UKPD and LPD
Alice C. Halley
No matter where one is in the world, there is bound to be different kinds of communities that one can become a part of. Communities can range from sports teams to schools, to jobs to extra curricular activities. When looking back on every community I have been a part since I was born, I realize that there is more than I thought there would be. I was a part of Olympiad Chesterfield's Competitive Girls Team, Kirkwood High School's Women Lacrosse, Kirkwood High School’s Cheerleading Squad, Saint Louis Urological Surgeons, Midwest Pool Management, Kirkwood Pool Lifeguards, St. Joseph's Academy's Alumni and many others. Those were all communities I was involved in back in St. Louis. In Lexington, my communities have changed. I am now a part of the University of Kentucky’s students, a student of the College of Nursing, a member of the Delta Zeta sorority and even a part of the Dance Blue dancers. I feel that being part of just those 4 communities here are already a lot for me to handle as a freshman. When looking around campus and around Lexington, I realize that there are even more communities I could be a part of if I had the time to put into them. I believe that one of the most interesting and challenging communities here is the police department, two to be exact: University of Kentucky Police Department and Lexington Police Department. I went into this project knowing very little about the two police departments here and wanting to learn as much about them as I could. I decided to conduct interviews, research and read any articles I could find on police departments. By the end of my research and interviews, I had definitely learned more than I could have ever wanted to know about the police departments in Lexington.
Since I am a student on campus, I decided the first interview I would conduct would be with an officer from the UKPD. I had always seen them riding around campus on their bikes and getting students in trouble, but I wanted to know what they were actually busy doing when they were working. University of Kentucky’s mission statement states:
“The University of Kentucky Police Department's mission is to promote a safe and secure campus environment for students, faculty, staff and visitors at the University. We will provide quality police services ethically, fairly and equally in partnership with the members of our community”(UKPD's webiste).
I met with Officer S. Dishion, an active member of the UKPD for 21 years, so I could learn more about the UKPD and what exactly they are involved in. When I went into the interview, I was accompanied with my partner, Ali Walker. We had a list of questions ready so we were prepared, but as the interview went by, we came up with more questions on the spot. Our questions started pretty basic but required more detail as time went on. When asked about the training he had to go through, Lieutenant Dishion described training as “an endurance test”. It was full of basic training in criminal law, penile codes, driving and traffic violations, firearms and routine traffic stops. After the end of the 12 weeks of training, he was done and ready to go out on the actual field. I have always heard that police training is a difficult thing to get through, but it can be a rewarding job once you have actually started in the field (Police Magazine). Dishion agreed with that; he said, “When you actually solve someone’s problems instead of getting him or her in trouble, the job is extremely rewarding”(Dishion, S, personal communications, November 6,2010). Everyone knows that with rewards come struggles. Although he had few complaints about his job, his main complaint was that the administration is slow; he claims that the slowness of the bureaucracy is the main problem within the UKPD (Police Magazine).
Every day that Dishion is on duty, he sees different things. One day he could see a severe traffic accident, and the next day he could be breaking up a party somewhere on campus. When we think about campus police, we think about them giving out parking tickets or ticketing students for underage drinking, but they do much more than we realize. Actually, on UK’s campus, the most common problem police work with here is theft crimes. On average, the officer on duty for the day will see about two theft crimes. Before this interview, I would have guessed the most frequent crime committed was a traffic violation or noise complaints for parties on weekends, but now I see that the campus officers are involved with much more than that.
Sometimes as a student, it is hard to see the good that police can do for us here on campus. We often see them as “party-ruiners” because we are college students. When you think of what college is, most people say it’s a lot of studying and a good amount of partying or social life. For most of my friends here at UK, they have had some sort of run-in with a police officer. The majority of their run-ins are at parties when they get broken up and the officers have to come and clear everyone out of the house. Usually, they are let go with simple warnings, which means they have no court date or fine to pay; however, sometimes that is not the case. My group of friends went out one night without me and got in trouble. They walked out of a house holding a cup full of alcohol and two undercover officers ran over to them. The cups were quickly snatched out of their hands and the next thing they knew, their drinks were being tested for alcohol content. All of the drinks tested positive for alcohol and they were all given citations for underage drinking, possession of alcohol, and public intoxication. When the officers left, all of them stood in disbelief and were so upset about making such a stupid mistake that would end up costing them almost $200. They all received court dates and luckily received diversion so all their charges would be dropped off of their record. Even though future employers will never know about their alcohol charges in college, many students believe it is just a waste of money and a way for the officers to meet their quota for the month. When I openly told my opinion to Dishion, he laughed. He said, “The funny thing about quota’s are that they don’t really exist. Everyone has this idea in their head that we have to get so many people in trouble each month when that’s not true”(Dishion, S, personal communications, November 6, 2010).
