The 52nd Precinct rolled out its Neighborhood Coordination Officer (NCO) program, falling under its Neighborhood Policing Plan, a commendable patrol program in which a handful of cops will permanently stay within a segment of a precinct to derail crime (see the front page story on the introduction of the program).

The new role officers have adopted is nearly akin to a small-town sheriff—they know everyone and everyone knows them. For the pair of officers immersing themselves in the respective neighborhoods of Norwood, Bedford Park, University Heights, Fordham and Kingsbridge Heights, interfacing with the public can be awkward, maybe uncomfortable for both sides. But achieving that sheriff-like quality should involve an unwritten agreement between the police and those policed.

For residents, the understanding should be this: don’t confuse an officer’s kindness as weakness.

For officers, to win over the public means embracing the quasi-skeptic, dropping the us-versus-them angle, and ensuring your phone can accept text and voicemail messages.

For both, safe streets are a mutual benefit.

The first prong is relatively easy. Residents must know that the NCO program functions as a community-relations initiative that’s not an automatic program where officers cozy up with residents. An officer’s primary role is to keep the peace, eliminate crime, and answer pesky quality-of-life concerns. They’re not there to be a friend, though the courteous and helpful tactic, not being curt, can work in mending fences. This distinction should be underscored. There’s no get-out-of-jail free card should you commit a crime.

For officers, winning the public goes beyond seeing the familiar faces, and speaking to those who don’t regularly attend community council meetings or board meetings. One admirable quality in the NCO program is the creation of group meetings intended to meet folks less likely to attend a community council meeting. For the NCO program to be a true success, it requires officers to not just make nice with the frequent guests of community board and community council meetings but the ones who won’t step foot in a meeting and would not dare to help police.

Lastly, a component of respect must be established by the two sides. Neighborhoods have long seen the effects of sour police relations so much, it’s left a community scornful. But those scars can be softening some if communities learn to let go of resentment and start fresh. In southern portions of Bedford Park where gangs and crews call it home, for instance, letting go appears remote. High praise to any officer who can turn that neighborhood around.

Changing the perception is a tall order, of course. In a way, the program loosens the tribal grip that’s been linked to police since the Giuliani and Bloomberg years, where the wedge between the NYPD and the community was so great it saw a spike in the number of suits against the Police Department.

Part of this breakdown in community relations was largely due to the NYPD’s stop, question and frisk, a policy so overused during the Bloomberg years it became a closely-watched federal court case that the NYPD ultimately lost. With the NYPD’s Risk Management Bureau, a burgeoning internal panel, one can bet the NCO program will be closely watched to determine whether being officer friendly can decrease instances where police officers are shot at and lawsuits decline.