Last week, Department of Safety officers began distributing trading cards with USC athlete bio and stats as a method to connect with local youth.
This effort led by Elizabeth Carreno, head of community relations for DPS, and DPS Chief John Thomas is modeled by a program Los Angeles Police Department officers used to carry baseball cards for kids to collect.
“It humanizes the officers in a way that is difficult to do,” Carreno said in an article in the Daily Trojan. “The uniform can be intimidating, especially for the younger kids, but that’s not what the officers are there to do. We want to break down that intimidation and make the community comfortable with our officers.”