CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Helen Greer-Garrett drifts off to sleep to the sound of gunfire in her neighborhood. And when police officers show up to investigate, she often views them with suspicion.

The 17-year-old junior at John Adams High School told her story directly to Cleveland police officers with the help of unusual moderators -- players from the Cleveland Browns.

"Talking to them personally, they have feelings. They don't want to be shot either," Greer-Garrett said of the police. "Both sides are on-guard. At the end of the day, they're like us. We just both want to go home and be safe."

Tuesday's community outreach program comes less than a year after a rift opened between members of the Browns and Cleveland police. Members of the football team joined scores of players across the NFL who protested police brutality by kneeling during the national anthem.

The Browns players' participation in the protests spurred outrage from the union that represents rank-and-file officers in the department, and it threatened to pull officers from pre-game ceremonies.

The team and police found a solution that involved using players to help create a bridge between officers and the communities they police. The meeting was widely considered to be successful and a ground-breaking approach within the league.

The Browns, the police and the school system reconvened on Tuesday to further the dialogue they started last year.

Officers and the students agreed that there needs to be a better understanding and a good-faith effort to improve the relationship between officers and the community. Both sides said they welcome more positive interactions with each other like they experienced on Tuesday at FirstEnergy Stadium.

"There was a lot of hunger and thirst by these kids to learn about how we can bridge that gap," Cleveland police officer Jamusca Britten said. "When I was asked to do this, I thought 'How can you say no to them?' But there's more work to do."

The police department has sought different ways to improve relations between the community and police since the city entered into the 2015 agreement to reform what the U.S. Department of Justice showed was decades of unconstitutional policing. That unconstitutional policing is the basis of much of the mistrust that officers face in communities throughout the city.

"If there are issues out there that we can help solve-- honestly a lot of them that we caused ourselves-- then we have to take the opportunity to solve those problems, and listen to your guys' problems," Cleveland Police Chief Calvin Williams told the students. "We want to listen to what you're saying."

Several Browns players-- including Briean Boddy-Calhoun and Christian Kirksey-- mingled with students from John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. high schools and police officers, who spoke candidly in small groups about the historical and cultural divide between police officers and minority residents in Cleveland.

Officers told the students that when they show up in their neighborhood, they have to contend with a host of issues, including if anyone may have a gun or pose an immediate threat to their safety.

The students said they feared the police because of police-involved shootings that have dominated the news cycle in recent years and a mistrust of police that built over generations in the neighborhoods where they live.

The Browns players, who are older than the students but younger than most of the officers who participated in the event, acted as mediators. The players said they were able to understand some of the issues that the teens dealt with because they themselves were that age not that long ago, yet have matured enough to be able to understand how the older generation feels.

"That's what we should be for them," Boddy-Calhoun said. "And they need to have positive reinforcement for coming today and talking with the officers, whether that's a shout-out on Instagram or replying to them" on social media.

The players stayed after the summit, ate with the students, posed for pictures and signed autographs.

Boddy-Calhoun said he jumped at the chance to get involved in the summit after his son was born in December. He also shared his perspective with the students because, at 14-years-old, he was arrested on a felony assault charge that ultimately changed his perception of the friends he kept, another issue discussed during the meeting.

He said speaking with officers regularly will help the students, like Greer-Garrett, who said she viewed officers as people who would "shoot-first-ask-questions-later" if they showed up in her neighborhood.

She also said being seen talking to police officers in her neighborhood could put a target on a person's back.

During Tuesday's meeting, one officer told the teen that he loved her and said she reminded him why he wanted to be a police officer in the first place.

She said another officer gave her his phone number and told her to call him anytime if she had any questions.

"They were really friendly," she said. "It opened my eyes. They're here to help, even if they come across wrong sometimes. They're human. Everyone makes mistakes sometimes."