APD Officer Nathaniel Smith

• Age: 34
• Early Years: Georgetown, Horry County SC (Myrtle Beach)
• College: Mars Hill College
• Asheville Resident: Area resident since 2003
• Years w/APD: 3 years and 3 months
• Rank: Senior Patrol Officer
• Current Assignment: Senior Police Officer, training as canine handler (EOD bomb dog)

Q: Why did you decide to become a police officer?

Smith: What brought me to Mars Hill is that I was recruited; I got hurt my senior year in college so I was recruited for football. Outstanding high school athlete. I got hurt my senior year in high school so all of the big-time colleges stopped calling. So Mars Hill saw me and they picked me up and brought me here. During that time I studied graphic design. I graduated in 2008. And graphic design is one of those professions where if you don’t have the experience, a lot of the firms won’t hire you. I was fresh out of college – didn’t have a lick of experience. They weren’t looking for that…. So I stayed up in the area. I was working a lot of side jobs — a lot of security work. And I became good friends with a lot of the officers at the department (APD). They just kind of urged me in that direction; I felt really interested in it, felt like it was a good thing to do. So I’ve been with (APD) a little over three years.

I want to make a positive impact in the community. For me, growing up, I had both my parents in my life and I still do to this day. My parents are still there; they’ve been married going on 36 years. A lot of kids don’t have the luxury of growing up with a father figure or some other male figure in their life, whether it be white or black. And I think just as a police officer I can affect a lot of young kids’ lives — be a good and positive role model for kids. Not even looking at race, any kid that needs a male role model to lead them in the right direction. That was my biggest thing, other than just me wanting to do something good and do something positive — you know, doing the right thing. Basically I wanted to be a big, positive impact to the community.

Q: What did you think of police when you were growing up?

A: Honestly when I was growing up, I wanted to be a truck driver. It really didn’t dawn on me until in college when I realized this is what I wanted to do. I guess every kid, with me growing up, everybody wanted to be a firefighter or truck driver. I loved fire trucks when I was younger. I never had any bad reactions to a cop. Actually my uncle is a retired corrections officer, so he would talk to me about it. And in high school because I was so big on football, my dream was I was going to play freshman (college) football. So he was like, maybe someday you want to think about being a cop, and I’m like, yeah, right now I’m focusing on football — being a professional athlete. Yeah, growing up my mom had friends that were cops, my dad had friends that were cops. To me, it was one of these things where they were always going me positive feedback, motivating me to like hey, you want to play football, continue doing that and striving — you can do whatever you want to do. So it was always a positive thing for me growing up.

Q: And how do you think your background, your ethnicity or just simply the way you grew up, affects your police work?

Smith: I think I try to be very positive. I know now a lot of people who try to cause negative feedback. As far as my policing community, I just try to make a positive impact on things. I mean like hey, you don’t always go off what the media says. We’re trying to make a difference. We’re humans, and we’re trying to do everybody good. We’re not out here trying to be I guess any different from anybody else because we’re human. This is my job; this is what I have to do. But for me, especially when you go into a lot of the predominantly black communities, just try to make a positive impact. Try to bring the good out of the bad. Not wanting people to think, hey — you’re a cop, you’re just here harass me or you’re just here to try to take me to jail. No, it’s not about that. Honestly, I would rather talk to you and try to give you some kind of guidance in life versus take you to jail. And you haven’t learned anything other than all I want to do is take you to jail. Because honestly sometimes taking people to jail isn’t going to solve the issue. Or sometimes you may just be adding fuel to the fire. And not saying no, you’re not supposed to, but sometimes it’s like what can I do positively to at least make some kind of attempt to change the way that this person views the way that I do my job, or the way they view just police in general — you know, law enforcement. What can I do to change that? What can I do to make you have a different eyesight on what it is that I do?

Q: Have you had some cases where you’ve seen that work?

Smith: Yeah. We can go to different areas of the city and people are like, I hate the police. And you just talk to them like, honestly the way I was born and raised and taught was treat the way you want to be treated — with respect. That’s the only way I know to do it. Talk to you the way you would want to be talked to. You get that same feedback that a lot of people wouldn’t probably agree with me but I feel like you treat somebody with respect, whether it’s a criminal or not, they’ll probably give you a little bit more respect back. Like, I can talk to you because I see that you understand where I’m coming from. Now that we’re talking, we’re having a more sociable conversation, we’re not screaming and yelling at each other, we’ll have kind of a better understanding of what it is I’m trying to accomplish and what it is you’re trying to accomplish. So that’s what I use more than anything … just think about the situation, if I was in this person’s shoes and I was being approached by an officer, what is it I might want? Just take the time and just put yourself in somebody else’s shoes and just visualize. And the same thing with people — just put yourself in my shoes as a police officer. What would you do? And then we’ll understand both sides. That’s what I do — just talk to them, understand what’s going on. We’ll resolve the issue. And we will — ‘cause that’s what we’re here for, resolving this issue so we don’t have this issue again.

