I had met Lisa Myers twice before. But even so, all things “police” intimidate me, so I was a little nervous as I drove up to the Howard County Police Headquarters to talk to her about protecting Howard County. African Violets and pansies were in full bloom alongside the Mediterranean-stye blue tiles on the side of the building. The flags undulating lazily in the spring air almost made me feel like I was at a vacation resort! Still, I couldn’t shake that feeling that probably most people get in law enforcement milieus. I felt like I’d done something wrong. It was just a matter of time, I was sure, before I’d be playing harmonica in a holding cell wearing an ill-fitting jumpsuit with an ID number stenciled on the back. A glanced back at my car for comfort–an escape vehicle, if need be.

The front door to the headquarters’ Warfield Building opened just slightly, and Chief Lisa Myers said, “Hi, Robert!” as if she were greeting a relative she hadn’t seen in long time, her eyes wide, a gleaming-white smile, and her shoulders scrunched up. I got carried away and walked briskly over to give Lisa a hug, my clipboard and pen knocking into her badge. I thought, “Oh! This is it! I’ve violated some criminal code about how a civilian must never come into contact with an officer’s badge!” Lisa, meanwhile, just led me inside, asking me if I’d had any trouble finding the building and wasn’t the weather nice, did you see all the flowers in bloom? She led me into a conference room, offered me water, and continued asking me how I was doing and what I’d been up to since we last saw each other at a Harriet Tubman Day event. I had little patience, I must admit, to fill her in on my ho-hum life when I could be hearing about how her job’s been going since she was sworn in Howard County’s Chief of Police in February.

Related: Local historian Shawn Gladden told me some neat stuff about the tending to the area’s past.

Rigidity Versus Responsiveness

“My mission on a daily basis is to make sure we provide the best possible service, that we’re doing our due diligence in engaging our citizens, and really being inclusive in how we do business in the county,” Lisa told me. This is next-level policing, I thought. It’s about outreach before the fact rather than punishment after the fact.

I recalled to Lisa how she’d included me in a group of people representing HoCo’s LGBTQ+ population and its allies, in a meeting wherein she asked us what our concerns were and how her department could better serve the population.

“Safety and engaging the community go hand in hand,” Lisa said in her melodic voice. She tied inclusivity into this too, when she told me that if the police department doesn’t have overall good relations with the community it serves, it could hinder the work of detectives looking for leads or trying to find information.

She also just loves getting to see “the beautiful things that are happening in the community,” she said, by reaching out to its constituent members. Lisa told me she loves talking to people, which she could tell I do too.

“Sometimes my husband’ll say to me, ‘When you go into the store, don’t talk to anybody–just go in and get what you came for!” Lisa said, laughing. I told her my loved ones sometimes get sick of me chatting with strangers, too.

After 27 years with the police department, Lisa retired in January 2018. She said her favorite part of the ensuing year, before County Executive Calvin Ball (D) asked her to be chief of the department, was just to sit outside and watch people walk by. She’d often talk to them, and then, again, her son would say, “Mom, do you know that person?”

“Well, I hope you said to him, ‘I sure do now!'” I came back. We both laughed.

As I sat across from Lisa I thought about how the traditional, punitive approach to law enforcement is reactive. HoCo’s police department under Lisa is proactive.

“Chief Myers is willing to challenge conventional wisdom. She is like a breath of fresh air,” her friend and coworker Stephanie Wall told me. That’s certainly how I’d describe keeping the county safe by being inclusive rather than closed-off.

“Safety and engaging the community go hand in hand. And I know Calvin’s all about being inclusive and working together to find the best possible way to do things,” Lisa said.

In the way that it seeks out salutary relationships with other departments in the county, Lisa’s police department is unusual too.

“We all kind of intertwine in different ways,” she said. “If Howard County isn’t safe as a county, even if we have great libraries or great schools people are going to be concerned about going to school or the library. So we have to partner with them about to provide safety information.”

Lisa said it’s important when the county’s building new structures, too, for the police department to offer input also.

“We don’t want to necessarily tell people what to do but to say, ‘Listen, you need to have better lighting here or the way you’re building this structure will make it hard for police and fire to respond efficiently,'” Lisa said. This is why deregulation, too, a favorite pastime of the current federal administration, isn’t a good idea either.

And: I took a tour of the Little Patuxent Water Reclamation Plant–and here’s what I learned.

Come One, Come Ball

“Certainly, our primary role is providing safety and security for our citizens,” Lisa said. Sometimes that takes unexpected forms like recruiting new officers to the force.

“As the county grows, it’s important that our police department reflects the make-up of our community. So in order to do that, in order to attract people to the profession, we have to be that welcoming force,” she said with her head tilted to the side in sympathy.

Lisa said it’s a perspective she and Calvin Ball share: “We all have a role, but we can all work together too to accomplish a mi mission,” she said.

I asked Lisa if recruiting is challenging because of the impression that policing is dangerous.

