with being proactive and working with the community to stop the bloodshed. The two-mile radius neighborhood 
were composed predominantly of minority residents, and their distrust of our presence was apparent immediately. 
The residents had stereotyped us as rotten apple police officers and at first, did not want our assistance, they did 
not trust us. This was further agitated by the fact that we were there to be proactive and stop any future murders 
from occurring. Plus, we had the Terry v. Ohio decision to assist with our proactive actions. The citizens did not 
understand what that meant. They also did not understand that as one of the officers pledged to protect the area, I 
was feeling like an unwanted officer in their neighborhood. They did not know that I got into policing to change 
the world, if even just a little. They did not know how frustrated it made me feel when no matter how hard I tried, 
no one would not trust me. One day, as a four-year-old child approached me for a police sticker, the mom grabbed 
the child by the arm and said, “Get away from that Po-Po, she is a Bi***, and don’t you dare talk to her, ever, or you’ll 
get it!” I cried that night when I got home from work, wondering how I could help this neighborhood if I couldn’t 
even get one mom to trust me? Whether or not it was true, stereotyping had occurred in this neighborhood. Then 
on top of it, I had to utilize the Terry v. Ohio decision to be proactive, to keep the murders from occurring. It felt 
like a Catch-22 with no solution. The answer did not come to me instantly. All I could think to do was my job 
and stop the murders (as I was directed to do). I remembered that four-year-old in my everyday actions. I knew my 
efforts could make him safer, but would he ever understand? I utilized Terry v. Ohio, by learning the neighborhood, 
recognizing the residents, and learning who belonged, and who did not. I was either on foot or on a bicycle in 
this neighborhood due to the small size. This allowed for a lot of interaction with the residents. If I had reasonable 
suspicion to think a citizen was about to commit a crime or had evidence of a crime, Terry v. Ohio gave me the 
right to investigate further. At first, this angered the neighborhood. They felt we were harassing them, stereotyping 
them. I could understand how they felt that way, and instead of trying to make this neighborhood safe overnight, I 
decided to begin to change how the neighborhood perceived us, slowly. The way I did this was through education. 
Through my daily interactions, I talked to the citizens in the neighborhood about what I was doing and why. 
Instead of speaking in ‘general’ I spoke about only one incident at a time. 
One night, at 2:00 a.m., I was walking with my partner through the neighborhood. I had to head back to the sub-
station and as I rounded one building, I saw two citizens looking through a window of an apartment. I stopped and 
just watched. Everything ran through my mind. Had they lost their keys? Was this their apartment? Or, were they 
looking to break-in and burglarize the apartment, possibly even commit a home invasion and hurt those inside? All 
of this happened in seconds, not minutes. Because of Terry v. Ohio, I legally investigated. The two citizens did not 
live in the apartment and they were trying to burglarize it. One of the suspects had a gun. Because of Terry v. Ohio, I 
was able to be pro-active and stop this from occurring. A single mom and three children under six years of age lived 
in that apartment and were home. The mom did not trust banks and kept her savings in between her mattresses. I 
do not know what I stopped that night. I do not know if the suspects would have used the gun, or if they would 
have found the mom’s large cash savings or what else they might have taken; however, I did stop a burglary from 
occurring and that felt good. The next day while speaking to some of the citizens in the neighborhood, I explained 
this. I used this one example to explain why my unit was there. How we stopped this crime and how we all wanted 
to make a difference. This one story did not change how the neighborhood saw us; however, after many more 
stories such as this, I began to see a change. 
Michelle, one of the citizens in the neighborhood got my cellular telephone number (yes we had cell phones 
back in the day!). She began calling me when she heard talk about a possible crime occurring. We hosted many 
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