Helping People - A Cedar Falls Police Officer's Goal

“I always knew I wanted to be a cop, ever since I was a little kid,” said Cedar Falls Police Officer Kendall Schwan. On a quiet Wednesday night I did a ride-along with him, and between jokes about just what I would title this paper about him, he told me about his experiences as a cop.

We started off our night with a tour of the new Public Safety building and Officer Schwan showed me the various equipment he brings with him on patrol as well as the many devices in the vehicle.

Schwan worked second shift that day, which was about 2pm-10:30pm. Each of the shifts overlap each other slightly, to allow time for briefing. Along with this, if anything were to happen during this overlap time, there would be officers ready from the previous shift to respond to any calls. The Cedar Falls police officers bid for shifts, and he says he likes going for second shift because no matter what it’s busy and fast-paced all year round.

We patrolled the “S2” section of Cedar Falls, meaning that we drove around the area south of 12th Street and west of Main Street all the way to Highway 20. We did what Officer Schwan called, “traffic engineering,” which impacts the way that people drive on the road. “Just seeing a marked squad car and being present on the roads causes people to drive better,” he said.

Officers don’t always have to give out tickets to influence the public’s driving decisions. When people see someone pulled over, they tend to slow down in fear of being pulled over themselves. Even though the officer may just be handing out a warning, other drivers can’t be sure and are much more likely to drive safer. Just having marked squad cars out on the road helps to ensure the safety of other drivers.

Due to the weather, he told me that the road conditions may have an impact on the night. It had snowed earlier in the evening, and he said “we had about 15 crashes in the span of an hour.”

However, the roads had calmed down significantly by the time the ride along started after 7pm. We had no stops that night, but I did receive the grand tour of Cedar Falls. With the constant buzz of the speedometer reading vehicles in front of and behind us, we talked about how Officer Schwan came to be a police officer.

He started off in the military, joining the Army Reserves when he was just 17. After high school, he went on a deployment to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, then started college at Hawkeye University to get his criminal justice degree. He volunteered for another deployment to Cuba before finishing his degree and beginning the process of becoming a cop.

“It’s a really long hiring process,” Schwan explained, “It took me more than a year before I was actually working on my own.”

It took about five months for him to go through interviews, a physical fitness test, the POST (Police Officer Selection Test) and even more interviews. After this when he was hired, he had about 8 more months of training before he was on his own.

“I wanted to be able to help people,” Schwan said, “and this job lets me do that in many unique ways.”

Sometimes the people he helps will write him thank you notes, and he keeps them on his fridge at home. He even has a book of notes from kindergartners that he read to. You could say this project, the ride along and this paper, is a ‘thank you’ of my own, because Officer Schwan helped me once too. This is why it was such a great opportunity to be able to spend some time behind the scenes with him and learn more about what he does.

He explained that there’s always good calls and bad calls, but it tends to be the bad calls that stay in your mind. Being a police officer can be a tough, dangerous job.

“No matter how much you want to, no matter how hard you try, some people just don’t want your help,” Schwan said, “some people don’t like cops.”

This is a very real concern for many officers, who can face threats and violence from people who have had previous bad experiences and hold grudges against cops.

Despite this, Schwan wanted to express that cops are just normal people too. The shift crews are like family to each other. They get together to celebrate holidays and birthdays together. When they’re not at work, they spend time with their family and friends just like everybody else.

A bit of a workaholic, Officer Schwan works overtime often, and he cross-trained as a firefighter two years ago. With all the buzz about the PSO model, he said, “It’s up to the people to decide. Whether the new model stays or not, I’m going to continue to do my job to the best of my ability.”

It quickly became clear to me how dedicated Kendall is, and how much compassion he has for the people he helps. Surely, he will continue to do an amazing job.