But Undeterred by Attacks on Police

A three-year study by the National Institute for Safety and Health found that taxicab drivers are nearly four times as likely to be murdered on the job as police officers, and in recent years the number of police killed on duty has been declining in Southern California. But the dangers to police are dramatic and unpredictable, and their deaths always capture public attention. JOHN EDWARD MEDINA, 18, is more aware than most high-school students of the LAPD officer and the two Riverside sheriff’s deputies killed in the last two months while on duty. And this week, trial commenced in the injury shooting of another LAPD patrol officer. JOHN MEDINA is a senior at James Monroe High School in North Hills in the Law and Government magnet and a member of the LAPD Police Explorers program, which introduces high-school students to the police profession. Medina talked with JIM BLAIR about his continued determination to join the police.

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I think a police officer is born. My uncle is a police officer in Colombia, my native country. My mother says that when I was real little, I always talked about him. I don’t even remember that, but she also says I used to be glued to cop shows on television. Then when I was about 12, in Los Angeles, I saw two teen-agers dressed in police uniforms and stopped them on the street. The told me about the Police Explorers. I begged and begged the officer in charge, Jim Conrad, to let me in before I was 14, and I was such a pest that they let me join at 13.

I have never had second thoughts. I go with officers to their family barbecues. I helped one officer move lately. Sometimes we even call Officer Conrad “Dad” because his job is us and we spend so much time with him.

Even though I didn’t know the LAPD officer who was killed, it really gets to me that an officer would be killed by a 16-year-old boy or shot down by a sniper. It hurts me, because officers try to protect people and make the streets a little bit safer.

When I heard about the Riverside Sheriff’s Deputies, it made me stop and think. I realized it could happen to me writing a traffic ticket, at a bank robbery or, like the deputies, on a domestic violence call.

My friends are people who have the same moral center, the same thinking as I do. My close friends are really proud of me. They think it’s cool that I’m an Explorer and believe an officer is there to help you. Of course I know people who think the police are bad and abuse different minorities; but every time I’ve been in the locker room, I’ve never heard a derogatory statement or a racial slur. Obviously, if you are an officer in Van Nuys you’ll arrest more Latinos and blacks than you would in Beverly Hills simply because there are more Latinos and blacks in Van Nuys. That doesn’t mean you’re targeting anyone. In Simi Valley they arrest more Caucasians. I basically try dealing with an officer’s death by talking to the kids at our Explorer meetings at the Van Nuys station. We understand that that’s the reality of the job. It comes with the territory. Yet it seems the more we talk about it, the more we don’t understand why people do it.

When I leave next August to join the Air Force, my service field will be law enforcement.

Police officers have a certain kind of character. They aren’t just satisfied with lowering the crime rate a percentage point or two; they have a continual quest for excellence. That’s the kind of cop I want to be--never give up, but never underestimate the risks either.