Portland Oregon I've been an officer for 11 years um with the bureau and uh I've been out here at St John's the whole time ever since I got got off probation uh I'm married and I have two kids uh I have a a kid that's in fourth grade and one that's in first grade yeah a lot of running around I'm pretty active uh on my weekends I do a lot of volunteering inside the school so we go to uh I'm I'm actually part of the PTO where my kid goes to school so I'm I'm the treasur and I've been doing that for the last year that's what keeps me busy on my weekends and it's a good way to it's a good way to get uh stay involved in my children's lives but it is a lot of hard work um considering that's my weekend uh I wanted to become an officer because well like anybody else like everybody else I like helping people and I think that's part of why I volunteer at the school too but um you know when I first did my ride alongs uh I didn't know what to expect but after I did the ride alongs I was I was hooked I knew that's what I wanted to do and I was going to try my best to uh achieve the goal of being a police officer it's very it's a very diverse job uh we do a lot of things uh out here that we don't get to do in normal life and we get to see a lot of things um I like the variety in it so not you no day is the same every day is different I used to be a lifeguard and I used to teach swim lessons and I did that for about 13 years before I had this job and I've always compared that job to this job because this job a lot of times you're dealing with people on the the worst day of their lives they might you know you might have to give them bad news or there there was some tragedy maybe they were assaulted or maybe they're getting arrested or or maybe someone close to them passed away and in that job it's it's like it's the best day of their life because they're going in for swim lessons they're going in to play in the pool and they're excited and there's a family element kids are excited and so it's very strange to see to come from one side and then go to another side and I'm not saying that we never see anything positive here because we do but there's also that element of um um there's also uh you also see that the unhappy side just about anybody can be a police officer and I tell the kids at the school um when I go read to them when I go volunteer when they ask me what it takes to be a police officer I tell them anybody can be a police officer just about now first off you know you got to you got to go to school you got to be good you got to start from from the beginning um but as long as you pass all the phases then you're going to be a police officer you know there's a there's a written test there's a a background check so make sure you're everybody knows what the right thing to do is and what the wrong thing to do is so all you have to do is choose to do the right thing um get your education and uh and you will become a police officer if you work hard at it um case in point so I I wasn't born in this country I was I was born in Vietnam and I came over to this country I didn't know English we were just like account information is what they're getting I went to first grade not knowing English I was in ESL which is English as a second language and I I went to to that for about 3 years until third grade um I graduated from the ESL program um so I started off basically at the bottom not knowing anything not having anything um not even speaking the language and then I come here and uh starting in fifth grade I started doing really well in school um went through Junior High High School decided to go to college and when I graduated everything I did whether it was my past jobs I tried to do everything right so that I could set myself up I didn't know that's is where I was going to land but I was setting myself up just cuz it was the right thing to do and uh and here I am you know so any if I can do it anybody can do it and you know cuz cuz I started from nothing I started from no money no education can't speak the language and here I am oh you know I I love all kinds of foods um I always have a phase of food had to Da in Portland that was my favorite food for a while there I was eating sushi every chance I got maybe three times a week then I also had my Indian phase where any Indian restaurant I would just love eating there uh you know i' love Mexican food I love Chinese food IND food so um just anywhere right now I love going to takas North Precinct and uh Portland Police Bureau Yak this is the best part of the Run