The Boston Police Department has unveiled an $89,000 ice cream truck as the newest addition to its patrol fleet.
The truck, adorned with balloons and Boston police decals, was introduced Monday at police headquarters in the city’s Roxbury neighborhood. It will be used as part of “Operation Hoodsie Cup,” a community policing initiative that has distributed roughly 120,000 free ice cream cups since 2010.
Commissioner William Evans says he would’ve called you crazy if you told him 30 years ago that the BPD would have an ice cream truck as part of its fleet, but the goodwill it generates is “undeniable.”
The truck was purchased by the Boston Police Foundation. Local dairy company HP Hood has donated all of the ice cream for distribution.
The Associated Press contributed to this article.
They’ve been doing that here in Boston for 15 years. Mostly in high crime areas. As usual not in what’s left of the Irish, Italian or other working class sections of the city.
Seems like a lot of money to spend for only 120,000 free ice cream cups given since 2010..
That is only 20,000 a year, less than 1800 per month. Seems like for an $89,000 investment, they need to step up the program.
Boston PD is doing a great service for the community. I use to be an Air Force Recruiter in Boston and They always helped me when I needed it.
My community’s town council, incredibly organized, has a block captain for every street that has every residents contact & vica versa. In times of trouble etc. our fire Dept, police etc. can message the council and within minutes they will message the community and then call every block captain & the block captains will then personally call every resident in their “block” to make sure they got the message. Increadably effective. I was woken by my phone repeat ringing at 2 am. It was my block captain telling me there was a fast moving fire and to immediately wake my family & prepare to evacuate. My community woke up every resident a good & valuable 20 minutes before police evacuation crews got there with their loud, loud speakers calling for evacuation and going door to door. Residents ahead of the game made their job of making sure houses were securely buttoned up, electricity and propane were turned off as every human was accounted for and horses & large animals in need of evacuation aid were pinpointed. Additionally my wonderful town council always requested of the police our community be assigned an ongoing outreach officer which allowed the community to have a steady two way conversation and relationship with an officer who knew our community like the back of his hand. Council several times every year had our outreach officer speak at community events and educate us on dos and don’ts and WHY! and the nitty gritty details that came out of these events on both sides made positive changes on both sides reaching the ultimate goal of everyone committing to intelligently, eyes wide open, proactively defending our community’s peace and Harmony …From a unified all hands on board, everyone knows their role in the plan.. from STRENGTH that yes guidance and cooperation of our police helped build…. My community ended trespass of loud, drunk teens that came in gangs at night and had plauged the area for 50 years…gone… we virtually ended illegal dumping that also had plaged forever…we ended use of our back roads by car theft rings and put our sweat into building trails that citizen groups we organized regular use to patrol our canyons etc. on horseback and nature hikes and even routinely have nature experts in a variety of areas lead informative hikes. Education, walking and talking side by side with your neighbors, watching each others back, proactively protecting and bettering your community, making a difference the strong unified peaceful way is fun and feeling safe surrounded by peace is very, very rewarding.
Seems like a lot of money to spend for only 120,000 free ice cream cups given since 2010..
That is only 20,000 a year, less than 1800 per month. Seems like for an $89,000 investment, they need to step up the program.
Female tax payer. Your description of your community’s interaction with your PD and FD is the most positive thing I have heard in ages. Please pass this along on other social media and include a way for other interested cities to communicate with yours for the model.
Thank you.
Got wordy off above. Point is my quiet peaceful community that put in the work to build a personal win-win relationship with our officers to achieve that and everyday are proactively alert to maintain and protect that, would abhor a noisy ice cream truck, like all other disturbances of our peace. While I appreciate its symbolism of police goodwill, rewarding bad neighborhoods with free ice-cream (without any backbone at education or meaningful dialogue), isn’t that just reinforcing the welfare crowds sense of entitlement to free handouts from the establishment? Better use of all that generously donated ice cream by Local dairy company HP Hood, would be to hold “ice cream socials” ( borrowing from my successful community who does this religigously year after year) in a neutral friendly to all venue ( ours are held at the local fire department) and yes have the police give the community an educational but brief presentation on topic of interest to all, followed by taking questions from those comfortable asking in front of piers. Then ice cream is served and everyone is free to talk to everyone, meet a neighbor, talk to an officer face to face off the record, watch firemen happily lift little boys into their prized trucks for birds eye view of controls….I know these “ice cream” events educate both sides and open door after door to unity about what really matters.