ATLANTA – Whether in a pickup game of basketball or a summer football league, cops have long challenged teenagers to battles of athletic prowess.
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Playing with kids on their own turf helps to build relationships, the officers say, and could help steer them in the right direction. But there is no going toe-to-toe and hand-to-hand in the middle of a pandemic, when health guidelines encourage separation of at least six feet.
Officers in DeKalb County, Georgia, have taken their outreach efforts to a new, socially-distant arena: online video games.
“This gives us an opportunity and a platform to bridge the gap between law enforcement and the community in a completely different realm,” said Detective K. Ricketts, a member of DeKalb’s Police Athletic League Plus (PAL Plus) program, adding that video games are a great equalizer. “We’ve had at-risk youth that have been in gangs with criminal activity and they will go home and play video games.”
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