I’m one of the few officers in the department who lives here in the city, and I’m very comfortable raising my daughters and having my family here.  It is a community that is safe and it has a lot of resources.  I feel very fortunate to live here and to be able to provide our daughters with a place that has a sense of community.  As a Santa Claran, I feel that that sense of community has always existed.  Even as the Silicon Valley changes and advances, it is one thing that I feel hasn’t changed.

I like to get out there.  I love working patrol.  It’s the best police job there is, undoubtedly.  But I got through my eighth year here, and I wanted to do something different.  And my focus, I think because I grew up here and went to neighborhood schools, was to get involved in area schools and teaching DARE.  Being a school resource officer gave me that opportunity, to be in a classroom and teach the DARE curriculum to fifth graders, which I do a couple days a week.  It’s also just a chance to be around the high school and middle school kids as they are entering adulthood and teach them the law and counsel them.

Out on patrol, you’re busy all day, taking calls, but your interactions with people are fairly limited.  I could deal with someone for a few minutes or for an hour, but that is the last you will ever see them and the last time you’ll be able to affect their life, positively or negatively.  Whereas, when I go in and teach a DARE class, I’m in there for ten weeks.  It’s a chance to be a police officer outside of what they normally perceive officers to be.  Some kids are nervous, or some kids are scared, you know, it’s like any adult you have to deal with.  Everybody’s preconception of a police officer stems from what they know and what their experience has been.  So my goal as a police officer, especially when dealing with kids, is to help change any negative perception.  DARE has been a way for me to do that.

I think it is important when talking to anyone, as a uniformed officer, to as soon as possible, disarm them. Casual conversation works best, getting to know them outside of whatever you’re dealing with in the moment.  When you do that, I’ve found that you’re not only learning about the person, you’re learning about what their perceptions are about you and how that came to be.  Once you know that, I think it is incumbent upon me as a police officer to show them another side.  You may not change their mind about all police officers, but you can at least change their perception about you.  A lot of people don’t see officer, they see a uniform. Getting someone to understand that we are people too, that’s the hard part.  Some officers will come into that situation and they won’t take the time or bother to get to know the person.  That’s to the detriment to the larger situation with police in the community, because they are not going to come to the best resolution.

I never confuse getting to know and understand people with the central functions of my job, and so I do my best in any situation to let whomever it is know that we can talk as equals, but ultimately, I have to get my job done when we finish this.  If that means that I have to arrest you, then I hope you respect that.  I’ve run into several occasions where I dealt with people I grew up with.  Sometimes it was a good situation, sometimes a bad one.  I try to be upfront from the beginning.  There is a very clear delineation between what one has to do for this job and being friendly.  The second that you start letting that line blur, you begin to get in trouble with the decision-making process.  That’s the one thing you can never lose, because so many situations we face are dynamic, and you already have to know in your mind how you are going to handle it.

I recently had an experience, even after having been here for almost eleven years, where I had to perform CPR for the first time.  And this person I came upon was lifeless and didn’t have a pulse.  The very first time I have ever had to perform CPR was on someone that I knew, someone that I grew up with here.  So here I am, helping someone who is on the precipice of death, and they live.  But in that moment, there was someone helping me out with the CPR, and that person died.  So there’s the contrast that is a microcosm of the job: the euphoria that I felt saving someone’s life, and the ultimate sadness of another dying.  Underneath all of that, the essence of the job, is the opportunity for me to help people.  That is my job.  I get to do that every day. Whether you are here five years or twenty, or if you are a 30 year veteran, if you don’t go out and seize that opportunity, then really, shame on you.  Every day is an opportunity, so why not take it?  People do watch, and they expect service and demand accountability.  But all of those things make me want to do my job well, be involved in the community, and help the people of this city.