Morning Patrol: A Peek Into the First Day of the Brookhaven Police Department

It was a pretty uneventful first morning for the Brookhaven Police Department. After a Wednesday morning ceremony, the officers began their first day on duty in the city of Brookhaven. 

For this special occasion, they allowed me to spend an hour riding around with Sgt. Jeff Vanaman. But because Brookhaven police did not officially take over from DeKalb County police until noon, and my ride began at 11, there wasn’t too much excitement to report on. Instead, Vanaman spent the time taking me up and down Buford Highway, sharing stories and insight into the daily routing for a City of Brookhaven police officer.

Vanaman looks like a police officer. He smiles, laughs and cracks a joke or two but something about his presence alerts you: You don’t want to mess with him. Maybe it’s the uniform or maybe the 45 pounds of gear he wears on his person and around his waist. I asked him as we were driving to tell me about his belt.  He carried one Taser, a flashlight, two sets of handcuffs, a gun, a baton, extra ammunition and a microphone he can turn on to record himself and those around him. 

For the sergeant, this is all old news, except that for the first time, he’s dealing with brand new equipment. Before signing on to work for the Brookhaven Police Department, Vanaman worked as an officer for 10 years in College Park. Recently, he’s been running a police academy in Calhoun and working toward his master’s in public safety administration. 

He said that over the years he thought about doing a lot of other things, but he could never shake his policing roots. His father and several members of his family were police officers.

“I really like helping people,” Vanaman said. “A lot of times it’s the negative aspects of society that we get called to; it’s not always negative people, it’s the aspects.”

Vanaman distinguishes between two types of people he is able to help: victims and true victims. Helping true victims, he said, is more rewarding, but when he receives a call, all victims need his help.

“A lot of times you deal with problems that people bring on themselves,” Vanaman said. “Someone that’s a true victim, that’s when it’s really rewarding, when you get to be there and help them, you get to take care of them.”

In Brookhaven, officers ride alone. The front seat of their police cars is stacked with technology, much of edges onto the passenger seat, leaving little room for an officer bearing 45 pounds of gear. His laptop – which he uses to file reports, see who is out on what types of calls and check license plates – occupies a good portion of the seat where I, a smaller than average person, felt crowded.

Riding solo helps officers cover more ground, Vanaman said, and if they need backup, they have enough officers patrolling at all times that backup is never far away. Still, he agrees that having multiple officers in one vehicle is safer than one alone.

Along the ride, Vanaman stressed the importance of visibility and of changing the public’s perception of police officers. He pulls into an apartment complex off Buford Highway and talked to children who were playing in the street with their dogs. 

“A lot of parents will say, 'You see that police officer? If you’re not good he’s gonna get you.’ Well, that’s the worst thing a parent could do,” Vanaman said.  “It causes the kid to be scared of the police.”

For this reason, the sergeant said he tries to engage with neighborhood kids. He didn’t have any stickers or whistles to give out on his first day, but the department's spokesman, who rode along, assured him that they would have some small gifts soon that he could hand out to kids. Adults, he said, have already made up their minds, but children can be taught to trust the police.

“I want them to think if they need us to call us,” he said. “It really hurts us sometimes as far as our image goes when parents do that.”

In his experience as an officer in College Park, he said he got to know many of the children in the areas where he patrolled.

“It’s tough when you see kids that you watched grow up get into stuff,” Vanaman said. “I’ve seen kids that I’ve watched grow up over a six- to seven-year period shot and dead.” 

But he said the pain doesn’t follow him home. Over the years, he said he taught himself how to handle tough cases.

“I think every officer creates a memory bank that just stays in the back of their minds, and they file a lot of that stuff away, and it goes in and it never comes back out,” he said. 

Some cases, he said, require more processing. 

Without pause, he returns to discussing what will be his daily routine.

Since his days are difficult to plan, the one daily duty he continued to reinforce was visibility and community engagement. When not out on calls, officers are not sitting in cubicles. They’re out in the community, patrolling their zones, on foot and in vehicles, getting to know residents they have sworn to protect.

For Vanaman, helping people is his daily motivation.

“When everybody’s running away from it, I enjoy being the guy who is needed to run to it,” Vanaman said.