Cottonwood police officer Roger Scarim is retiring after serving 24 years with the Cottonwood Police Department.
Scarim grew up in Tacoma, Wash., and later spent 12 years in the U.S. Army. While he was stationed at Fort Rucker in Alabama, he met a local officer and ended up becoming a police reservist while still in the Army. He enjoyed it so much that he decided to become a cop full-time.
“I’ve really enjoyed doing traffic enforcement,” Scarim said. Of his 24 years with CPD, he spent about 22 of them as a traffic officer. “I got to do something that I really enjoyed. I love DUI enforcement and everything that comes with being a traffic officer.”
Traffic officers must have good time management in order to keep track of when they need to show up to court dates. They go to court significantly more often than most officers. They also have to look at data on accident prevalence in order to concentrate their efforts in those areas.
Scarim recalled the time a man had come up to him and asked if Scarim remembered him. He had been involved in a DUI crash around seven years before. That night, instead of putting him in jail, Scarim had called the man’s wife, which the man had begged him not to do. The man later explained to Scarim that he and his wife had a long talk and he went to get help for his alcoholism.
“Not only did it save his marriage, but he now has a kid, which, if the marriage had failed, he would have never had this child,” Scarim said. “That really makes me feel good.”
In terms of changes in policing over his career, Scarim noted the incorporation of technological advances such as body cameras, which he claimed make things easier to document for court appearances. He also commented on changes in Cottonwood since the start of his career. When he started, the police department was in Old Town, which was an area people avoided with few businesses open. Scarim said he enjoyed seeing the change in Old Town and how it has become a tourist destination with thriving businesses.
Following his retirement, Scarim will be taking time off to spend with family and decide what he wants to do next. Observing that he missed many holidays and birthdays over the years, he said would like to make up that time to his family. Scarim has three children as well as a granddaughter and a great-granddaughter, whom he called the joy of his life. He looks forward to catching baseball games with them all and relaxing.
“A lot of the time officers move around from department to department,” Scarim said. “I’ve been fortunate enough to spend my entire career here in Cottonwood and see the changes in the city. I’m not from here originally, but this is my home.”
Scarim said he had often responded to calls for a disabled vehicle and had arrived to find a couple of cars already pulled over to help push somebody out of the roadway. “People here still have the small-town mentality even though we’ve grown quite a bit,” Scarim said. “People are still willing to help out their neighbors.”
