My City September 2021

MYHEROES

GRAND BLANC POLICE DEPARTMENT

CHIEF, WHY DID YOU PURSUE A CAREER IN LAW ENFORCEMENT? I believe that my path to law enforcement was a result of my upbringing and very heavily influenced by my parents AND my grandparents on both sides of my family. I could go on and on about the positive influences my parents and grandparents had on me as a child and the lessons I have learned about service to others and how to treat people with love and respect. I wanted a career where I could serve the community and/or country while helping the less fortunate. With no active war or conflict going on in the world at the time that I graduated from high school, law enforcement seemed like the most logical career choice. WHAT ARE YOUR GOALS FOR THE DEPARTMENT IN THE NEXT YEAR? My goal is for the GBPD to become an accredited agency. As an agency, we are very aware of the incidents that have occurred across the country over the course of the last several years that have caused many citizens to distrust the police. I believe that if policies are up to date and officers are receiving the appropriate training, these incidents can be mitigated. A secondary goal of mine is to have at least ¼ of our officers trained in Crisis Intervention – such a team will be better equipped to assist people who are having a mental health crisis. Ś‰KĄK ŚKĄK ťÝĩ Ś‰KÇ ťÝĩ ‰K ĄA Ýy ě‰K ўӕіі ěKĄĄÝĄŽČě ěě :¶Ӟ That morning, I was playing in a 9-1-1 Golf outing (named for a retired Saginaw County law enforcement officer who had passed away). My wife was home with our infant daughter and as we were waiting for the scramble to begin, she called me on my cell phone and asked if I had heard that an airplane had flown into one of the towers at the World Trade Center. I told her that I had not heard, and she didn’t have very many details at the time. Just minutes later, she called back to tell me that a second plane crashed into the other tower. My teammates and I went into the clubhouse to watch the news.The horrific footage of the airplanes flying into the towers will live with me forever. As the news kept coming in that day about American Airlines Flight 77 crashing into the Pentagon, United Airlines Flight 93 crashing into a field in Pennsylvania and the collapse of the towers, the golf outing became an afterthought. I think we all wanted to just get home and hug our families and hear how President Bush was going to respond to these attacks.

BRIAN LIPE CHIEF

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