SPOTLIGHT ON CIVIC LEADERS

Tell us about your early years. Where did you grow up and what was your early family life like? When did you know you wanted to serve as a police officer?

I was born in Texarkana, but my parents moved to the metroplex when I was one and I grew up in Murphy. Mom and Dad both worked for the postal service; Mom retired from the Richardson post office, Dad from the Garland post office. While we didn’t live in Richardson, we did a lot of business here and spent time in the area. I remember that the Promenade Theater was a $1 movie theater back then and a guy could go on a date for just $20, dinner and all.

I had never planned to be a police officer. During my time at Wylie High School, I played football, ran track, and found an interest in architecture. I took four years of mechanical drafting and architecture classes in high school, but I found myself developing an interest in psychology and criminology once I graduated from WHS and took classes at Richland College.

I then attended Sam Houston State for a couple of years. On a break from school, I came home and applied to the Dallas Police Department, hoping to find some type of temporary intern program that I could utilize in my studies at Sam Houston. That was the summer of 1987. The DPD hired me at twenty-one years old, but I always knew that I would go back to school. I spent more than thirty years at the DPD. During that time, I did indeed go back to school and received a Bachelor of Applied Arts and Sciences from Midwestern State University and then a Master of Science in Criminal Justice Leadership and Management from Sam Houston State.

What do you remember most about being a young man serving on the Dallas police force?

I worked in community policing after being a field training officer, then a detective in domestic violence for a year. After that, I became a child abuse detective. This job gave me the greatest satisfaction of my career, other than being able to impact other officers in a positive way. I was promoted to sergeant of the Southeast patrol on evening shifts and