7 minute read
Building It Better
Crowley ISD has a newly hired police chief building a new culture from the ground up
Written by Megan Middleton
Building a police department from scratch is no small task, but Le’Shai Maston has hit the ground running since he was hired in September as Crowley ISD’s first police chief.
Forming a department takes telecommunications equipment, uniforms, guns, vehicles, licensing and, of course, the best officers.
But what Maston, a 20-year Dallas Police veteran and former NFL running back, is most excited about building in Crowley ISD is meaningful relationships with students and families.
“When everything is done, the most important thing I’m looking forward to is getting to know the students, interacting every day and starting relationships with them,” Maston said, adding that he wants to make sure students know that they can be anybody. “They have dreams, and those dreams can be accomplished.”
Once his team is in place, he plans for officers to volunteer in the community and even greet parents and students at schools — opening car doors and, hopefully, young hearts and minds to see police in a more positive light.
Growing up in south Dallas, Maston used to walk the longer route home to avoid interacting with a police officer patrolling his street. But those feelings of distrust and discomfort are not a part of the story he wants for Crowley ISD.
As the district builds its first police department, he said it also gets to shape how policing can look.
“We get to write our own narrative,” he said. “We get to tell our own story about what policing can be. The nation can have whatever narrative they want, but we get to write our own, and we’ll be better.” a relationship with three different agencies.”
In September, the district conducted a series of Community Conversations with students, staff and community members about officers serving in schools. Student panelists spoke about their desire to build strong relationships with the officers.
After a nationwide search, McFarland said he believes Maston is the right person to build the district’s department.
McFarland described Maston, who also worked as a police chief in Lancaster ISD, as a dependable person with a positive outlook who strives for excellence and can deescalate high-stress situations quickly.
“I think that’s very important with the role of an officer — to be able to de-escalate, to be able to treat people as human regardless of how they present themselves to you,” he said.
Dr. Michael D. McFarland Crowley ISD Superintendent
CREATING A DEPARTMENT
Crowley ISD trustees voted in April to begin forming a school district police department. As part of a phasein plan, the district is hiring officers while maintaining agreements for school resource officers with other law enforcement departments over the next two budget years.
A growing number of school districts across Texas and the nation are creating their own police departments. With a district police department, CISD will have control over hiring officers with the qualities, training and experience that support the district’s goals and values.
“We felt that if we could have the police department connected to Crowley ISD, we could have more authority and more flexibility with the services,” Superintendent Dr. Michael McFarland said. “It was way more efficient for us to have our own department as opposed to having
DOING IT BETTER
Maston grew up in Oak Cliff when it was an up-andcoming area in southern Dallas, but his life experience was somewhat different living in a single-parent household with one income, sharing a three-bedroom home with his two brothers, grandmother and other relatives.
“You’re growing up in a middle-class community, but you’re not on that level, so I know what it’s like to be left out and left behind and not included,” he said. “Football became an outlet for me, and that’s how I expressed my frustration and my anger and all of the anxieties that I had about life. Thank God I had a way to express it. It became a way that I could just be me.”
He was on the well-known Dallas Carter High School team that won the state football championship in 1988 and went on to play at Baylor University.
After competing in the NFL for the Houston Oilers, Jacksonville Jaguars and Washington Redskins, he began looking into other career opportunities.
A neighbor told him he’d make a great police officer.
“I just told him, ‘No, I would not,’” he said. “Coming from the streets and coming from the hood, you have stereotypes, and I had stereotypes of police. The Rodney King incident in college affected me a whole lot in that I just couldn’t see myself doing it. He saw something in me and said, ‘Le’Shai, you’re a real good man, you’d make a real good police officer.’”
His neighbor’s persistence eventually paid off, and Maston began his career with the Dallas Police Department in 1999. His young son’s reaction to the police uniform assured him he’d made the right choice.
“I went to his daycare the first time I got a chance to put on a uniform and the badge … and he looked up and his eyes lit,” Maston said. “He was like, ‘Daddy!’ And he ran to me, and he jumped in my arms, and he said, ‘Dad, you got a star on your chest and a gun in your pocket!’ And he hugged me, and you could have bought me for a nickel … [My children] never did that when I played football. So when that happened as a police officer, I was like, wow, this is something he can be proud of.”
Maston eventually realized even more rewards of his law enforcement job.
“I saw that I could really make a difference in policing coming from the perspective that I had of being a young African-American male, always afraid of the police, never wanting to be by the police,” he said. “I just made my actions intentional in making a point to show people how to police the right way.”
Being skittish of police was a feeling that followed him even after he was the one wearing the uniform, still getting nervous when he was in his personal vehicle and saw an officer pull behind him.
“I’m thinking, do I have my insurance, double checking my tags to make sure my inspection is up to date, thinking about if he pulls me over, what am I going to do, and then it finally hit me that I am the police, what am I scared for?” he said. “I had been indoctrinated into that fear, and some for good reason.”
He never wanted anyone to feel that way about him as an officer.
“That’s where I said, I’m going to do it better, I’m going to be better,” he said. “I don’t want anybody to feel that way because you shouldn’t, not when you see the police officer.”
CONNECTING AND SERVING
Chief Maston has made it a priority of the new CISD Police Department to connect with students and the community.
Maston wants the students of Crowley ISD to know that he is here for them.
“I just want them to know that I care and that they matter to me and that I’m here to help them,” he said. “It’s an open door where they can speak to me and to ultimately be comfortable with and around me.”
Despite the COVID-19 pandemic, Maston already has found ways to connect with students by offering multiple “Meet the Chief” Zoom sessions where students can ask him questions.
“The fact that he took the time to sit down, meet with us and listen to us already, makes me feel like my safety is almost promised,” Alicia Tolley, a high school senior said. “I really like that part of what he’s already taken initiative to do.”
And Maston’s just getting started. He hopes to eventually establish a leadership council with juniors and seniors who can bring concerns and questions to him.
“Building a police department here in Crowley ISD gives us endless opportunities to grow,” said Elijah Strong, a high school senior who also has met with the chief. “I believe Chief Maston is someone who is dedicated to changing the narrative, and I’m excited to see the many things we accomplish on this new journey.”
Maston’s philosophy for policing centers on service, and he wants to partner with community and religious leaders in the area to help do that.
And he wants the students he serves to have positive interactions with officers. Working in schools, he said, it’s part of their job to help give students hope and remind them of their dreams.
“I stand here now as a person who I believe God has given a lot of badges to wear through my hardships,” he said. “And if my hardships can help anyone else, I will gladly share my experiences just to uplift them.”
