In Full Uniform, Officer Joins Basketball Game: 'We Do Love Interacting With People'
AURORA, Colo. (CBS4) - The call to Aurora Police was for a suspicious person looking into vehicles turned out to be a woman searching for her lost cat. Officer Kevin Manley responded and then pulled into the Expo Park parking lot to write a report.
"I looked in my rear view mirror and I saw the court lit up and everything and I saw people playing basketball so I was like, 'Oh let me put this report on hold real quick,' and go speak with them. When I came over they had this surprised look like they're in trouble, and I said no you're not in trouble or whatever," Manley said. "I asked who the best player was, and one guy said 'I am, come get some.' Say no more, you challenged me."
It was around midnight on Monday morning, but a large group was playing pick-up basketball. Manley, in full uniform, joined in. Onlookers pulled out their phones to record the action.
"When there's something like this that comes out of it, it's great. I didn't know it was going to blow up to be something like this," Manley said.
Aurora Police posted to their Facebook and Twitter pages. The video of the officer draining buckets has been viewed more than 15,000 times.
"It has a huge impact, because, like I said a lot of people look at us like we're robots, like we're not human. When they can actually see that we do have lives, we do love to have fun, they tend to open up a lot more and they look at you like they're your friend," Manley said.
Before becoming a cop, Manley played basketball into college. His love is playground pick-up basketball and he frequently would join games at parks at the previous department he worked for in Wisconsin.
Now he's hoping to join the game late on Sunday nights at Expo Park more often.
"A lot of people look at officers as negative people, or whatever. In all reality in all of us, we do love interacting with people. It's just who we are in general," he said. "I hope to keep it going. They said they're going to be back every Sunday so if we're not busy I'm going to bring a couple of my friends down and run a full court. Hopefully!"