Ahern's Answer

If you have looked for a short article, you’re in the wrong place. But what I can promise is important local insight about my personal interactions with the local Alameda County Sheriff’s Office. So take a seat, sit back and follow my journey.

Background-

I have lived in the Unincorporated area of Alameda County my entire life. Before 2013, I would have been hard pressed to tell you who the Sheriff was (it’s Greg Ahern), or if we had one or more than one (there is one sheriff and many deputies). I was pretty ignorant on the subject. All I knew about cops is what I saw on the news and I realized that it was just snippets of stories with reporters giving their viewpoints. I like to keep aware of all news from all sources, and make up my own mind when I have sufficient facts to rely on. First hand knowledge is best, but with anything else, we have to be smart. I knew that what information I got from tv wasn’t complete. But I didn’t know any cops and, except for a single local deputy who had his kid in the local soccer club when I was young, I don’t recall seeing any.

One fateful and traumatic day changed that world for me. A neighbor shot a gun off in the neighborhood many times. The neighborhood locked down and awaited the cops. They came quickly and surrounded the house, climbed to the roofs of neighboring houses and positioned themselves between the shooter’s house and both a pre-school and a school in the immediate area. The cops basically used their own bodies to protect the kids, but all the cops had to protect themselves were their vests and their weapons. Nobody was hurt, shooter was captured. Good result. Adrenaline, it’s a thing.

So after that, I had questions. A curious person, I had a lot of questions. As it turned out, I had thousands of questions.

I Investigated-

I went to the local town monthly meeting to ask about the incident and was met with a Sergeant in charge of community policing. They called his office the “Cop Shop.” They gave a monthly report on everything in the area. Because knowledge is power. They also answered questions. And as I said before, I had those.

I was invited to attend the Alameda County Sheriff’s Office’s twice-yearly program called “citizen’s academy” where regular folks learn everything about the Sheriff’s Office. I found out that they eagerly and patiently answered all of my questions through every class and every field trip I attended. I participated in everything from learning how deputies drive, to seeing how they work with K-9s to learning about the process from arrest through trial from guest speakers like the County District Attorney’s office. I learned about the jail, the coroner’s bureau, the crime lab, the different units and what they do and more importantly, why they do it. I’m guessing that my questions were kind of like a young child and a parent where the kid keeps asking “what’s that?,” “why?,” over and over. And yet they patiently answered all of my questions.

One of the biggest, most powerful experiences I had was when I stepped into deputy shoes for just a moment in time while interacting with their wall of choices. It was an interactive video experience where you are the cop and can talk with a suspect on the street and make your choices as to how you want to deal with a situation. Learning about real life situations on the street from the comfort of your chair, safely in your home on the tv, is a polar opposite to “being” the person in front of possible danger. Even now, it’s an experience you can’t fully understand unless you are there. You don’t know how people will react. Split second decisions, keeping safe, going home to family, remembering all the rules, and still trying to resolve whatever issue is in front of you is not easy at all, and is a personal risk each and every time. At the same time you know that there are people around who don’t want you there because of your uniform, but not because they know you personally. You have to be really dedicated to helping people and trying to make a difference in the community to take on that kind of daily personal risk and negativity and still do your job. That experience gave me that personal take, but also made me realize just how important the Cop Shop is with community policing. The more the public and the police interact with each other in a congenial atmosphere, the less problematic interactions become.

I learned that through meetings and events, the Alameda County Sheriff’s Office had a lot of interactions with the community. I saw people who may not have been comfortable calling the police, but could informally meet with local deputies and discuss their neighborhood issues. These events created trust and fulfilled a necessary need of the community. My own parents started regularly attending meetings and events. The deputies we interacted with started to become so familiar that when we saw them on the streets or at meetings they were becoming like family.

I Learned-

I started seeing things that the media didn’t report. I saw deputies going to my town in the very dark early hours before school opened, after a long night with a wind storm, picking up chain link fencing from the sidewalk so the local school children wouldn’t walk in the streets to go to school. I saw an elderly woman ask for help because she needed lightbulbs changed and no longer had help to do that- deputies did that for her! I saw them come into the neighborhood to a packed auditorium and teach anyone who would listen how to keep safe at a bus stop, an atm, and what to do (in detail) in active shooter situations (before it was even a widespread concern). When my own bike was stolen on a ride to the store, a deputy gave me and my groceries a ride home and took a stolen bike report. And when my mom passed away from Alzheimer’s, one of them stood with my family in support as we celebrated her life. None of these things were just “their job.” They did it because they were part of the community and they cared. My community understands that it is different than many cities because of this and it’s one of our best things: caring and involved law enforcement.

