Coppell Chronicle Vol. 4, No. 20
Coppell Cops Count on COPS’ Support • Nigeria Aims to Seize Coppell Estate • Council to Consider $53.5M Worth of Debt • Irving Firefighters May Collectively Bargain
The articles in this edition are all related to fighting crimes or fighting fires in Coppell, Irving, and … Nigeria?
Coppell Cops Count on COPS’ Support
Coppell’s police officers get by with a little help from their friends in the Citizen’s Police Academy Coppell Alumni Association.
“‘Dedicated’ is probably an understatement. They’re just super passionate,” Police Chief Danny Barton said of the alumni association’s volunteers. “I can’t imagine what Coppell PD would be like without them.”
Barton and I spoke during Coppell’s Party in the Park, an event that drew thousands of people to Andrew Brown Park East on June 29. Just a few feet away, members of the alumni association were outfitting children with bracelets featuring their parents’ phone numbers, just in case a kid got lost in that sea of humanity.
That Child ID Booth is among several ways that CPAC alumni support the police department. They also keep an eye on residents’ homes during vacations, provide fingerprinting services on a monthly basis, and stock a cooler that officers can access before beginning their patrols. Last week, the alumni association thanked Coppell’s two 7-Eleven stores for donating several cases of bottled water and electrolyte drinks.
As you might expect, membership in the Citizen’s Police Academy Coppell Alumni Association is limited to individuals who have completed the Coppell Police Department’s eight-week Citizen’s Police Academy class, which typically begins in January. Members of the alumni association are then eligible to participate in the Citizens on Patrol program, aka COPS.
Dan Frey is the president of the alumni association. He told me it has about 100 members, and 36 of those participate in the COPS program. In 2023, the association’s members logged more than 5,890 volunteer hours, Frey said, which included 1,702 hours of COPS patrols.
“We love our community, we support the department, and we are honored and proud to have a means to continue our connection with the department and to be of service to our community,” Frey said during the City Council’s meeting on May 28, when Mayor Wes Mays issued a proclamation thanking the alumni association for 25 years of service.
I recently tagged along for a COPS patrol with Frey and another volunteer, Rick James. Although James shares his name with a famous singer, nothing super freaky happened during the hour or so I spent in the back seat of their marked SUV, which used to be a Coppell Police Department vehicle. At one point, a dispatcher asked Frey and James to check on a broken-down vehicle near the intersection of MacArthur Boulevard and Sandy Lake Road. By the time we got back over there, there was no sign of the vehicle in question.
Despite my uneventful ride-along, Frey said the COPS volunteers helped more than 130 stranded motorists last year and helped direct traffic around nearly 75 accidents. Another member of the alumni association, Misty Salvie, told me about a time that officers found a body inside a home, and COPS volunteers were tasked with transporting the deceased man’s dog to Animal Services.
“‘Citizens’ patrol’ sort of gets a bad rap, because it’s usually some kind of punitive [activity], or it’s people wanting to enforce their will on the population, and that is not what we have here,” Council Member Don Carroll said during the May 28 meeting. “This organization, and the partnership you have with the Police Department, is fabulous.”
Regarding that bad rap: Frey told me that firearms are forbidden during COPS patrols, even if a volunteer is licensed to carry. He said the last thing COPS volunteers want to do is make officers’ jobs more difficult.
Because the Citizen’s Police Academy attracts people with an interest in civic affairs, it comes as no surprise that the program’s alumni include several elected officials, such as former Coppell ISD Trustee Tracy Fisher, former City Council Member John Jun, and current Council Member Brianna Hinojosa-Smith.
“It’s just been really exciting to see everything that y’all have done and how much you pour your heart into what you do,” Hinojosa-Smith said during the May 28 meeting. “It just makes Coppell that much more of a special place to live.”
Nigeria Aims to Seize Coppell Estate
A judge in Nigeria has ordered that a Coppell estate must be forfeited to that African nation’s government.
According to the Dallas Central Appraisal District, the $3.6 million home at 100 Cottonwood Drive has been owned by a company called Deep Blue Energy Services Limited since 2019. Nigerian media outlets have reported the home is one of several properties linked to Godwin Emefiele, the former governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria. When issuing a final ruling on the forfeitures last month, Justice Chukwujekwu Aneke said the properties were “reasonably suspected to have been acquired with proceeds of unlawful activities.”