4 minute read
Toby Miller
from Heroes 2022
Investigator Toby Miller stands outside Bainbridge Public Safety with one of the new police cruisers.
STORY & PHOTOS BY ETHAN REDDISH Never backing down on the job
After being held at gunpoint while working as a cashier, Toby Miller decided to join law enforcement to protect himself and the community he serves.
Not everyone is cut out for serving their community in law enforcement. The danger, not to mention the mental toll it can take, are factors one should weigh before committing. According to Bainbridge Public Safety Investigator Toby Miller, it’s a serious profession and calling, not “a ride along the way to get a paycheck.”
Miller initially got into law enforcement with Georgia State Patrol, working as a dispatcher, however this was not his dream career goal. “I got tired of sitting behind a radio and wanted to do what the troopers did,” he said.
When the dispatch center moved to Americus, an almost 100-mile trip one way, Miller made the decision to join Bainbridge Public Safety instead.
“I’ve got the same old cliché story, of kids growing up watching ‘Cops’, and getting a love for wanting to do that stuff,” he recounted. “I worked in the grocery business before I got into law enforcement, and I’d already started chasing different people stealing stuff out of the store, stuff like that.”
One night, while working behind the store counter, a robber put a gun in Miller’s face, and pulled the trigger. The gun, fortunately, didn’t go off, but this event naturally changed Miller.
“I told myself then, that if I was going to work in a customer service atmosphere, if I was going to work somewhere like that’s gonna happen, I wanted the training and the ability to deal with it when it did happen,” he said. “The way to do that was to start moving toward law enforcement training.”
Miller joined Bainbridge Public Safety in December
of 2009. Initially starting out on patrol, he was gradually exposed to the more investigative side of BPS.
“We’ve had large strings of entering autos… We had one that wound up with two juveniles, that were charged with over 40 counts of entering autos. That was one of the fi rst times I got really exposed to how investigation stuff works.”
There have been cases over the years that have tested Miller: “The severity of some of the family violence cases that I’ve investigated, it really gets to you,” he said. “I was raised different, you don’t put your hands on women, and too many times I’ve seen that, where a woman has been beaten so bad because of something she said… Obviously any kind of sex crimes against children is something else that’s very diffi cult, and I think that’s diffi cult for any law enforcement offi cer to deal with.”
Miller typically prefers to work narcotics investigations, as well as patrolling.
“I kind of work investigations, but I’m still using a patrol vehicle. Instead of being an unmarked unit, I still like using a patrol vehicle and getting out into the traffi c stuff,” he said.
For anyone considering working in law enforcement, Miller had some words of advice. “I didn’t have any college when I started in this fi eld of work, and I did not have the ability to know how to talk to people,” he recalled. “If you’re looking to get into this… learn how to converse with anybody, learn how to talk to folks. That has been one of the biggest disadvantages to a lot of offi cers, they’re scared to talk to individuals.” He encouraged being personable, and to “talk to them like your mama and daddy.” However, Miller also wanted to remind potential offi cers of the seriousness of their position. “You’ve got to watch what you do, watch what you say, watch how you react, you’re always in the public’s eye, and you need to understand that,” he said. “You don’t need to shirk that responsibility. From the moment you put that gun and badge on and you walk out that door, it’s time to be a police offi cer. This is not a ride along the way to get a paycheck.”
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