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Crime & Safety

Smyrna Police Officer Sharples: Helping those in crisis

Motorcycle Officer Tim Sharples is a 21-year veteran of the police force, the last five years with the Smyrna Police Department.

Editor’s note: The Smyrna Public Safety Foundation has two big events on the horizon beginning with Saturday's Benevolent Motorcycle Ride & Raffle. Raffle tickets are being sold at $20 each with the grand prize a 2012 Street Glide from Earl Small’s Harley Davidson. Other prizes consist of a Glock pistol, a Panama City, Fla., vacation and a Luminox Blackout watch. Tickets may be purchased online here or at Adventure Outdoors, Kenny's Great Pie's, C-Comm 911, and Smyrna Fire Station No.1 on Atlanta Road.

And of course, the SPSF’s Auction for Heroes Gala is approaching in less than a month. This Sept. 10 event at Brawner Hall promises to be a night of food and fun with live music from Wesley Cook and Kingsized. For more information on these events see here.

 

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Tim Sharples, a certified police motor officer assigned to the Smyrna Police Department’s Selective Traffic Enforcement Program, is honored here as the “Hero of the Week” by the “Smyrna Auction for Heroes Gala” Committee.

Among other duties, he enforces traffic laws and handles citizen traffic complaints. He is a 21-year police veteran, the last five years in Smyrna. When speaking of his early training to become a motor officer, he recalled, “It was an incredibly demanding class. Maneuvering an 850-pound bike around a cone course only looks easy.”

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He’s most proud, though, of his position on the Crisis Intervention Team (CIT). He teaches Interpersonal Communications, is a CIT Instructor, and is also the CIT Coordinator for the Department. 

“The CIT program is geared specially toward dealing with people with mental illness who are in crisis, such as a suicide-in-progress call,” he said. “The skills taught, however, are easily transferrable to all types of calls for service.”  

Sharples’ “hands on” involvement in knowing how to help these people and following through with them is crucial to successful outcomes. One such call relates to Sharples’ position and training and also links to the services funded by the Smyrna Public Safety Foundation (SPSF). He was heavily involved with a family battling alcohol abuse, and he worked on easing them through their crisis and into sobriety. 

The grateful couple wrote a letter of thanks to the SPD, and received a letter in return that if they ever needed help again, to contact the department. Well they did, just a couple of days before Christmas. They had no money for necessities such as food and clothing, let alone gifts for their children. They had missed the SPSF’s annual program for area underprivileged children, and they were facing a bleak and desolate Christmas.

The message was forwarded to Sharples. He immediately recognized the situation as a stressor on the couple, the kind of crisis situation when they might turn to alcohol, jeopardizing their sobriety. Without delay, Sharples contacted the SPSF, which released funds at once so Sharples, himself, could take them shopping.

“It was a critical situation,” he concluded, and “without the SPSF they wouldn’t have had a Christmas.” 

Together, Sharples and the SPSF averted a situation that could have sent the family into a relapse. Truly Sharples loves his job, and he finds rewards in it that he can’t get anywhere else. 

“We’re the people they call when they need help,” he said. “And we get paid for doing what we love.”   

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