What do you say to a kid who just discovered his bicycle was stolen the day before his birthday?

Well, if you’re a member of the Suffern Police Department you might play a quiet round of pass the cap with fellow officers and surprise the boy with a brand new bike.

Local Suffern resident who got a brand new bike for his birthday – to replace one stolen the night before his birthday.

This past week, the Suffern Police Department reported that a patrol officer encountered that very incident — young Suffern boy “celebrating his 10th birthday” had his bike stolen from the house the night before. Suffern officers “decided to pool their money and took the boy to Walmart” for a brand new ride, topped off with a trip in the Suffern Police DARE truck.

The outreach by the officers is not only a bit of good community relations for the department but follows several other recent samples of police work cited by Suffern Police Chief Clarke Osborn that illustrate the department’s effort at Local Policing 101.

Chief Osborn in a Note From the Chief on the department’s Facebook articulated how every interaction between Suffern Police and residents is important for the well being of the community.

“From the Suffern officers . . . who assisted a mother to get her 6 yr. old daughter’s finger out of a pet hermit crab’s grasp (ouch!), to the officers who took the extra time to help a senior citizen who had fallen on a sidewalk, to the officer who called the parent of a teenager to address their bad driving habits so they can stop them before a tragedy occurs, these are some of the things that our department proudly does on a daily basis.”

From Local Policing 101 – the Broken Windows Theory says fix the little things before they grow big.

Chief Osborn is a proponent of “Quality of Life Policing” — or the “Broken Windows Theory,” which holds that by proactively attacking small issues dealing with social disorder – public drinking, loitering, vandalism – the department and officers are able to prevent more serious issues from developing.

Osborn periodically publishes notes on policing on both the Suffern Police Facebook page and Local Policing 101, a Facebook page dedicated to promoting the positive aspects of law enforcement. Osborn’s emphasis on community policing techniques and engagement have certainly influenced the Suffern Police Department, who quietly patrol the 2.5 square mile village of some 14,000 residents.

“I like to think that in Suffern we go out of our way to help people as in reality policing is a “people” business where we basically deal with people in times of need and crisis,” wrote Osborn about the department’s efforts to meet the particular needs of the Suffern community — a top down influence that goes a long way in explaining why a 10-year-old boy might receive a new bike from members of the local police department as a birthday gift.

“The bottom line is that not everyone is going to like our responses because plain and simply we are in an enforcement role as police officers,” Osborn said, “but that doesn’t mean we can’t continually try to do the right things for our community.”