Wake Forest's own boys in blue are about to get a touch more familiar with their locale, courtesy of their newly minted Police Chief Julius Jefferson. This Saturday, as families disperse onto the lush greens of E. Carroll Joyner Park for a cinematic treat under the stars, they'll be rolling out the proverbial welcome mat for Chief Jefferson from 6:30-8:30 p.m., and whispers around town are that he's quite the conversationalist.
Now, this isn't your typical stiff-collared meet and greet — Jefferson will thread his way through the crowd, making his presence known in what's billed as an informal chinwag just outside the entrance to the park's amphitheater, where community members can grill the new chief on his blueprint for peacekeeping in Wake Forest, as outlined in an announcement on the Town of Wake Forest's official website earlier in the week, they'd certainly seem keen on charting a copacetic course for the police-community relation ship sailing ahead.
This pow-wow is sandwiched neatly between a pre-movie shindig for the kiddos at 7:30 p.m. and the main event, a screening of "Mufasa: The Lion King" when the moon claims the sky at 8:30 p.m.—so if animated royalty doesn't light your fire, perhaps civil engagement will. Don't fret about those rumbly tummies either; a gaggle of food vendors will be dotting the venue, peddling all manner of munchies and gulpables to keep spirits high and blood sugars stable.
Chief Jefferson, with a tenure at WFPD nearly as long as some of our readers have been binge-watching reruns of "Cops," stepped into his new shoes on July 1, after the previous chief, Jeff Leonard, tipped his hat goodbye earlier this year, the whispers in the department halls speak of Jefferson's hands-on approach as a refreshing turn, a harbinger of a new epoch in community policing, which is—frankly—what every town could use a bit more of, if you catch my drift.
