By Jillian LeBlanc  |
| Officer Cartwright looks upon a patrol car outside the window. (Photo by Jillian LeBlanc) |
Steve Cartwright, 27, grew up on Girard Avenue in East Aurora, a street he now patrols in his police cruiser. Despite childhood desires to become a veterinarian, Cartwright chose a different path, one that required less rigorous schooling.
Cartwright started his police training early by taking criminal justice courses at BOCES in high school. From there, he went on to Hilbert College where he got his bachelor’s degree in criminal justice. After graduation, Cartwright was hired by the East Aurora Police Department (EAPD), which paid for his training at the New York State Police Academy.
Cartwright then began to study the law for the next six months, evaluating vehicle and traffic law, criminal procedural law, defensive tactics, firearms, DWI detection and testing, CPR, and first aid. After passing every test, Cartwright settled into his career protecting his hometown.
A: In the public’s eye, you can’t do anything right no matter how hard you try. The public generally only gets one side of the story, only what they hear on the news, or read in the newspaper, especially about officer involved shootings. I’ll tell you, at least in my experience, there is no police officer – in this general area anyway – that signed up for the job and is looking forward to getting into a shooting.
There is more than one life that is affected that day. Heaven forbid somebody dies, whether it is the subject involved in the shooting or a police officer. I hope it’s not the police officer, I hope nobody dies; I hope it never happens to me in my career. If I go 25 years without drawing my weapon, best-case scenario.
I’m not out there just to shoot people. Hypothetically, if I were to be involved in a shooting, or any officer involved in a shooting will assume that it was a reaction to an action that a subject made to put him in that spot. So the subject has to take accountability for his actions.
Q: Why did you become a police officer?
I’ve always had an aspiration to help people. I thought, ‘Well what better to kind of have the authority and the prestige, and essentially the overall amenability that helps someone?’
It wasn’t right to law enforcement. I was thinking all in all first responder, but eventually I thought the police office was more my fit, because I’ve got more of an aggressive kind of approach.
Q: How difficult is it to balance your work life and social life?
A: Obviously it’s tougher when you’re in a smaller community. In East Aurora, it is not uncommon for everyone to know somebody. Luckily I work at a department where we have longer shifts, so I work 12 12-hour shifts. In a 14-day period, I work seven days, and I have seven days off, as opposed to five eight-hour days, where I have only four days off in 14 days.
The workdays can be long, but the days off are great. Obviously working nights, you kind of have to adapt to it. I try to keep my sleep schedule consistent with my work schedule. On my nights off, I will try to stay awake until 3 or 4 in the morning, so I’m not totally screwing up my body. It’s easier some days than others, no doubt.
In terms of socially, not that I’ve ever been a wild child or anything, but you definitely have to hold yourself to a higher standard. You cannot go out and get wicked drunk and start causing scenes in this day in age, where everyone’s got a cellphone camera or whatever, and everyone can post on the Internet for everyone to see.
I just think you’re going to have more problems than solutions if you do cause your attitude to get out of hand… Not that I have had bad friends anyway, but I cannot have friends that do drugs, or steal from stores, or break into houses.
Don’t lose your cool no matter what somebody says or does. I’m sure that if you do something silly then you are going to hear from your superiors. I think it’s tough to say that I think I would rather hear it from my superiors than if I heard it by someone in the community.
My bosses know my work ethic and how I do my job… Even though I’m out of uniform, I have an image to uphold. You must take the fact that it is a high responsibility; people are going to view you differently, so you have to act differently.
Q: Take me through a typical day at work.
A: Well typically you’ll hear someone say, ‘The police officer is on routine patrol.’ You will even hear an experienced police officer say routine patrol. People in their police reports will say reporting officer was on routine patrol. There is nothing routine about this job, and there is no one typical day because every day is different. So if I had to say a typical day, I would come into work, and inspect my car and make sure everything is working.
My headlights, taillights, break lights, signals; everything I would expect every vehicle on the road to be in compliance with. Obviously my overhead lights, my emergency lights are a big thing. If there is an emergency and I need to get there, I cannot have a light out. If someone doesn’t see me or hear me, then it is a huge liability aspect; not only I maybe hurt myself, but I hurt somebody else, and I am not getting to that call where someone may be hurt.
I make sure all of the equipment is working, tires are filled, they have good tread life. Make sure I have all my gear; we’ve got patrol rifles, and patrol shotguns, and we make sure those are in there.
