Laura Myers

My nose was always buried in a Nancy Drew book, I would stay up late to watch Unsolved Mysteries, and I wrote my 5th grade book report on a biography of J. Edgar Hoover. I’ve always been drawn to the idea of every day being different and getting to help people and (hopefully) make a difference.

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I have been a police officer for 15 years and currently work for a large county department that borders Washington, DC. The area where I work is a very densely populated and diverse community and we are extremely busy. In 2013 I was named Crisis Intervention Officer of the year by the Montgomery County Crisis Center after I responded to a suicide in a home where children and extended family were present. I had to manage a very chaotic and traumatic event by preserving the scene, providing information and comfort to the family, and coordinating the arrival of grief counselors from the county Crisis Center.

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Training in Crisis Intervention is an important part of the work because so many of the calls we handle are with people who have mental illness, are in crisis, or are dealing with a traumatic experience. Learning how to better identify and assess their needs and then having tools in our tool belt to deal with them more effectively ultimately leads to safer situations and fewer injuries for both police officers and citizens.  The thing about being a police officer is that we are very rarely dealing with anybody who is having a good day. I might be on a call I’ve run a thousand times before, but for the people we are dealing with, this could very well be the worst day of their life that they will remember forever. And if I’m going to be a part of that, I  want them to be able to look back and remember that the officers they interacted with were kind and treated them and their family with respect.

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