is particularly relevant given the current state between police officers and community members, Ryan said.

Nationally, organizations like Black Lives Matter advocate against police brutality. Locally, there has also been advocacy about the same issue. In July, at the same time the program was getting started, the citizens of Syracuse held their first local Black Lives Matter rally.

Ryan said he hopes this will be a different way to shed light on this issue.

“It’s a divisive time between police and the general public,” Ryan said. “I think most of our cops are trying to do the right thing and I hope this is the kind of thing that can help some people maybe see some light.”

Published on October 12, 2016 at 12:31 am

Contact Aline: amarti22@syr.edu