Benny Westcott
Sweet Home’s newest police officer, Savannah Bradd, has wanted to be a cop since she was a high-school freshman.
As a young woman, she witnessed law enforcement at work firsthand. Her parents suffered from drug addiction (her father succumbed to heroin when she was 8), and as a result, she experienced homelessness during all four years of high school.
“I couch-hopped from friend to friend,” she said of that period. “Various families let me into their home for various amounts of time.”
“I saw a lot of stuff growing up that kids that age generally don’t see,” Bradd continued. “The police would be called to my house, and I would breathe a sigh of relief. They were always the ones saving the day and putting the bad guys away, and I wanted to do that for other people.”
Bradd persevered through these challenging circumstances to become the first in her family to graduate from high school, as well as the first to be accepted to four-year colleges.
She said she doesn’t know whether “nature or nurture” led her to take that different path.
“I guess when I was younger, seeing my family on drugs and seeing how tumultuous and dark those paths could be made me want to be the exact opposite of that,” she said.
She noted she didn’t have positive role models in her formative years, that it was “really just me.”
After finishing high school in 2012, Bradd began taking online classes at Portland Community College. She has two terms left to finish her associate’s degree, majoring in general studies. She has yet to decide whether she wants to go for her bachelor’s.
In 2015, Bradd had her son, Emmett, who’s now in the first grade. She focused on being a stay-at-home mother for several years before taking a job at Jeld-Wen Inc., a door and window manufacturer in Stayton, for a year and a half.
Still, she kept alive her vision of becoming a cop.
“In my younger ages, I wasn’t really ready to get into law enforcement,” she said. “I had to get some life and work experience before taking that leap.”
Bradd said that when she started looking for a police officer job, she knew she wanted to be in a small town. The 27-year-old has lived in communities ranging in size from Portland to Lyons and figured a place like Sweet Home would suit her best. The fact that the city is “very pro-police” also influenced her decision, she said.
Bradd described a conversation she had with Sergeant Ryan Cummings about what the department was looking for. He spoke of character traits and “who you are as a person.”
“I applied the next day,” she said with a smile.
Bradd enters Sweet Home’s department as its only female officer.
“I would say that gender plays no role,” she said. “The male officers are respectful. I anticipated there being more resistance than there has been here, so I’m pleasantly surprised at how inviting and accepting people have been. I know this is the right place for my long-term career in law enforcement.”
Of her male coworkers, she said, “They have those boundaries. They don’t make me feel like an outcast.”
The most rewarding part of policing for Bradd is “genuinely helping people. It isn’t all about putting handcuffs on people and throwing them in jail. We help people with medical difficulties, or sometimes do things like help elderly people use their phone when they come in here.”
She reiterated that “you need life experience” to be a police officer.
“Certain jobs, particularly ones with customer service aspects, help you talk to angry people and learn conflict management,” she said. “Those are good tools to have in your belt before you take the leap into something like this, where you’re dealing with really serious situations.”
She noted that her transient upbringing also helped prepare her.
“One thing I learned through living in different households is how to get along with different personality types, which has helped me in this job,” she said.
Bradd described her reception at the department as “wonderful.” After starting her new job, she was surprised at “how well it fits. It’s almost like I’ve been feeling a sense of calm, like this is where I need to be. And everyone here makes it joyous and fun.”
Bradd has been at the department since Aug. 2, working on general patrol and “learning the ropes.” She spoke of becoming a detective one day.
“I ride along with Detective Keenan Martin all day, every day, and watch everything he does,” she said.
This week she transitions to shadowing Officer Sean Potter, accompanying him on calls, investigations and patrol.
Bradd is currently receiving instruction at the Department of Public Safety Standards and Training (DPSST) Training Center in Salem, going through a 16-week program that all new police officers in the state of Oregon must attend.
Bradd, who still lives in Salem, sometimes has to wake up at 3:30 a.m. to make it to her Sweet Home shifts on time. She hopes to move to the area upon finishing DPSST training next April.