“I think that’s part of it. But also policing is still seen as a blue-collar profession,” she said. She understands, she told me, that if parents have just paid for a four-year education for their child, they’re not going to expect them to become a police officer rather than a doctor or a lawyer.” Lisa, for her part, got her degree in criminal justice at Coppin State University in 1999.

Lisa also said that shift work can be daunting, too, to some people. In addition to that, the HoCo Police Department competes with or jurisdictions for the same pool of recruits.

Lisa and I looked out the window at the same moment, then, as a gust of wind made a copse of trees sway outside.

“We need to continually make sure we’re trained in responding to emergencies,” she said, looking back at me. “And right now that’s not just these mass shootings and terror attacks, but it’s about weather-related emergencies.” I thought again about she’d mentioned that working with other departments like the County Executive’s office and the fire department was a key approach for her own.

“The department needs to keep pace with the county, too,” she said: “As the county grows, we have to grow our police department, so that we are able to respond in a timely manner and we have enough officers.”

More Than Miranda Rights

Lisa said people would be surprised to know how much of her job is attending events in which she interacts with the community.

“When you think of a chief of police, you’re thinking of a crime scene or a press conference. But I was surprised at the amount of meetings and events I go to,” she said, just as a soft rectangle of golden sunlight fell on the conference room table in front of us, which reminded me of the last time I’d seen her.

“Or the Holi celebration we were at together,” I said, thinking back to two weeks before when we’d bumped into each other at the Indian Cultural Association’s Holi festival. Holi’s a Hindu holiday celebrating the arrival of spring. I showed her some pictures on my phone of the two of us with purple, yellow, orange, red, pink, and yes, blue dye smeared on our skin, hair, and clothes, as is the custom during a Holi celebration.

Now sometimes, our new police chief has to go to events–well, a lot of times–to interact with people. But sometimes, given that she’s HoCo’s first African-American woman in charge of the police, the people come to her. We recalled how her swearing-in ceremony was a standing-room only affair at the George Howard Building. Even before the crowd leapt to their feet in joyous honor at the end of her remarks, there was such a feeling of palpable hope.

“Things will be different,” I said that day to a woman I didn’t know sitting next to me. She nodded and smiled.

Back in the conference room Lisa told me why she thinks the events and meetings she goes to are so important.

“If I’m reading to kids in school, believe it or not, it helps to impact their impression of policing,” she said. And it’s a necessity, really, she said, going out to meet the community, to get feedback and take the pulse of HoCo. She said she’ll often sit down with police commanders after being out and about to relay the information she learns. In this way, they can  figure out how they can improve their service.

“For me it’s a welcome surprise that I get to go out and meet county residents so much. I think for someone who isn’t as comfortable engaging or isn’t a talkative person, that might be a little difficult,” she said.

Also: See what local reverend Regina Clay told me about HoCo’s spiritual life.

You Have the Right to Remain Caring

“I would hope that it would come out in the way that I interact with people that I truly care about them” Lisa said.

I smiled to show her that yes, it does.

Lisa said that if she had unlimited funds, she’d expand the space in which her department works. She’d also add more specialty units, like the ones now addressing cyber security, digital forensic, and drone technology.

“I’d help us keep up to pace with equipment, too, because so much is digital now,” she said.

She’d also hire more officers. And she’d institute more community engagement programs like the Police Athletic League. Baltimore City has one, and it offers a community center that partners officers, community workers, and young people.

I realized I’d taken up an hour of Lisa’s time, then. She’s so easy to talk to! She got up and walked me out then. She waved goodbye to me as I drove away from the building. The way I felt as I left was a wholly different one than when I’d arrived there an hour ago. It was…safe. Not scared, but safe.

The difference between how I felt nervous as I drove up to the Warfield Building–even though I knew Lisa and how warm and kind she always is–and how secure I felt as I left reminded me of something Herman Charity had said to me about Lisa. Herman is a retired Howard County Police Lieutenant and the first African-American on the county’s force.

“As Lisa progressed through the department after her initial assignment to the crime lab, I was pleased to see how devoted she was–not only to the police department but to every member of the community,” Herman said.

That’s how she’d changed the way I felt, I thought, in that last hour. She’d me see that she valued me. If you magnify that skill in interpersonal relations to community relations, then you’ve got a foundation for a revolution of promise in HoCo’s law enforcement. Colleen and I weren’t here during the previous administration’s tenure to speak of it, so I don’t mean to cast aspersions. But given what’s been happening all over the country with law enforcement’s relationship with the communities it serves, that’s certainly a welcome approach.

Thanks for reading! Check back with us each here at rocoinhoco.com every week as Robert, Colleen (and pup, Moses) get to know the many facets—one each week–of this prismatic place called Howard County. We want to take you along with us, so follow us on Twitter at @rocoinhoco, join our Facebook group, and follow us on Instagram at @rocoinhoco.