Q: Can you think of any specific case that you remember that actually working in?

Smith: Actually, yeah. I went to a domestic a couple of weeks ago, male and female, and he went belligerent, probably because he was intoxicated. But he was one of these guys where he knew everything about the law. He knew what was going to happen. He knew we were going to take him to jail because that’s all we do — we take people to jail. We do all this stuff to people. And I’m like no, maybe you have to understand why we’re here and what we’re trying to accomplish. He’s like, no, I know why you guys here ‘cause all you want to do is take me to jail ‘cause I’m a black guy. I’m like, man, you can’t say that because I’m African-American too. And he’s like, yeah, but this is your job — that’s what you’ve gotta do. And I’m like, no, you’ve been misinformed. You’ve blown this all out of context. And he was just going off, just throwing on his own opinions. Basically he’s just arguing, yelling. I’m like one, I’m not going to argue with you. Because once again, arguing isn’t going to get us anywhere. When you calm down, you’re ready to talk to me…. He starts this thing like yeah, she’s a white female and I know how this looks on me. And I was like no, a domestic situation is a domestic situation regardless of race or who was involved in it. That’s why we’re here. It has nothing to do with race or gender. The fact (is) you have an issue, and once again, we have to resolve this issue – and your way isn’t the right way. It’s not what you think is because we’re here.

And eventually he finally calmed down after me talking to him and just telling him this is why we’re here, this is what we have to do, this is protocol, this is what’s going to happen, and this is how it’s going to play out. It’s not because you’re an African-American man, she’s a white female, and this is the outcome of what happened. And what you’re saying isn’t correct. Information that you’ve probably heard (from) somebody that’s been in a similar situation, they probably dealt with totally different officers. You can’t put every situation based off of one. So we spoke, and he calmed down, and he like, “I understand where you’re coming from. I apologize.” And we were friends. It was moments going back and forth, back and forth, but once he really — the more I talked to him, the more I explained it to him, the more he understood versus just like, yeah – whatever, and put on cuffs and they take him to jail. And I let him vent, I speak some, I let him vent some more, and it was just back and forth. And eventually he was like, “I understand what you’re saying. I get it. I agree.” That’s all I wanted you to do. I didn’t want to manipulate you. I wanted you to understand what it is that I’m trying to do and understand what’s going on. And it worked out.

That works sometimes. A lot of times it does. And then sometimes you’ve just got those people that, they don’t care. And then those are the people that you have to deal with, but still in a respectful way.

Q: How has your time with APD changed your own opinion of police work?

Smith: Before you become a police officer, you don’t understand all the stuff that comes with this job. There’s a lot that people don’t understand that we do. For myself, I knew that we got to fight crime, we got to keep the criminals off the street, we’re got to serve and protect, we’ve got to have professionalism and integrity. I understood that part. But I didn’t know all the details other than that. Being in this job three years has taught me a lot and helped me understand a lot better what it is that’s entailed in this job. Because there’s a lot of hats that we have to wear other than just being a police officer. There’s a lot of times you might go into a situation, you might have to be a doctor. Or you might go into a situation you have to be a counselor. Or you got to be a teacher. So there’s a lot of responsibilities and a lot of duties that come with this job. I’m a field training officer. I train young officers. A lot of my trainees, I help them get a better understanding about the job – help them understand this job. If you plan on being in this job for an extended period of time, you’re trying to make this a true career, you want to retire, understand this profession. Be up for the challenge, because you’re going to face challenges every day … take every experience as a learning experience. Understand, and go from there.… This job can exact a toll, but at the same time be able to manage it. So once again, I always make a positive of everything is what I try to go by.

Q: What would you say are some of those challenges that you’ve faced?

