Photo By Staff Sgt. David Lietz | Army Reserve Staff Sgt. Charles Spears, administrative sergeant for the 85th Support...... read more read more
ARLINGTON HEIGHTS, Ill. – Growing up on Chicago’s west side, Army Reserve Staff Sgt. Charles Spears, administrative sergeant for the 85th Support Command’s surgeon’s section, liked to play ‘cops and robbers’ as a young boy.
“I always wanted to play the cop,” said Spears.
He achieved his goal serving first with the Cook County Sheriff’s office, and then with the Chicago Police Department.
“I live my life for service. I do a lot of volunteer and community service. I just like to serve,” Spears explained. “I never wanted to be a millionaire, and I didn’t go to college (to receive a degree) for something that can make me a lot of money. But I like to help people. I like to see people smile.”
He credits a number of people along the way who were positive influences in his life growing up in a family of seven children.
“The biggest influence was my father who was a construction worker,” Spears said. “He instilled a strong work ethic in me. He would (leave for work) at five in the morning and not return from work until nine at night.”
Spears said his father stressed the importance of education and working hard if you want (to achieve) something in life. He credits his mother with instilling a sense of empathy and compassion in him. Spears also acknowledged a Chicago Police officer only by the name of Sgt. Long, as a positive influence, who he met while he was a student at Near North High School.
“He’s still on the force today,” said Spears. “He encouraged me to join the police department while I was still in high school.”
But Spears did not directly join law enforcement; after he graduated from high school, he went to live with his aunt stationed at Lackland Air Force Base, in San Antonio, Texas, with the intent to join the U.S. Air Force.
“She was a captain (in the Air Force) who commanded a basic training company,” Spears explained. “She ran our house like a basic training company so I had to get out of there.”
Spears explained that his goal was to join the U.S. Air Force’s security forces, which is a similar occupation to the U.S. Army’s military police; but that he would have to wait a year before he could get into that role, so he decided to join the Army in November 1996.
“I served as a combat engineer for three years while at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri,” said Spears.
After completing a three-year contract in the active Army, Spears left the Army and returned to Chicago.
“(Our unit) always stayed in the field and I never got to see my family, so I got out,” said Spears. “I went back to Chicago and got my (degree).”
Spears earned a degree in Criminal Justice at Malcolm X College in Chicago, and in 2002, he joined the Army Reserve. After graduation, he received a job opportunity at the Chicago Military Entrance Processing Station (MEPS).
“I worked at MEPS for five years,” Spears said. “During my time working there I decided to pursue my criminal justice career.”
He applied to the Cook County Sheriff’s department and was hired on May 10, 2010 working in the Department of Corrections.
“I worked for them for nearly four years,” Spears stated. “I learned a lot about the criminal justice system. Mostly, my job consisted of being inside the jail coming face-to-face with (convicts), booking them in and caring for them while they were in that jail.”
Spears felt that after four years with the Cook County Sheriff’s Department, he wanted to get into the communities or ‘in the field’, so he joined the Chicago Police Department on February 18, 2014. Due to his service in the Army and with the Cook County Sheriff’s Department, Spears stated that his entry process to the police academy was significantly quick.
“Some guys that I was at the Chicago Police Academy with waited for nearly three years to get into the academy, but I only waited for about eight to nine months,” Spears said. “It was quick.”
After graduating from the academy, he started working in some of the toughest areas in the city. Spears explained that he wanted to work in these neighborhoods to help the people of these communities and to hopefully save a few.
“I don’t want Chicago to be labeled a horrible place,” he said. “I wanted to go to the rough areas. I worked in some of the worst communities as a Chicago police officer and a lot of the stories that you see on the news are sensationalized. I have found a lot of good people in these neighborhoods.”
When Spears works as a police officer he stated that his intent was not only to just respond to calls and arrest people, but he was hoping to make a difference in someone’s life and hoping to prevent situations before they could develop.
“As a police officer, I’m not out there trying to ticket anyone or arrest people, but (I’m) trying to talk or teach,” Spears said.
Spears further explained that his goal was to help people from living a destructive life, and helping them find something constructive with their lives. When Spears is off duty, he and a group of friends walk the Chicago streets and reach out to local youths there; and they initiate conversations with youths to find out what they’re doing with their lives and share ideas with them.
“Last year we met with a group of teens involved in gangs and violence. We wanted to try to just talk with them as men and let them know that they could do something better. We wanted to try to get them off the streets and back into school,” Spears said. “We were trying to
stop the violence that way versus letting them get caught, going to jail and then reaching out to them. Some (officers) reach out to the kids while they are in jail, but we wanted to get to (kids) before it got to that point.”
Spears' hope was to at least save one person and have them do something better with their life.
“I met this kid when I worked for the sheriff’s department about a year and a half into my service. This kid was about eighteen or nineteen, and he didn’t have anything not even a GED (General Education Development). He didn’t have anything,” Spears said. “I started reaching out to him and showed him other things, and took him around Chicago. And he said ‘oh man, it’s a bigger life than just my neighborhood.’ I helped him (clean up his life) and helped him fill out an application for the sheriff’s department. He was hired two years later, and he’s an officer now. Now this kid is doing the same thing for other people, trying to save other people.”
| Date Taken: | 02.24.2015 |
| Date Posted: | 02.24.2015 13:15 |
| Story ID: | 155258 |
| Location: | ARLINGTON HEIGHTS, ILLINOIS, US |
| Web Views: | 306 |
| Downloads: | 1 |
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