GRAND PRAIRIE, Texas — Grand Prairie Police launched a new radio show this year aimed at bringing its Asian community and officers together.
The show is called “Police & Citizen” on Radio Saigon Dallas, “the oldest and largest radio station in town,” according to owner Tina Do.
Residents call in and ask questions during the show – anything from open carry laws to how to navigate getting pulled over by the police – and GPPD Officer Thai Nguyen answers.
“We speak the language. They're more comfortable that way,” Nguyen said.
Nguyen is also bringing the police and residents together at in-person meetings organized through the new GPPD initiative, Ket Hop.
Ket Hop means together or united, but in English, it sounds like “keep hope,” according to Nguyen.
“In the past two years with a pandemic, there was hate crimes targeted towards Asian American,” Nguyen said. “So we would like to tell them that we have their back. We're there to protect. We're there to help.”
Grand Prairie police isn’t the only department making an extra push to reach their Asian communities in 2022.
“I may be their only – first and only -- contact with law enforcement and so I want to make that positive,” Carrollton Police Officer David Lee said.
Lee is the school resource officer at Hebron High School where one quarter of the student body is Asian American.
“I can understand a lot of their cultures and the kind of things that they deal with growing up,” Lee said.
This is not just a career. For Lee, it’s a calling.
“So, I'm Korean. And culturally, especially over in Korea, they're not respected as well,” Lee said. “That's why you see a lot of doctors, lawyers or something like that, but not necessarily, law enforcement, which is servanthood.”
It’s hard to recruit Asian officers, Carrollton police admit. So having Lee at Hebron High School is valuable.
“Law enforcement in the Asian community is kind of taboo. And so, when you talk to first generation families, law enforcement is not what they really kind of talk about,” Lee said.
Talking and creating conversation--that's exactly what both the Carrollton and Grand Prairie police departments hope to accomplish this year.
“The positive light that you could be somebody else: That's really what I want to be,” Lee said.