Peninsula 360 Press
At 1:00 p.m. on the hot afternoon of Wednesday, September 23rd, a multi-vehicle operation from the Sheriff's Office arrived at the intersection of Hampshire and Halsey Streets in the North Fair Oaks area.
The honking of police vehicles, as well as the brief screech of a siren, combined with the traditional sound of the ice cream cart.
People began to approach. The ice cream cart opened its doors and one of the marshals announced through a megaphone, "free ice cream, bring, bring your little ones for ice cream!
Amidst faces of surprise and laughter, children, hand in hand with their parents, lined up in front to ask for their ice cream, which was handed out along with toys by San Mateo County Sheriff Carlos G. Bolaños and Christina Corpus, commander of the Community Police Unit.
The reason we are here giving away ice cream is because the San Mateo County Community Policing Unit works very hard to build and maintain positive relationships with the community," said Sergeant Salvador Zuno.
A car driving down Hampshire Street pulled up in front of the line. Inside, a woman, with her 3-year-old son in the back seat, was looking around trying to figure out what was going on. Suddenly an officer approached her window and instead of asking for her license and registration card, he kindly offered her an ice cream for her son. Yes, chocolate please," she replied.
I was happy that my two children got their ice cream and that they see that not all police officers are bad or racist," said Adriana Rosas, mother of a 7-year-old girl and a 4-year-old boy. If more cops in the country were like these (pointing to the sheriff's deputies handing out ice cream), we would have less crime because people would support them, and there wouldn't be so many protests because there wouldn't be racist abuses," she said.
This is a way to remind people that we are here for them and when they see us in the patrol cars and uniforms, they feel confident, say hello and don't hesitate to dial 911 when they need us," Zuno said.
Community police also handed out ice cream on Barron Street, Dumbarton Street and the Sienna Youth Center.