Smith: Challenges are some of the things that you go through on the job, going to fatal wrecks, seeing young kids or somebody that’s been in a bad car wreck and now they’re deceased. Going to suicide calls where somebody’s killed themselves with a firearm or hung themselves. A lot of people are like, oh, that’s nothing. But to actually see it — that takes a toll on us as the officers too. Because you see it and you hold all this in and … yeah, this thing gets to me. Like, how much more of this can I take? I’m not saying oh, you’ve got to be strong, but you’ve got to be able to understand that this is the type of thing that is on a day-to-day basis. There’s a lot of going to domestics, dealing with domestic issues –— how can I help this battered person who’s been beaten up by their ex-spouse or whoever. How can I be a very positive person, how can I help them get back on their feet and give them all the positive feedback that I can to make sure that they bounce back and be able to do all they can to provide for their family or whatever. Because I don’t want to give them the wrong insight on something and then feel like I didn’t do everything that I could. So what is it I could do in this person’s life for the good.

Q: What do you do to pull yourself back up?

Smith: Usually we talk about it, instead of just holding it in. Just, man, that guy just hung himself and he was only 24 years old and he had this suicide letter that said I’m just tired of living because nobody loves me. And you just read that. And for me, I look at it like, I’m 34 years old. I’m still alive. I’m not in jail. I’ve always lived up and tried to make a perfect image of my parents. I felt like I had the toughest parents in the neighborhood because they were always strict to me, but my mom always tells me everyday people call and congratulate her on how successful myself and my brother are. And so on that note, I look at it like young kids who took their life away, how hard was it for that person just to be there? What could have been so bad that a person that young just took themselves away, just ended their life? And I don’t know. There could have basically been a whole lot going on. But I mean they are 24. I was just beginning life (at that age). I was just learning how to become a young man, starting to get more responsibilities, learning how to be an adult. My parents aren’t here to tell me to come back this time, I can’t buy this, I can’t buy that. So to me, at 24 years, I’m like, man, this is like getting into life. I’ve got bills now. Shoot. So just things like that. You just need to express, just talk to somebody.

The worst call I think I’ve ever had, that touched me bad, was 2016. And you might have heard about it. It was two kids out here on Fairview Road walking with their grandmother down by the Gold’s Gym, and it was two weeks before Christmas. I think the little girl was like eleven or twelve and the little boy was like seven or eight. And they got killed, two weeks before Christmas. And I think of all the calls I’ve been to where I saw people kill themselves or car accidents, fatals, I think that one touched me the most. Just because it was two young kids. And it affected me – I mean, I don’t have kids, but I know a lot of other officers, it touched them because they have kids at home. And I don’t even have kids and it touched me. When it happened, I didn’t think it would affect me the way it did, but it did. Honestly, that was probably one of the calls that I talked to more than one person about, just because it touched me in some kind of way. Even now, just talking about it, it still gets me. If I had not talked with somebody about it, I don’t know how it would have affected me. I talked to my wife about it, and just told her that was a rough one for me…. It affected me. We had a peer support group, everybody released their emotions. I think having that kind of helped me in that situation.… That was the biggest emotional thing that I’ve had to deal with.

Q: You’ve talked about this some, but what do you think is your responsibility to the community as a member of the police force?

Smith: It feels like my responsibility is to try to give a positive impact to the community. Trying to lead by example. Try to be a good role model to the young generation. Like I said with my parents, the way I present myself is the way I represent the department. And so I like who I am and try to be a positive impact, lead by example, make a great impression, I think that shows what kind of officers we have in the department. So that’s my biggest goal. In everything that I do, I want to present my department as one of the best. I don’t want to make the department look like they’ve got a bunch of knucklehead cops, because that’s not what we have. They’re professionals. When I go into communities, I want to go leaving a positive impact on the people there of, “You know what? Officer Smith, he’s a down-to-earth guy. He’s a class-A guy.” That’s the way I like to go in. Some people like … to use their badge as authority. I don’t. The badge should make you (able) to go in and do your job and do it as a professional as best as you possibly can to show that you have some class about you.… We have to respect one another. I believe that’s whether you’re in uniform or not. The way you portray yourself in uniform, you should portray yourself when you’re off-duty in your regular clothes. So even when I’m not in this uniform and I go into community, I still want to make my department look like it’s a Class A, Number One department.… You should always, every day, be a stand-up kind of person.

Q: And you get this from your parents?

Smith: My parents made sure that I went through life in a rare manner or profession that did not make them look like a fool. My dad, he was a laidback person, but I knew … my mom was a discipline person, my dad was the person who would talk to you and be like, “Listen, we’re going to have this talk.” My dad was one for talking. My mom was a discipline person. When you needed to be punished, you’d be punished. That was interesting because if that was discipline, I didn’t even want to know what child abuse was.

