Dublin Police Launch Summer Safety Outreach at Parks and Trails

At Dublin parks and along shared-use paths this summer, police officers are handing children freeze pops, offering families safety tips and rewarding riders spotted wearing helmets. The encounters are part of two initiatives launched in July 2026 — Cool Treats with Dublin Police and Cool Choices, Cool Rewards — that use brief, informal interactions to encourage helmet use, courteous riding and compliance with Dublin's updated micromobility rules under the city's Ride Smart. Ride Safe. campaign.

Residents spotted wearing helmets, buckling seat belts or making other safe choices may receive coupons for a free scoop at Johnson's Real Ice Cream. Officers also spend time on paths answering questions about safe riding behavior and path etiquette.

Under the Ride Smart. Ride Safe. rules, riders younger than 16 must wear a helmet on all micromobility devices, whether electric or manual. The devices are allowed on streets with speed limits of 25 mph or lower, as well as sidewalks and shared-use paths.

The programs put community policing in its most visible, low-pressure form. They also raise a broader question as Dublin prepares for substantial housing growth: whether soft engagement is the community policing Dublin's trajectory requires, or a pleasant distraction from harder operational and accountability questions.

Dublin had 49,328 residents in the 2020 Census and an estimated 49,456 as of July 1, 2024. Its 2023 Housing Study and Strategy projects 13,870 new housing units from 2020 to 2040, including 4,850 within Dublin's current boundaries. The city's 2025 Multi-Year Plan acknowledges that additional police staff will have to be hired to maintain the current level of service as the city grows.

That plan authorized 128 full-time positions for the Dublin Police Department, including 78 sworn officers and 50 civilian support staff. As of the July–September 2025 quarterly report, 118 were filled, leaving 10 vacancies. The plan projects the department will reach 136 total positions in 2026 and grow to 146 by 2030, and says Dublin averages 1.6 officers per 1,000 residents based on an estimated population of 50,000.

Response times have been stable. The department's average response time for citizen-initiated calls was seven minutes in the fourth quarter of 2025 and for the full year. The Multi-Year Plan says that average has remained at about eight minutes or less for several years. The department received 56,712 total calls for service during 2025, including 16,647 citizen-initiated calls.

Crime data through September 2025 presented a generally favorable, though uneven, picture. Reported crimes year-to-date were down 11.8% from the same period in 2024, falling to 307 from 348. Thefts from vehicles declined 33.3%, to 60 from 90, and burglaries fell 32.5%, to 27 from 40. Motor vehicle thefts, however, rose 21.3%, to 57 from 47.

Dublin does have established venues where residents can press those questions. The Chief's Advisory Committee, a public forum for community-police dialogue established by City Council in 2020, meets monthly and can meet more frequently if needed. Its stated purpose is to identify and recommend solutions to significant community concerns, including bias, bigotry, inequity, racism and broader public safety issues.

The committee's 2025–2026 priorities included mental and behavioral health crisis support, development of a youth-focused public safety academy, implementation of a police intern program for college students and attention to business-district problems such as theft, noise, vandalism and reckless driving. In January 2026, the committee discussed planning a mental health-focused town hall after noting an increase in suicides in 2025. A citywide community health needs assessment identified transportation, health care navigation, youth behavioral health and community connections as its four priority need objectives.

Those priorities underscore a gap between the department's public-facing summer programs — centered on ice cream and helmet compliance — and some of the more difficult concerns residents have raised, including mental health crisis response, youth behavioral health and business-district crime.

The department's community-policing work extends well beyond its summer outreach. Dublin has four Community Liaison Officers, and its Resilient Neighborhoods program offers free meetings with police officers about neighborhood-specific concerns. Dublin Police participates in National Night Out, a community cookout typically held from 6 to 8 p.m. at the Dublin Justice Center and open to all ages. Its public safety education and prevention programs cover crime prevention, neighborhood watch, traffic safety, personal safety, business safety surveys and emergency response training.

Dublin Police also works with the Dublin ACT Coalition, Dublin Schools and the Franklin County H.O.P.E. Task Force on drug prevention, overdose response, Narcan distribution and education. The department participates in Safe Space Dublin, a partnership with local organizations that creates designated safe havens for people experiencing hate crimes, intimidation or personal crisis. Chief Justin Páez has served on the Ohio Collaborative Community-Police Advisory Board since 2020, representing the Ohio Association of Chiefs of Police.

The case for the parks-and-trails approach is that visible, low-stakes interactions build familiarity and trust, especially with children and families, making residents more likely to call police when they need help and more willing to cooperate as witnesses or community partners. The skeptical view is that ice cream outreach generates positive optics without answering whether the department has enough staff to handle its call volume, whether response times will hold as the city adds thousands of housing units, or whether community policing reflects the mental health and business-district priorities residents have identified.

Residents can track those questions through several public channels. City Council meetings are held on the first and third Mondays of the month at 7 p.m. at City Hall; residents may submit comments online in advance and speak for up to three minutes on non-agenda topics. A May 26, 2026, council meeting included a Public Safety Briefing on its agenda. The Chief's Advisory Committee's monthly meetings offer another forum to raise concerns about mental health crisis response, youth programs and business-district crime.

Ultimately, Dublin's summer outreach will be judged not by the number of freeze pops or ice cream coupons officers hand out, but by whether it contributes to measurable trust, cooperation and public safety — and whether the department has the capacity and transparency to keep up as the city grows.