Rookie relishes graveyard shift,
began police duty as freshman

by Kay Conner

When it is midnight and Jaimy Stephens is alone in her patrol car, she is keenly aware that she is no longer in a pass or fail classroom setting. She now faces potential life-or-death situations.

In spite of that, the University Police Department rookie loves her job. She feels that she is accepted as an equal even though the staff knew her as a student assistant while she was an undergraduate at the university. Stephens says that she doesn't think she would get the same kind of support in a big city police department.

She also likes working the graveyard shift because the hours of 9 p.m. to 7 a.m. are more likely than daytime to bring someone on campus whose actions are questionable. This gives her more experience early in her career dealing with a variety of situations.

And since the officers rotate their schedules, she will not work the graveyard shift again for almost a year.

The Hoover High School graduate went to work as a campus parking officer in her freshman year at Fresno State and became the supervisor of the parking officers as a junior. Between work and classes, she was on the go from 7 a.m. to 11 p.m. almost every day for four years.

Stephens was one of four who partici-pated in a special cadet program arranged by the University Police Department this year. Lt. Sergio Silva said that in order to retain trained personnel the department paid the Police Academy fees for the four cadets, who then signed a three-year contract with the campus Police Department. The other three former Fresno State students who just graduated from the cadet program are Bernard Finley, Melinda Guerra and Robert Olgin.

Stephens said that she and Melinda Guerra were called the "tough chicks" of the academy because of their willingness to be the aggressors in training. Although small in stature, Stephens can hold her own in a physical confrontation. She says she had always roughhoused with her brother, but now she runs and works out with weights to keep in shape.

After graduating with a B.A. in criminology and spending five months in the Fresno City College Police Academy, Stephens was sworn in as a police officer last June.

"I feel very fortunate to be one of only 14 of the 48 who graduated from the academy this spring to have a job waiting at the time of graduation," Stephens said. She is also proud to have graduated in the top five of her class.

After spending 13 weeks in field training with the campus PD, Stephens is setting her sights on a graduate degree in criminology, beginning in January. She is interested in getting a Victim Services Certificate and would like eventually to teach in the Criminology Department.

Public safety is a family thing for Stephens; her husband, Shaun, is a school safety assistant at Hoover High School and her mother, Mary Quesada, works as a security camera operator for the campus PD. When asked why Stephens wanted to be a police officer, her mother jokes that "she was allowed to watch too much of the detective show 'Hunter' on TV."

When Stephens came to work as a sworn officer, she was told by other university officers that the campus was a much quieter environment than the big city PD. However, in addition to the usual thefts, there have been an armed carjacking on campus since she came ­ and the sensational arrest of a suspected killer made by fellow cadet Melinda Guerra.

"Maybe quiet," said Stephens, "but never dull."