As I drove up to the Cottonwood Police Department, my cell phone rang with an unknown number.
I was greeted with the voice of officer Kiedi Dever, “How soon will you be here? I just got a call about a bust and I need to be there to transport the suspects.”
With a simple response of me standing out front, she whipped around in her vehicle and we were off to the scene. No sirens blazing whatsoever, we just zoomed across the road.
She drove to the scene while we made small talk, “I love my job, I didn’t become a cop for the pay,” she said. We drove up to a house out in rural Cornville, where I saw two suspects sitting on a bench while police talked to them.
Dever told me to stay in the car. From afar I saw her enter the house with a few other officers while one stayed out to watch the suspects. After searching the house, she brought back two female suspects and put them in the back of the car. They smelled of alcohol and who knows what else.
She told me they had a cereal box cut in half pinned to the wall and for used needles. They had reportedly found heroin and crystal meth within the house. She transported them to the Yavapai County Detention Center in Camp Verde and after a couple of minutes we were back out on patrol for the swing shift.
We stopped by the dispatch center, where she met up with officers who were on duty. From what I noticed, they’re like a big family. Joking around and acting like I do with my younger brothers. After the jokes and small talk was made, we were back in the car.
While the night was uneventful, Dever showed me around Cottonwood and spoke of the past. She mentioned what has been done to ride gangs such as East Side Familia and Projects, for the most part.
“I look forward to getting in the car every day, you never know what’s going to happen and that’s the thrill I want,” she said.
We spent the rest of the night driving around Cottonwood looking for suspicious activity and none were found. If there’s one thing I really noticed about the night overall, was how Dever described the inner family of the police department. They all look out for each other and their children. Everyone is scheduled on different days and if someone is off, they help look after the kids of the parents who are on.
It’s these little things that speak volumes to me. I strongly admire the brotherhood and sisterhood these people offer to each other and our city. They do more than just write us speeding tickets. They stay up when we are asleep, driving around town looking for something that could come up bad, investigating random phone calls of people looking suspicious, only to turn out to be a city worker repairing a phone line, to posting up at the local bars to make sure no one is driving under the influence.
In my opinion, we owe more than just a thank you to these people and not just to them, but also to every man and woman that serves our city and country.