I learned that through programs the Sheriff’s Office was involved in, many other deputy-public interactions were also solving other important local problems. Deputy Sheriff’s Activities League (DSAL) has off-duty deputies who donate their time to help the kids do various sports programs in the area. The Ashland Reach Youth Center helps kids with so many resources including (but not limited to) doctor and dental visits, education help, classes such as art, music, and self-defense. Dig Deep Farms not only produces food for locals using undeveloped local properties, it creates jobs and job training for formerly incarcerated residents. These programs are integral to reducing crime in an area because they target the things that foster an environment where crime can thrive: education, self-esteem, things for kids to do, jobs, etc. Basically, if you fix these problems in a disadvantaged community, crime goes down. And the Sheriff’s Office is instrumental in doing all this, usually with grants they wrote to help fund it.

I got to volunteer at Urban Shield, which was Swat members going through realistic scenarios like mass shootings, earthquakes, train crashes, mass car pile ups, pandemics and also pairing up with medical personnel to have everyone train together in case those things happen. The entire bay area got to practice working together in case something unusual (like a pandemic) happened and they had to work together to save lives. Now when I see all of the people who actually got to train with the Urban Shield system work out mass issues in the Bay Area, I am thankful they got the training when they did. They are saving lives.

I participated. I went to meetings like the monthly sheriff’s meeting where the Sheriff came to us and answered questions directly. I went to locally staffed events and heard from so many deputies about all the programs and how important they were to the local community. I got to meet all of these community helpers for myself and because of all that I was experiencing, I started seeing them in a new light.

I Understood-

Doing all my research, it came down to one man who was responsible for how effective everything was: Sheriff Greg Ahern. You’re probably saying how can one man manage all of this? He would be the first to tell you that he has very skilled and trained dedicated people who make it all happen. He offers first class training and expects excellence from his employees. He requires ethics and encourages his employees to go out there and get involved. But he is the one who leads by example. He constantly studies world events through news, reports and data. He uses what he studies to guide him and actively listens to the community that he serves. Just like his deputies on the ground, he spends time and energies that are not just “part of the job” and constantly changes things to make them better. He is the reason we have such effective community policing and why the Sheriff’s Office has such detailed and constantly evolving training.

I saw the work of the Alameda County Sheriff’s Office, under the leadership of Sheriff Ahern, as community partners and what a great job they were doing to make the quality of life of all of my neighbors so much better. I saw it as an organization filled with caring people ready to do so much more than just “their job,” that I actually joined them to help out my own community. I became a Sheriff’s Technician. I now help deputies do their jobs.

I Stepped Up-

As an employee of the Sheriff’s Office, I got the recent privilege of working at a local Covid Vaccine clinic where thousands of community members received free vaccines at a place where all they had to do was walk up and get a shot. On those days, I saw them as my brothers, my sisters, my mother and my father because if I didn’t help them, who would? I got to continue the same caring attitude that I was once part of as a civilian with community policing. One man turned to us after he was vaccinated and said he wanted to know the names of the people who just saved his life… and that’s why I chose to join the Sheriff’s Office.

I Asked, Ahern Answered-

I have not only met Sheriff Ahern, I have asked him many questions myself. He is quite approachable and tells it like it is. I like how he hears about an issue and immediately gets right on the case. He has a calm and unpretentious demeanor. I believe that in life there are those that just want a job, and those that just want to help.

Sheriff Ahern is a life-long helper. He has a plan; answers for how to fix problems. He adapts to situations. It takes a very unique sort of brilliance to be able to both dream up ideas like this and actually make them effective. Not everyone has both of those skill sets at the same time. Sheriff Ahern does. He trains staff on how to implement his plans. Instead of aspiring to greatness, he inspires greatness. That’s key to a great leader. It’s how you get stuff to really work and how you get communities to really change.

I have asked my thousand questions, and I will likely continue to ask more. But I am confident that my community is on the right track with a plan to constantly improve with regard to public safety issues. That is due to Sheriff Ahern, his programs, his plans and his constant ability to adapt to changing circumstances. I’m happy to now be a part of it.

My community is better for having Sheriff Greg Ahern in charge of so many deputies and staff, from all sorts of backgrounds and experiences, who desperately and honestly want to help make a difference- Of that I am sure.