My shift starts at 7 p.m., so we’re counting down the wee hours where people are going to be staying home and not being out, so I do a little traffic when I can. Some nights are definitely easier than others. If it is a Friday, Saturday night where there is more traffic in town, obviously the more people you have in town, the higher probability you have for a traffic stop. On a Monday or Tuesday night, you could go all night without making a traffic stop, just due to the fact that there’s no one on the road. Same with the winter; it is especially slow because no one wants to drive in the snow.
So if the calls aren’t coming in, I will do traffic, and check on businesses and make sure people are behaving. It is great where we live, we don’t have much violent crimes. People say ‘What goes on in East Aurora?’ We keep ourselves busy. It’s just not to the frequency of some nights to others, and not to the severity.
Sure we have robberies, we have burglaries, we haven’t had a homicide in I think 12 years, but it does happen out here. We get suicides, and drug overdoses. We have heroin. We are not exempt from it. Maybe people are naive to live in East Aurora, to think that this doesn’t happen if that is the case, if they are happier thinking it doesn’t happen here, then good for them. I know full well what happens here, and I try to do my part to make sure it less frequently happens here.
Q: Did you always want to work in East Aurora?
A: In my mind I knew I wanted to stay in New York State, particularly Erie County. It’s what I’m familiar with. Definitely New York; I love having four seasons, I’m not a big fan of oppressive heat, so moving down South was not keen on me. Obviously when you’re getting six feet of snow each day it’s not the highlight of your life, but with regard to East Aurora, yeah, East Aurora is always a place I thought would be cool to work. As long as I was in New York State, particularly Erie County, I was going to be happy. I kept my options open, my mind open, but I’m definitely happiest I think now being in East Aurora where I was born and raised.
Q: Would you ever take a job somewhere else?
A: I always keep my options open. Know I’ve got almost three and a half years on, so if I went somewhere else, I would have to start back at square one. It wouldn’t just have to be pay, it would have to be insurance, retirement, how soon could I get back here in New York, or this area? I would definitely have to weigh the options and talk to some people, see what they thought. If it were the right thing to do, I would go somewhere else.
Q: What is your least favorite thing about the job?
A: It changes on a daily basis. Obviously you don’t like going to any calls that you know someone. Whether they’re a victim of a crime or a suspect of a crime, either way it is kind of a lose-lose if you know somebody. I knew that full well taking this job.
Obviously going to calls where someone is a victim either of an illness, injury, and or death is never fun. Child abuse is never a fun call to go on, or any kind of sexual assault.
When you deal with the same people over and over that just don’t get it. They are either calling the police because they want something to be done, but nothing can be done, such as neighbor disputes, there’s really not much you can do.
In today’s world, the media and the public perception of the police has changed. So when you are going to a call that would otherwise be handled and treated respectively by the public, they might get heckled when you’re walking to your car.
Q: Do you get heckled in East Aurora?
A: Not so much here. It depends on where you’re going on calls. Rarely in public will people heckle you. They know in uniform – for the most part – they can get away with it to a certain level because obviously we’re supposed to be the bigger person. We’re supposed to be the professionals.
If we are out of uniform, we can’t just go up and beat the hell out of someone. Your integrity is everything with this job, as it should be. If I had to say the one thing that is the toughest part about my job, I would say it’s really seeing victims. When someone has been violated sexually, or a child has been injured or killed, those kinds of calls never get any easier.
Q: What is the best part about your job?
A: The best part is right on the same breath; it’s going to those calls, and helping those people, by getting the person that did something to them. Gathering all the facts is a fun part, too.
You start with a phone call; someone calls in and says ‘Hey I need the police for this.’ You go over there and you get what they’re saying, what they’re telling, then you gather more evidence.
The rewarding part is definitely helping people, and just making people realize that someone there cares. No one ever says ‘Hey Steve, we’re having a barbeque, bring the whole police department over.’ We see people at their worst. So when we can go there, even if it’s just to vent, whether it be as serious as a murder, or a rape case, or something as minute as a neighbor dispute, if they just want someone to listen to them and vent, and they get the full satisfaction of felling helped, and knowing they were listened to, that makes the world to me.
Q: Is it worth it?
A: Absolutely, I wouldn’t change a thing. Love it, best thing ever. If every profession paid the same, I would still do what I’m doing.
email: j.omerine@gmail.com
email: j.omerine@gmail.com
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