On a recent March morning, Officers Tyrrell Bagby and Michael Agron—both Camden natives—set out on street patrol. Bagby, part of the force since 2013, said he has to replace his boots every year because the officers walk the streets so much. In a city where less than half of high schoolers graduate, he not only graduated but went on to gain admission to Yale Medical School. He decided that he wanted to be a police officer in his hometown instead, to be part of the city turnaround.

Bagby and Agron greet every person they see on the street. The two said they never just sit in their squad car running speed traps. But if they do stop someone, they are trained to explain why, rather than opening with a demand to hand over a driver’s license or asking, “Do you know why I stopped you?” That approach is meant to help build trust. Bagby rattles off his script: “Hi, I’m Officer Bagby with the Camden County Police Department, I stopped you for speeding.”

Later as Bagby drove through North Camden in his patrol car, he neared a woman who was walking down the middle of the street. He slowed down and explained that this woman had been attacked by dogs as a child and was mentally ill. He said the officers know about her and let her be. He navigated around her.

The community policing here is even more radical than knowing residents and talking to them on the street. Last fall a man fleeing arrest shot a Camden officer in the leg at point-blank range, an incident captured on bodycam video. Then—according to the police—the suspect tried to shoot the officer in the head, but the gun jammed. The wounded officer was able to arrest the suspect, who now faces attempted murder charges.

The 18-year-old suspect turned out not to be from Camden, a persistent problem here where outsiders cause havoc that community-police relationships can’t solve. But for the following week after the officer was shot, the police department held barbecues at the site of the shooting. The message was intended to show the neighborhood that the police weren’t going to retaliate.