While social distancing has physically separated us for the time being, one law enforcement officer is using his time away from others to unite the law enforcement agencies of southeast Iowa. Louisa County Officer Joe Bloomberg believes this year has been difficult for many individuals, including law enforcement officers. So, in an effort to bring together agencies across Iowa, and even Illinois, he created the Louisa County Love Initiative. 

 

His goal is simple, show love and solidarity between law enforcement agencies through generosity and good deeds, “There’s a couple of different definitions of what solidarity means. The best one that I came up with is the shared interest objective that creates a psychological sense of unity. That’s why I made it that way. I just want to show other agencies that it’s not just in their own department that they have a law enforcement family with, that there’s  other agencies that are out there with common goals and that we need to show support for one another. That we are one big law enforcement family, not just with their own agencies, but expanded families with other agencies as well.”

 

Bloomberg started the initiative by treating the Danville, Illinois Police Department to pizza. After supper, he asked that they pay it forward and treat another law enforcement agency to lunch or supper, continuing to unite the various agencies across the midwest,  “It’s a tough time right now for law enforcement with what’s going on right now. In my mind, it’s probably one of the toughest times of my 20 year career in law enforcement. It takes a psychological and physical toll on you with this job, it really does. That’s why I kind of started this initiative in this tough time. I just want to show some love and generosity and unity from agency to agency.” 

 

So far, he says he’s received positive feedback about the initiative and hopes one day, law enforcement agencies in all 99 Iowa counties will be part of the initiative.