The more I really think about what the University of Kentucky Police Department does, the more I realize that I am glad that I am not part of the community. To be a part of this community, you have to be a certain type of person. I am the exact opposite of the person that would fit in among the current police officers. I believe that the typical police officer consists of the same traits throughout the different communities where officers can be found. Generally, I think of them as strong males who did not have a very good life before their careers started. The majority of experiences I have heard about involving my friends and family have been negative experiences, such as underage’s, rolling stop sign tickets and other driving citations. Even when they are supposed to be making a situation better or helping someone out, sometimes there is an attitude involved that comes from the police officer. I personally disagree with what the UKPD focuses on. For example, this year there were multiple armed robberies in a matter of weeks right on campus where our very own students were getting injured. Instead of focusing on catching the suspects, the officers were still out those weekends breaking up every party they could and getting students in trouble. Dishion even agreed with my thoughts and said that their department should focus more on serious matters than trying to break up a party every time there is one. Since there are many parties that are thrown off campus, I wondered if that was when the Lexington Police Department came in.
After interviewing with the UKPD about what their job is like, I decided to interview an officer from the Lexington Police Department to better understand the police officer’s community and how their job was different than an officer at a university. My interview ended up being with Officer Andy Myatt, a middle-aged male that has been working with the LPD for 6 years now. When we asked about the training he went through, he described it as 36 weeks of field training at an academy of law, which involved defensive tactics, weapons skill, use of spray and weapons, legal updates, first aid, and emergency vehicle operations (A. Myatt, personal communications, November 10, 2010). Lexington’s mission statement states:
“The men and women of the Police Department are dedicated to building a strong Lexington. Through the delivery of exemplary service with a focus on problem solving, we are committed to enhancing the quality of life in our neighborhoods by building a partnership with the community we serve”(LPD's website).
When Myatt was asked what was the most rewarding part of his job, he said that the flexibility was because there are so many officers for so many different sections of the fields. Because the LPD is a bigger community, they have more freedom with their flexibility and other things than UKPD does; however, both communities still deal with a decent amount of stress. I was interested to see how LPD interacts with UKPD, so I made sure that was one of the first questions I asked. Myatt said, “UK deals with the stuff on campus. We only get involved when the matters get serious or if something big involves a student.” When I asked him what his most memorable crime was, I was expecting to hear about a suicide or murder; instead, I heard a very different story. “My first day on the job is when I experienced my most memorable crime. There was a guy that robbed a Dollar General so we went to try and catch him and investigate. When we pulled up, we found a very large man fighting the robber” (A. Myatt, personal communications, November 10, 2010).
Like most officers throughout America, the most common ticket or citation that Myatt gives out are speeding tickets (New York Times Magazine). When I asked how people generally tried to get out of their tickets, he explained that they all had the same excuses, which consisted of, “I don’t want to go to jail”, or, “I didn’t know the speed limit here!” Unlike Dishon, Myatt plans on working with the LPD for many years because, “they have a good retirement plan”. Despite their differences, they both carry the same weapons and items on their belt when they are on duty, and neither of them have ever had to use a weapon on a person. Myatt occasionally has to point at a suspect to scare them and get them under control, but neither of them have ever even used their baton on someone. Myatt also feels that LPD has greatly surpassed the expectations that the Lexington community has put on all of the officers and their department; however, the community still has its problems that need to be worked out. Some of these problems include larceny on automobiles and breaking into cars (A. Myatt, personal communications, November 10, 2010). Myatt reassured me that the LPD was currently working on making their community stronger in those areas and continued to give me some safety tips when it comes to incidents involving my car.
