At Snappy's Catfish every customer is special, but you can forgive owner Terryon Jefferson for treating Dallas police officers like VIPs.
"What they did allowed me to be in here right now," Jefferson said. "It says a lot when you have the DPD backing you on a whole other level."
A little more than a year ago Jefferson was running his restaurant out of a cramped storefront, with no room for customers to dine in. Snappy's has been a favorite for officers in the department's Southwest Division, so Sgt. Gerald Runnels reached out to the Dallas Housing Authority to try to find Johnson a better location.
The city found a new location on Singleton Boulevard for Johnson, but the officers were not done helping him yet. Senior Cpl. Willie Parham remembers the day Johnson got the keys to his new location vividly.
"The officers personally came over here and helped him move all of his property over here, cleaned the restaurant up, and from then on it's been great," Parham said. "We do it because this guy has been good to us."
Parham said this is what community policing is all about for officers -- investing in people and sacrificing their time and energy to build a better Dallas.
"It's a community thing. We officers took a vow to help the community. Even though we don't live here, we have a vested interest in the community," Parham said.
