Audio File
Transcript
My name is Andre Evan Taylor. I’m 16 years old.
My name is Angelo Berger. I’m 17 years old.
My name is Ryan Moriarty. I’m 17 years old.
We interviewed Officer Gunter
Officer Gunter on
July 30th, 2015.
Growing up, I was a scholar kid. Once I got in high school, grades dropped, C average. Got into playing sports. All sports, including swimming. Just having fun, maintaining a decent grade, in and out of fights, teenage things.
My mother basically raised me, you know, single parent, even though my grandfather and grandmother was involved and my grandfather’s old school from down South, so he believed in working and taking care of home. I was average. I mean, I was a scholar kid but I was average.
I mean. Yes, ma’am. No, Sir. Things like that. Yes, but then.
Out in the street, you know?
You had to step up. When I was growing up, we had community centers, you know, we had like the wide cables club, things like that up on the hill and everywhere else, a lot were free. Nowadays, you have to pay for everything, which deters everybody from going. A lot of homes, single parents can’t afford it, and that’s what leads the young adults to the streets.
But I was fortunate. I was able to go everywhere. Being a Hill District person, I still traveled throughout the city and other communities. Nowadays, I see that the young folks is afraid to leave their community.
And they do leave their communities, they get in some type of trouble, you know, all these organizations need to come together and going to be less as far as less expensive to get these people to commute into Braddock and keep these centers open a little bit longer.
Talking to these young kids y’all got a lot of peer pressure and y’all want to be in that clique and it ain’t all about being in a clique. It’s about yeah having your boys having your people, but when you know it’s wrong, just walk away. You know, I knew right from wrong, and I know when to say, OK, it’s time for me to leave and I left.
But while I was always from the time I woke up school, after school, sports, homework, whatever, by that time, dinner and it was time to go to bed. My ultimate goal was to be a state trooper stay in law enforcement, which I did, and I am currently. As growing up all I did was protect people. I was always a cop. I’ve been in this field for 17 years.
I started off in the city of Pittsburgh Housing Authority Police Department, and from there I went to Children’s Hospital Police.
I love it. Each day is totally a different challenge from the Hill District all the way out here to the lower Braddock. I mean, high speed chases, shootings right in front of me.
Homicide suspects you had to chase down to running in a burning building pulling out an unconscious person. The number one thing about it is this.
Communication. You have to be able to conversate with somebody, sit down and just get in their head. You don’t have to use your gun. You don’t have to make that arrest. Just teach them.
We have an advantage as being a borough officer compared to a city officer. Borough officers, we can get more relaxed more first name basic with the public, you know they know my first name, I know theirs. I’m their friend, you know. So therefore we could sit down and just laugh and joke about things.
Which I try to teach the other officers that to get to know the public, our community. That way if you do come across that person that is 302 patient, they see a familiar face and they calm down.
Because if you’ve ever been in a situation, you have tunnel vision. I mean, you can be standing right in front of em and they’ll go right past you. You don’t even notice you’re there. And then their strength level is, it’s like outrageous. So, but when they see a familiar face they calm down. So what I do, I like to talk to people one-on-one. I get out of my cruiser.
And I speak with people. My goal is to preach to all y’all young folks. I mean I have a 23 year old, a 21 year old, a 13 and 11 year old, all boys. So try to teach them. But gotta be around 24/7 and you can’t watch a kid 24/7.
With this generation now, it’s like they don’t want to really come up and talk to anybody
You have to actually corner them, so it’s like really hard to try to be that type of role model. I mean, they see you and it’s like.
Basically have to catch them by yourself one on one. Then you can talk to them. I have done that plenty of times and changed some lives, but maybe in a role model, I don’t think so. But if you say and put me in that category then I appreciate it. Maybe I made a difference, maybe I didn’t.
Well I mean, once they go to school, they can always talk to an advisor or a counselor there, and they can get them in the right way. They can also participate in sports. I mean, all these schools have sports, and if they don’t, some of the sports are outside like summer programs. It’s all up to that individual. What type of mindset that person has.
Whatever’s on your mind, just strive for it. No matter how hard it gets you down, you always can find something to pump you up. Stay in school. Stay off the street. Get that education. Proceed your goals.