I am not from Lexington, but I am sure that St. Louis Police Department and Lexington’s Police Department are similar. After talking to my uncle and Myatt, I realized how much more intense a regular police department’s training really is than a university officer’s. When I talked to Dishon, I thought his training sounded hard enough, but Myatt’s was more intense and in depth. LPD is another community I would never decide to become a part of throughout my entire life. I know my limits and my limits would prevent me from making it through the training. Also, I would hate writing people tickets and getting people in trouble all the time. I would be one of those officers who is always letting people off with warnings and that would cause me to lose my job because I would not be meeting quota each month. I am aware of the good that local police department’s do for the community, but in my opinion, it would not balance out all of the negativity I would be putting into people’s lives by getting them into trouble.
When I was in seventh grade, it was just my mom and I living in a house. We lived off of a main street in a nice neighborhood, so we did not expect anything bad to happen when we were gone for one night. My mom had gone out to dinner with some friends and I was spending the night at my dad’s house. I received a phone call from my mom around midnight and she sounds startled. I answered and she automatically responded, “Did you move things around the house today?” I said no and then handed the phone for my dad because I was caught a little off guard. My dad told her to get out of the house and call the local police department, so she did so. The local PD arrived shortly and investigated the house with my mom accompanying them. It ended up that someone had used a crow bar to break into our back door near the kitchen. At first, we did not think much was missing, but we slowly discovered things. My mom’s wedding ring was taken, all her diamonds and jewelry, my TV, all of my DVD’s, my jewelry, and even my candy stash in the kitchen had been stolen. The funniest thing about this situation was that my mom had kept all of my baby teeth in a velvet bag in her jewelry box. When they stole my mom’s jewelry, they took all of my baby teeth too.
Once we had a list of everything that was stolen, the officers helped us begin an investigation and were actually really helpful. The next night, we stayed in the house my mom was paranoid and claimed she heard something downstairs, so she called the police; they rushed over and searched the house for us and sat with her to try and calm her down for a while. My only experience with police in St. Louis was a good one, and they were actually helpful. In my opinion, to be a good officer, I think you need to be supportive and comforting at times when someone actually needs you.
I believe that your age has an influence on how you see police departments that are involved in your life. For example, when you are a helpless, old lady, you are going to rely on the officers a lot more than if you are a teenager who is going out to parties all the time. After researching this topic, my opinion on LPD and UKPD did not change all that much. The only part of my opinion that really changed was about how hard their training really is, especially for the officers in LPD. I came in knowing that this was a community that I would never find myself in and I proved myself right.
After conducting all of my research and actually seeing what each community does, I came to the conclusion that the University of Kentucky Police Department and the Lexington Police Department do not work together as much as I thought they would. I also did not know that it was much easier to become a member of the UKPD community rather than the LPD community. I am going to work on trying to change my opinion about officers because I often do not see them as real people. I think of them as people who are out to get people in trouble, when that is not the case all the time. They are all people just like me, with families and friends who love them. Even with having an uncle as an officer, it is still hard for me to see that. I have more respect for both of these communities after doing research and commend them for their hard work on campus and off of campus. There will always be room for improvement, and as long as I see them trying to better the communities, then I will not complain about the little things I see around me that need fixing. The people involved in police departments all over the country are not respected as much as they should be. I hope that one day that can change and they can have people think more highly of them.
References
Dishion, S. (2010, November 6). Police Officer, University Of Kentucky Police Department. Interview.
Huntington, R. (2004, October). Old Cops Known “Stuff”. Police Magazine, 120, 20-23.
LeSage, J. (2005, June). Recruiting Replacements. Police Magazine, 135, 22-31.
Lexington-Fayette Urban County Govt. (2009). Division Of Police. LexingtonKY. Retrieved November 13, 2010, from http://www.lexingtonky.gov/index.aspx?page=67
Myatt, A. (2010, November 10). Police Officer, Lexington Police Department. Interview.
University Of Kentucky. (February 2, 2009). Police Department. University Of Kentucky. Retrieved November 13, 2010, from http://www.uky.edu/Police/
Zezima, K. (2010, December 4). State Cuts Put Officers on Front Lines of Mental Care. New York Times Today, pp. A32.
Picture 1: http://www.uky.edu/Police/
