THE WILL TO PROTECT AND SERVE
WHAT IS IT LIKE TO BE A
Explore what the role of local police looks like in Mountain View, California. What are common problems and past events that have caused trouble for local police departments, and how can Police departments and their local communities work together to keep people safe from harm?
POLICE OFFICER?
SAUL JAEGER
Saul Jaeger, Captain of the Mountain View Police Department, somberly observes the funeral procession of his fellow ofcer, Bill Crawford. During the funeral, Jaeger was overwhelmeWd by the large number of mourners of all ages in attendance, many of whom became close to Crawford when he served in the Youth Services Unit, where he quickly became known for his compassionate approach to police work. Jaeger thinks, “ Tat says something, right, that he afected these kids’ lives, like all the way up until their adulthood.” Crawford’s positive impact and personal connection to the community represents the very core of why Jaeger became a police ofcer many years ago: to protect and serve the community. As an adult, Jaeger fnds purpose in his childhood dream job, now made a reality.
COMMUNITY RELATIONS
Over the past several years, the perception of the police and their mission has been tested and questioned. Jaeger’s story matters because it helps us to understand the fundamental reasons many police ofcers choose to become public servants. It also shows us how many ofcers have managed through recent adversity by remaining true to their underlying purpose and meaning. Jaeger is able to provide a unique perspective on what it is like to be a law enforcement ofcer. Te partnership Jaeger and his coworkers have with their local community is a positive example of what a healthy community-police relationship should look like. Maintaining a healthy relationship between law enforcement and communities is crucial, given its positive impact on society. Jaeger encouraged and even led a variety of community programs with the goal of connecting with the citizens of Mountain View. When asked about what Mountain View’s relationship with its police department looks like, Jaeger stated, “It doesn’t feel like it’s us vs. the community,
“IT FEELS LIKE A PARTNERSHIP AND THAT’S REALLY HOW IT SHOULD BE, RIGHT?” INSPIRATION
As for the moment Jaeger became inspired to pursue a
career in policing, it unfortunately was not a joyous occasion. Afer dropping his daughter of at daycare, he was driving to work when a news fash came on the radio. Jaeger’s confusion grew as he listened, learning that a plane had crashed into the World Trade Center in New York. As the terrorist attack that would later be known as 9/11 occurred, he pulled his car to the side of the road in shock. Describing the event much later, Jaeger refected on how the moment drove him to leave his old job and pursue his current occupation as a police ofcer. He explained that while his previous job as a business manager in Santa Clara had paid him well, he didn’t feel like there was a greater purpose to it. “I was just a salesperson and I didn’t really like it,” he remarked. “I didn’t feel anything while in that position. And it was at that moment that I was very clearly like, I need to do something diferent.”
THE ATTACKS OF 9/11
Te attacks on 9/11 had a profound impact on the lives of most Americans, across all ages, ethnicities, and genders. Like Jaeger, millions of Americans watched in horror as the terrorist attacks of 9/11 lef nearly 3,000 people dead in New York, Washington, D.C., and Pennsylvania. “A year afer the attacks, in an open-ended question, most Americans – 80% – cited 9/11 as the most important event that had occurred in the country during the previous year. (Hartig). Te events of 9/11 not only had a profound impact on Americans, they also stirred deep feelings and acts of patriotism. “Patriotic sentiment surged in the afermath of 9/11. Afer the U.S. and its allies launched airstrikes against Taliban and al-Qaeda forces in early October 2001, 79% of adults said they had displayed an American fag” (Hartig). For many Americans, these feelings of patriotism afer 9/11 drove them to pursue careers rooted in purpose. “In the year that followed, more than 254,000 young people answered the call to serve in the military” (Clark). Many others, including Saul, pursued careers as police ofcers and public servants, driven by a deep sense of purpose and commitment to community. For Jaeger, like most police ofcers, the process of becoming an ofcer is long and arduous. Even if they are chosen, applicants ofen don’t become fully fedged ofcers until 2+ years later. Afer a thorough and extremely intrusive background check, applicants are sent to academies to train. Te days they encounter there are physically and mentally taxing. Many people fail out of the academy, and those who graduate endure more training when they become fully-fedged ofcers. Despite the difculties, Jaeger succeeded in becoming a police ofcer. Over time, he was promoted to Captain and joined the Mountain View Police Department (MVPD) in 2003. However, life has difcult times in store for everyone, especially for those with dangerous jobs like policing. Jaeger’s story is no exception.
