It’s probably fair to say that many people who are working today are doing jobs that pay the bills, but don’t offer much in the way of personal fulfillment.
Only a very lucky few can say that they are working their dream job. One person who can make that claim is Gardena Police Sgt. Brian Juckett.
It’s probably fair to say that many people who are working today are doing jobs that pay the bills, but don’t offer much in the way of personal fulfillment.
Only a very lucky few can say that they are working their dream job. One person who can make that claim is Gardena Police Sgt. Brian Juckett.
Ever since he was a young boy, Juckett wanted to be a police officer. In fact, at the age of 14, Juckett joined the Gardena Police Department Explorers, a program for youth aged 14 to 21, which gives them a chance to explore a career in law enforcement by working with local police agencies. Juckett enjoyed the experience so much that he stayed with the explorers for his entire seven-year tenure and then applied to become an officer with the Gardena Police Department immediately after.
While it might be unusual for someone to know exactly what they want to do at such a young age, Juckett said that his choice of career was easy right from the very beginning.
“As you’re growing up, you have to kind of choose,” Juckett said. “I know for some kids, it’s hard when you’re younger. Most people these days don’t decide what they want in their life or career until they’re usually in their twenties. When I was growing up, you were taught to choose what you wanted to do in life early on and prepare yourself.”
It was this preparation and dedication to following his dream that led him to a career that has spanned 35 years and counting, and which led to him being awarded the Sustained Superiority Award in May 2014 by the South Bay Medal of Valor Committee.
Gardena Police Chief Edward Medrano said Juckett has always been a great example of what all officers should try to become.
“Brian has always been the best in law enforcement and has a dedication for this profession,” Medrano said. “He still has the same energy and enthusiasm as when he first got hired. His lifetime commitment to fitness and his lifetime commitment to learning is an exceptional example of what a police officer should strive to be.”
Medrano said Juckett’s exceptional service throughout a long and illustrious career is what made him such a ideal choice for the Sustained Superiority Award.
“We felt that what Brian has done in the last several years and during his entire career was worthy of recognition and he’s one of those guys that probably hasn’t been recognized enough and we just felt this was a good time to do that.”
So what is it about Juckett and his career that made both Medrano and the Medal of Valor Committee stand up and take notice?
Two words: humility and initiative.
Juckett considers himself a very humble person who is reluctant to take sole credit for all of the good things that have happened during his career. He attributes much of his success as a police officer to being surrounded by a great team of professionals within the Gardena Police Department.
“I think Gardena has a lot to offer and the employees here at the police department are some of the best employees I’ve ever worked with,” Juckett said. “When it comes down to personalities, everybody has their differences, but these folks can pull together and do whatever has got to get done. Teamwork is a big thing here and every person, whether you’re rank, or file, or a line person, everybody here has got the ability to do just that.”
Initiative is the other thing that made others notice Juckett. Throughout the course of his career, he has volunteered for numerous assignments within the department including motorcycle patrol, gangs, SWAT, and the detective bureau, as well as the crime suppression unit. However, his favorite assignment was the seven years he spent as a K9 handler.
“That was probably one of the best jobs I’ve ever had,” Juckett said. “You learn a lot about working with dogs and tracking. Learning how people think and how suspects try to get away and the things they do. These dogs. They can smell 400 times better than we can and they can track somebody right up to the door of a house.”
In addition to all of the various assignments he has had as an officer, he also took the initiative when it came to working with officers from other agencies. Because of his experience as a member of the SWAT team, last year Juckett was asked to develop a training class for all South Bay area police agencies on active shooter situations.
“We go back and look at active shooter incidents such as Sandy Hook and talk about lessons learned, tactics that the officers should use, and responses,” he said.
The class became so popular because of all the useful information that it is now taught every month to all of the South Bay police agencies including Torrance, Palos Verdes, Redondo Beach, El Segundo, and Hawthorne.
