What the public does not know about Metro

Doug Gillespie

Wednesday, Aug. 7, 2013 | 2 a.m.

Every summer, Brian Greenspun turns his Where I Stand column over to guest writers for several weeks. Today’s writer is Sheriff Doug Gillespie.

On the walls of every Metro Police substation there is a credo: “Integrity, Courage, Accountability, Respect for Others and Excellence.”

Those words have no meaning unless the people who inhabit the building are living examples of those ideals. The average person might be hard pressed to recount a recent story they’ve read of an officer that illustrates this. While the tragedy of the day usually gets front-and-center coverage, there are so many stories that the public does not know.

What you don’t know is the story about the overly curious officer whose encounter with a young man on his beat sent his life in a direction that he never imagined.

Each day the officer would drive by an area mini-mart and see a young man standing there. After so many days, he approached the boy and asked what he was doing. The young man told him that things were so bad at home, he didn’t want to be there, so he just stayed out. The officer struck a deal with him: If the boy could finish high school, he would pay for college. And so the boy did. And the officer made good on his promise. Years later, the boy, now a man, is a firefighter because an officer bothered to intervene where no one else would.

You might not know the story about Officer Edward Maas, who took his own vacation time to bicycle more than 3,000 miles across the country to raise money for families of fallen officers because it was his passion to help.

There is Sgt. Christine Payson, who carries on the tradition of her deceased husband by continuing the fight to end childhood cancer. Each winter, she gathers toys for Christmas for charity and each summer she volunteers countless hours to Camp Cartwheel, a respite for children battling cancer.

Lt. Kathryn Bussell got her whole unit involved in Habitat for Humanity, and now the group spends off days helping to build homes for the needy.

And then there are those stories where the tragedy of the day and the hero of the hour are one and the same. Search and Rescue Officer David Vanbuskirk, a young officer, dedicated his life to saving countless lives. He had just passed the sergeant’s test and was excited to hit the streets to head up a patrol unit. His life, his future, his dreams were cut short July 22 while saving another. His story of heroism is a regular occurrence in that unit, but is often taken for granted until tragedy reminds us all that this is no ordinary job.

The life of a patrol officer isn’t ordinary, either. The officer is feared, respected, needed at a person’s darkest moment, yet resented at the same time. They are rarely patted on the back. They deal with grieving parents who can’t be soothed, aggressive drunks who can’t be calmed, drug addicts who lie, and are exposed to every range of human transgression. They are yelled at, called names, sometimes spit on — just because they wear a uniform. And yet, it’s easy to forget and bears reminding that the officers who patrol this community are a part of it. And despite the stresses of the job, many dig down even deeper and ask themselves, “How can I make a difference?”

Sometimes it’s in a small way like the officers at the Bolden Area Command who visit the University Medical Center children’s burn unit, or our patrol officers who hand out bottled water to the homeless on a hot day. There’s the pizza party held by one unit for a group of disadvantaged children because they don’t get regular meals in the summer. There are countless fundraising drives within Metro where officers dig into their pockets and help out. Hundreds of officers come out early in the morning in the cold winter to shop for Christmas presents with disadvantaged kids who might not otherwise get presents — and many shell out money from their own pockets to give the kid a little more.

Admittedly, there are a few bad stories that overshadow the good deeds of others. That is the unfortunate price of recruiting our officers from the human race.

But, an organization is only as good as the people who serve it. What you may not have known before today are the stories of the officers who serve the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department every day with integrity, courage, accountability, respect for others and excellence.

Sheriff Doug Gillespie heads the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department.