Q: And you say you have a brother?

Smith: I have a brother. My brother is 41. He lives in Fayetteville, North Carolina. He’s into HVC and electrical.

Q: Okay, two more questions. Are there particular steps that you would encourage APD or the Asheville public to be taking that might improve policing in Asheville?

Smith: As a department, I think they take all the steps to do great policing. Honestly, I feel like it comes from the officer within. Like I said earlier, the way you police affects us all as a whole, as a department. I think we have great officers at this department, and I think everybody carries themselves in a professional way — I believe in a very positive way. So I think as far as does the department need to do more to make policing better, no – I think we do a great job. We do a lot of extensive training to make sure we’re going to police the right way. I think the chief has done a lot for this department to make sure that officers go ahead and do a great job. Honestly, I don’t think you can find a better person to lead than the chief. She’s shown that she’s wanting us to come out here and do our job, and I think this accountability on the officer to make sure that they do their job and do it the best that they can. We’re adults. We’re professionals. I don’t think we need somebody standing over us holding our hands saying hey, you need to do this, you need to do that. You know what you have to do. And to me, that’s any job. Any profession, that you’re professional. You know what’s right and what’s wrong.

Q: How about the public part of that. Are there things you wish the public would do or that you think they could do that would help?

Smith: I understand that, you know, we’re humans. Everybody makes mistakes, but understand that we’re trying to do our best. We’re out here. We enjoy what we do because otherwise why would we do it? Otherwise we’re out here making sure that we’re one. When you think of Asheville, the first thing you think of is the police department. And that’s any city. The first thing you think of is the police department – I don’t know why. So we try to put a positive impact on the city. We want to be able to go hey, come to Asheville. They’ve got great police officers down here and an awesome police department, kind people.

So for the public it’s the best way. Every situation that occurs, you know, understand that whatever happens, we’re working hard to be great at everything we do. Basically, a lot of times you hear of incidents that happen whether it’s here in this area or whether it’s out-of-state, you know maybe the public views, “Oh, I told you that that’s how cops were, or that’s how law enforcement is.” Now, don’t take one incident and make it seem like it’s everybody, because it’s not. Like I said, I don’t know now one person who works for this department who doesn’t enjoy what they do. We’re trying to do our job but at the same time, we’re trying to do it in a professional manner. We’re trying to be professionals and we’re trying to make a good name for the city.

Q: Last question: Do you have any personal observations or comments regarding the role of a police officer in today’s society? Why do we have police?

Smith: I’ve never been asked that. I think when my trainees … what I can say is get into this job for the right reasons. Don’t get into the job because you say oh, I get to wear a gun and badge, and I get to drive fast. Get in it because I want to make a difference in the community; I want to make a positive impact. Understand all that’s entailed in this job. There’s a lot of responsibility, and sometimes you’re put in very stressful situations. And when you have incidents that affect you, be able to express and explain how it is you felt about that, or if you intervene in a situation be able to explain this is why I did that….

Policing today is different from 10 or 15 years ago, just because society has changed. Over time, things change. And to me, I feel like you base that on society. You can’t say 15 years ago we did it this way. Fifteen years ago would have been totally different. Police is based on society. You’ve got to be able to adapt to changes, which I feel like will create effective police. If you understand what it is you’re trying to do and accomplish, I think anybody can be successful in this job. Go out with a goal. My goal today is that I’m going to try to make a change in one person’s life; that I’m going to go and make one person turn a negative into a positive. Set yourself up with goals, and go out and improve those goals.

I think one of my goals that I feel good about is I had a little kid last Christmas, dying of leukemia. I met his grandmother — she was just in a minor car accident. She wanted to see her grandson, because she didn’t know how much longer he had. And I was like, you know what, you go to the hospital and be with your grandchild and I’ll just bring up the paperwork. I went up there and brought up the paperwork and she was like, you want to meet my grandson? And I was like, sure. Once again, here’s a kid in a bed, don’t know how much longer he’s got to live; he could die in a matter of hours, but he’s laughing, smiling, joking, not a care in the world. And I was like, you know what — tomorrow’s not promised to anybody. I’m going to bring Christmas to this kid early. So I went and I got him some stuff for Christmas and it was just like Santa came in the night. He was sleeping and I brought his stuff, and when he woke up the next morning he had some presents waiting on him. And it wasn’t about “Oh ….” It was the right thing for me to do. Nobody is granted to live another hour. And so he got to enjoy Christmas.

So that was the goal, to make a positive impact. And that’s what it was.