True to his humble nature, Juckett said that he is not the only teacher in the class. When he was putting the class together, he enlisted the help of officers from other agencies to act as instructors.
With 35 years on the job, which includes his time as a police explorer, Juckett is about a year away from retirement, but he’s not ready to hang up his gun and badge just yet.
“I think with any job, as long as you still like it, then why leave?” Juckett said. “People say, ‘Well, you’re going to be maxed out on retirement so you’re not really going to be getting a whole lot more by staying but the truth is, ‘Do you like what you’re doing and do you feel that you’re making a difference?’ That’s what matters. It’s not about money, it’s about whether I still like it and whether I’m contributing to the department and making a difference in the community.”
The Gardena Police Department does not have a forced retirement policy like other police agencies so officers can continue to work well into their 60s and beyond, as long as they are capable of doing the job and can still pass the regular mandatory fitness tests.
For anyone interested in police work, Juckett said that it’s a good career but prospective police officers should be aware of the realities of the job.
“There’s a lot of paperwork involved in police work,” he said. “It’s not just going out there and arresting the bad people. Its about having to deal with people’s everyday problems. You get calls for the family disputes, you get calls to deal with domestic issues or landlord/tenant things and its just about trying to deal with the everyday problems people have.”
However, there is another side to police work that can test even the most hardened of veterans. It’s the adrenaline rush stemming from some of the unexpected situations that sometimes await patrol officers during the normal course of performing their duties.
“The adrenaline rush can come at any time,” Juckett said. “You can be driving along in the car and all of a sudden turn a corner and it just blows up in your face and now you’re faced with something, whether you see a shooting occurring right in front of you or something else. You’re heart can be at a normal pace and all of a sudden, it’s gone. It’s up there.”
About eight years ago, Juckett had to deal with one of those adrenaline rush moments when he responded to a Christmastime domestic dispute involving a young man and his mother.
Juckett said the son had just pulled a knife on his mom while he and the other officers who responded were trying to convince him to come out and surrender.
“We got up to the front door and we were trying to talk to him and it was up on a third story balcony of an apartment,” Juckett said. “All of a sudden he just comes running out of the front door and just leaped off the balcony. I tried to grab him and I was able to get his arm but as he went over the balcony, I started to go too and I couldn’t hold on to him because it was just a metal railing and I could feel the railing starting to give and he went three stories down. That will always be in the back of my mind. He was hell-bent on committing suicide.”
The young man in question didn’t survive the fall. The incident has stayed with Juckett to this day.
“It was one of those things that you always play back in your mind,” he said. “You tried but there was just nothing you could do.”
Juckett said one of the best ways for an officer to deal with those
kind of high-intensity stressful situations is to do regular exercise and stay in peak physical condition, which he says helps him control his reactions to certain situations.
Because his job puts him into regular contact with some of the worst that society has to offer, Juckett uses running or getting away for a weekend to relieve stress. However, it’s not all bad, as oftentimes, he gets a morale boost from grateful citizens.
“Whether it’s going to the neighborhood watch meetings and interacting with the community and them telling you ‘You’re doing a great job and we’re happy for you’ or just a normal citizen coming up to you on the street and saying, ‘I’m thankful you’re here’ or even around the holidays when people bring things into the station, that’s when you see a lot of good things,” he said.
Having served his entire career with the Gardena Police Department, Juckett said he has seen a lot of positive changes to the city over the years and believes that he has made a difference in his capacity as a police officer.
“The community itself has changed because when I go back and look at when I first came on, there were nights where we would respond to numerous calls of robberies and shootings and now you don’t see that anymore,” he said. “You don’t see the gang members standing on the corner selling dope and things like that. All of that has changed.”
Juckett has been extremely happy to have served Gardena for the past 30 years and is looking forward to continuing to serve the city as one of its protectors for many years to come.
“I love this job and as long as I still love the job I’m going to continue to do what I gotta do.”