THE COVID PANDEMIC
In 2019, the COVID pandemic began and transformed the lives of people around the world, including the more than 800,000 police ofcers in the US who committed to protect and serve their communities. According to the World Health Organization, “Over 760 million cases and 6.9 million deaths have been recorded worldwide since December 2019, but the actual number is thought to be higher” (“Coronavirus disease”). As senior leader MVPD patrol motorbikes parked at the Mountain View police station
in the police department, Jaeger and his team had their own difculties during the pandemic. Serving as a peacekeeper during such an uncertain time became more difcult, and Jaeger needed to rely on his north star of serving the community to guide his actions. Jaeger explained, “ Te job itself is hard during good times. So when COVID hit, we were not prepared. I never thought that I would be having to deal with logistics issues for that kind of stuf.” Since a pandemic of this scale had never happened before, there were no laws or guidelines for law enforcement to follow while attempting to do their jobs. Jaeger led his ofcers through extraordinary uncertainty by responding to questions like, “Am I meant to arrest someone who doesn’t want to wear a mandated mask?” or “How am I meant to control the rationing of toilet paper of all things?”. Additionally, police ofcers worried about bringing COVID into their homes or infecting loved ones afer possibly contracting the disease during the day. Stress levels were high within the police force, and they were about to increase even further.
TURMOIL OVER POLICE VIOLENCE
On May 25, 2020, George Floyd, a Black American man was murdered by a white police ofcer in Minneapolis, Minnesota. In combination with the Black Lives Matter movement, the killing of George Floyd resulted in widespread demand to address police violence against Black Americans, including in Mountain View. “In response to these community-led movements—many of which rallied around calls to “Defund the Police”—cities and counties have begun restructuring how local budgets and law enforcement are deployed in service of public safety” (Arzy). For example, Austin, Los Angeles, and at least 12 other cities pledged to cut police budgets with plans to reinvest in community programs.” (Arzy, Leily) Jaeger described the citizens of Mountain View as having been fairly appreciative of frst responders before the incident occurred. “But then George Floyd happened,” Jaeger stated, “ Te ofcer murdered George Floyd. And that, overnight, shot down any community trust in things that we had before and had been building and working on for decades. It was all gone.”
Afer George Floyd’s death, Jaeger began to see evidence of the newfound distrust in police ofcers. People holding signs with messages like “ACAB” or “F*** the Police’’ began to appear in places Jaeger had not seen them before. Tere were protests about the presence of ofcers on school campuses. Te jobs of police ofcers became more difcult. In addition to afecting their work lives, the confict over law enforcement bled into ofcer’s home lives. Family members would sometimes take sides, causing safe
places to become rife with mistrust and paranoia. Jaeger reminisced that the sudden opposition to law enforcement perplexed him. He explained that the communities’ mentality “was really confusing because that (George Floyd’s murder) didn’t happen here... in Mountain View, we didn’t do that, that wasn’t the Mountain View Police.” It’s easy to imagine how disheartened police ofcers were when the people they were risking their lives to protect wanted them gone, especially when they were not involved in the Floyd murder. Frustrated, Jaeger and his colleagues looked for ways to connect with the public and earn back their trust.
REBUILDING WITH MVPDX
In 2021, afer managing through several challenging years, Jaeger and his team realized that they needed to strengthen their connection with the community. Jaeger and his team decided to launch a Community Outreach Program and, “invite people who are vocal and who want to make changes in policing. Let’s bring them in, not to change their mind, but to provide them the right information...because we work for the community,” Jaeger said. Te Program was called MVPDX, and comprised a series of ten zoom meetings in which a cohort of diverse participants from the community would be able to learn about and discuss how the MVPD functions in the community. Te participants discussed topics like; community partnerships, school resource ofcers, incident debriefs, internal afairs and complaint investigations, a deep-dive into data collection and research, implicit bias, and mental health responses. Te community cohort spent time with police ofcers and visited the station to experience what it was like to be one. Te MVPD had no obligation to ofer the program, and yet Jaeger and his peers aimed to understand and collaborate with their local community, rather than react badly or feel threatened. Tis act of reaching out allowed the MVPD to work together with local advocates in their community to determine the best steps to take for the future of policing.
MVPDX: COMMUNITY OUTREACH PROGRAM
Karin Dillon, a member of the Mountain View community was placed in the 2nd MVPDx cohort. According to Dillon, the other people in her cohort included activists, members of nonprofts, local university students, and homeowners in Mountain View. Te goal of MVPDx was to “achieve best practices locally to not only keep our residents safe now, but to also work in collaboration on what policing may look like here in the future.”
