Hello and welcome back to my blog. Today I will do a character interview with Detective Jackie Cruze.

IW – So, Detective Cruze, can you tell me what got you into policing?

Jackie – sure. I was inspired to get into policing by my current partner, Mitchell. During the first rampage by The Drowner he had come to my high school telling about how to keep ourselves safe. And I figured what a great way to serve. Keep people safe, particularly women and children.

IW – Do you experience any difficulties being a woman in policing?

Jackie – I haven’t, at least not from male cops. The ones I worked with have been cool. No macho shit that a woman has no place in policing.

IW – what about from male criminals?

Jackie – At five seven and one hundred twenty five pounds, I have an obvious disadvantage when it comes to strength over a two hundred pound man. But when some guy starts being an ass hole, one smack to the balls with the baton or zap them there with the taser and they suddenly get very respectful.

IW – Your views on how women should keep themselves safe?

Jackie – for starters that’s the wrong approach. It’s not women should protect themselves from getting raped, teach men not to rape women in the first place.

IW-  and how do you propose to do that?

Jackie – to start recognize that most men would never commit a sexual assault, so to do up a course on that we’d really only be preaching to the choir – with most men. A lot of times a guy would commit a sexual assault after having too much to drink, so for guys like that teach them to know their limitations when it comes to alcohol, or other drugs, and don’t get so drunk you lose control of your inhibitions.

For men like what you see going on in the Hollywood movie scene, the media moguls and politicians who are falling from their ivory towers, to teach them that getting sexually assaulted ruins a woman’s life isn’t going to work. The reason being, if he cared about that he wouldn’t have raped her in the first place. So show kids in school what happens to men who do that – if you rape a girl you will ruin your life. Take those college athletes who were convicted of it, ask them “if you have the talent to play pro sports do you think any team is even going to look at you or consider drafting or signing you to a contract if you rape a girl? You’ll be throwing away millions of dollars if you do.”

Then you have the guys like The Drowner, the only way to stop a sociopath or psychopath from committing a sexual assault is to put a bullet in his head or lock him up and throw away the key. Now, obviously we can’t execute or incarcerate someone before they’ve committed a crime, but there have been instances where a guy was convicted of raping several women, and he got a light sentence, then on parole he “graduated” from being a serial rapist to serial killer. Had the guy been given a proper sentence like ninety years or more the murders wouldn’t have happened.

IW – what would your answer be to that long prison sentences and capital punishment are not a deterrent?

Jackie – neither of them are a general deterrent. The key word being general. Throw someone in jail for three hundred years it does stop him from ever doing it again. Not to mention the recidivism rate among executed criminals is zero percent. Ted Bundy was effectively rehabilitated by his execution, after all he’s never committed another murder afterwards has he?

IW – No he hasn’t. What would you believe The Drowner’s motivations be?

:Jackie – Ask him when we catch him, dude.

IW – I’ll be sure to do that. What has been your proudest or happiest moment as a cop?

Jackie – that will likely come when we catch The Drowner. But to date, I would say back when I was a patrol officer, there was a fourteen year old girl, who was living on the street. A junkie, likely a prostitute, I helped get her cleaned up and sober. Got her into an outreach program, now that girl is at Harvard, a straight A student. She’s going to do big things. That’s the thing I like to see. A lot of us get into policing to make the world a better place – the old cliche which Mitchell probably told you – and for one girl I did.

IW – Something to be very proud of. On a lighter note can you tell us about some of the more humorous times as a police officer?

Jackie – You want a stupid criminal story?

IW – If you could.

Jackie – Too many to count – as a lot of cops would say. You ever see on TV those single lights that cops put on top of their cars when they go on a call?

IW – yeah.

Jackie – One time when I was on patrol, this was my first week on the job. My training officer and I were in an unmarked police car. Some goof put one of those lights on the top of his car and pulled us over. He came my TO’s window and when he saw we were real cops in uniform, he pissed himself he was so scared. We had to put a sheet of plastic for him to sit on in the back of the patrol car.

 

And that concludes the interview with Detective Jackie Cruze. Check out her exploits with her partner in the book below: