LOGISTICAL SUPPORT AREA ANACONDA, Iraq — Members of the 100th Battalion, 442nd Infantry, Police Transition Team are teaching community policing to their counterparts in the Iraqi police force.

"Our community policing goal here is to establish a better relationship between the community and the police so the community isn't afraid to go to the police to report crimes," Staff Sgt. Walter Kreitlow said. In civilian life, Kreitlow is a Florida law enforcement investigator.

Said Staff Sgt. William McCoy, an officer with the Honolulu Police Department: "Under Saddam Hussein, the police were more feared than respected. The public won't approach the police if they don't trust them."

The seven-man Police Transition Team has spent about nine months training Iraqi police officers in the town of Yethrib, north of Logistical Support Area Anaconda. The Iraqi police are trained at LSA Anaconda as well as at their police station and in the field. The team has so far trained 88 Iraqi police officers and accompanied them on dozens of day and night patrols within the 100th Battalion, 442nd Infantry's area of operations.

When McCoy sent photos of his joint patrols with the Iraqi police home to his parents, they noticed shoeless Iraqi children in the snapshots.

"It broke my heart to see little children in some of the pictures without any shoes on," said the sergeant's mother, Darlene McCoy, who manages a Goodwill store in Kitty Hawk, N.C. That prompted McCoy and her husband, Parker "P.J." McCoy, to make a purchase from the store.

"My parents didn't tell me anything about this," McCoy recalled. "I got this huge box in the mail filled with 170 pairs of children's shoes."

McCoy decided that members of the Iraqi police force should hand out the shoes.

"I thought it would be a good way to help tear down some of the walls between the local Iraqis and their police force," he said.

On Dec. 12, when the Police Transition Team — known among themselves as "The Yethrib 5-0" — issued hand-held radios to Iraqi police in the town of Yethrib, the Iraqi police agreed to distribute the shoes to area children. And when the Iraqi police, members of the "Yethrib 5-0" and a security force of infantrymen from Company E, 100th Battalion, 442nd Infantry set up a distribution point next to the Yethrib police station, the response was immediate.

Children on a recess break from a nearby school rushed over and were organized into a neat line, with the children who didn't have shoes at the front. More children arrived as the Iraqi police began handing the shoes out. The police and soldiers also handed out donated school supplies and candy.

"I'm happy to see the children smiling like this," Iraqi policeman Omar Kalaf said through an interpreter, as he passed out shoes. "Before I became a policeman I avoided the police; under Saddam bad things could happen if you got in their way. Now, there is no problem, but some of the people are still afraid. So something like this (giving shoes to children) will help people know they don't have to be afraid."

The emphasis on community policing appears to be paying off.

"Crimes are now being reported and Iraqis are reporting the locations of weapons caches and (roadside bombs) to the Iraqi police," Kreitlow said.

Said McCoy: "When we first started training the police here, there were places they were afraid to go, even during the daylight hours. Now the Iraqi police patrol wherever they want, whenever they want to. The Iraqi police are much more confident and the people have a lot more confidence in them."

The Police Transition Training Team is the only one in Iraq that uses National Guard and Army Reserve soldiers who are police officers in civilian life to teach the Iraqi police the skills they need to better protect and serve their neighborhoods, McCoy said.

The other five members of the Police Transition Training Team include: Staff Sgt. Clyde Bueno from the Honolulu Police Department; Staff Sgt. Barry Deblake from the Kaua'i County Police Department; Staff Sgt. Frederick Quinene, a retired police officer from Guam; Sgt. Frank Pangelinan of the Saipan Police Department; and Cpl. Mike Davis of the Carl Junction Police Department in Missouri.