(City of Mountain View) During the program, Dillon observed that “there were individuals who came into it saying, I do not support the police department and you should not be able to harm individuals who are at risk. I noticed in the discussion that they
A Mountain View Police Department patrol car parked at the station. Cameras that MVPD ofcers are required to wear on their vests while patrolling being reharged at their stationswould sofen their viewpoints to actually create a dialogue versus us just shouting over each other or having a debate versus a discussion.” She remarked on how the program encouraged thoughtful discussion, and how the participants were still able to have respectful conversations while disagreeing. When describing the ofcers and leaders of the program, Dillon said, “I just was so impressed by a group of people who chose a profession that is extremely hard, puts their well-being at risk, puts their lives on the line... I felt like they genuinely wanted to hear what the community had to say, no matter the viewpoint.” Jaeger’s community program is slowly rebuilding the trust with the people of Mountain View.
thank you note adressed to MVPD
STRUGGLES OFFICERS FACE
While the relationship between the residents of Mountain View and the local police continues to improve, police ofcers struggle with physical and mental well-being. Jaeger cares deeply about the well-being of his fellow ofcers at the MVPD.
stress and physically relax his constantly tense muscles. Going forwards, Jaeger strives to answer the question, “how do you introduce and celebrate a lifestyle that’s healthy into a culture that might be resistant to that?” In the future, Saul Jaeger hopes to encourage his ofcers to practice self care in the form of meal planning, meditation, and yoga, to name just a few.
WORKING TOGETHER FOR A BETTER FUTURE
However, in order to ensure that an extremely taxing job does not get even more difcult, Jaeger needs ongoing support from the local community. When trust between a city and their police force is lost, it can have dire consequences if not handled correctly. As Jaeger described, “We have the same struggles as anybody else. Tis is not an us versus them, this is a job. And the demands on it might be a little bit diferent than other people’s jobs. It’s frustrating sometimes where we’re expected to be perfect, when nobody is perfect.” Despite the difculties that occurred during COVID, the Mountain View community is beginning to thrive once more, as is its police force. To this day, Jaeger and his ofcers attempt to nurture the community-police relationship by connecting with their city at every opportunity. Tings like “cofee with a cop”, active MVPD social media platforms, school resource ofcers, and community programs like MVPDX are evidence of their eforts to create a safe space for their local community. Despite past challenges, the MVPD has been present to protect and serve the people of their city. If Mountain View ever faces challenges in regards to the purpose of its police force again, Jaeger has one thing to ask of its people, “Don’t just jump to conclusions, be curious. Because cops, most cops, the vast majority of most cops, they feel noble in what they’re doing and they want to help.
“THEY JUST WANT PEOPLE TO BE GOOD” “THIS IS NOT AN US VS. THEM, THIS IS A JOB.”
Jaeger stated, “and the demands on it might be a little bit diferent than other people’s jobs.” Jaeger described the issue he is most passionate about as “employee wellness”. Police ofcers face a wide array of dangers to their physical, emotional, and mental health. According to a 2004-2009 BCOPS (the Bufalo Cardio-Metabolic Occupational Police Stress) study, “ Te percent of ofcers with depression was nearly double (12.0% vs. 6.8%) and ofcers were nearly four times more likely to sleep less than six hours in a 24-hour period than the general population (33.0% vs. 8.0%)” (National Library of Medicine). In addition to this, police ofcers also have up to double the risk of developing cardiovascular disease, metabolic syndrome, and other stress-induced illnesses. Experts agree that police ofcers experience things like “long hours under high-risk and uncontrolled environments,” and the “need to make on-the-spot decisions in complex situations”. (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention). Jaeger has observed these efects on himself and his fellow ofcers frsthand. While participating in MVPDx, Karin Dillon asked a patrol ofcer what he was concerned about while on the job. Te ofcer responded, “I’m just so used to everybody staring at me. It drives this level of paranoia that I’m like, I can’t relax when I’m in uniform because everyone’s looking at me.” Te ofcer then explained how he had taken up yoga in an attempt to release
Special thanks to Saul Jaeger for the oppurtunity to interveiw and meet with him about the importance of policing in Mountain View City. Keep doing what you do best Mr. Jaeger!
A ofcers, hung up at the police station in Downtown Mountain View Ashley Dillon (lef) and Saul jaeger (right)