Phoenix Police officers come from many different backgrounds, including different careers. The department's video series, "Before the Badge," is profiling some of those careers, and the diversity they bring to the department today.
Police work has not always been on Officer Tresea Aberra's radar. In fact, the first seven years of her career were spent in the Phoenix Crime Lab.
"I, like many people, had a great interest in what happens in cri me scenes, or at police departments, or crime lab," Aberra explained. "So, I started to go to school for that."
She started with a degree in criminal justice, where she happened to meet a crime scene specialist. After learning about the lab, she became a volunteer in controlled substances. About a year into that, she applied for a full time job as a lab tech.
"I was responsible for going down to get all the evidence that was being impounded from the streets," Aberra said. "I would bring it up to all the scientists. You are responsible for that chain of custody of coming from our property annex, to me, to a locker that we keep all of our evidence in that has to be tested. I made reagents for all the lab techs, I kept lab like spot plates and everything they needed stocked and ready to go."
She says the experience exposed her to the drug side of crime, and that activated an interest in getting outside of the lab and onto the streets.
"There were so many things about the streets, and things that we see or we think we know about, meaning drug related, that I had no clue," Aberra said. From scientific terms, to what things can do to people, to what to watch out for."
And now, she brings that lab experience out to South Phoenix where she serves as a community action officer — that's a liaison between Phoenix Police and the community.
"Any team needs a good, diverse background," Aberra said. "People come from all different walks of life, and that's what makes a team so incredible. I have an extra little bit of education, or knowledge of something, where someone who's been on the streets for many more years, they could be the same age as me, younger, or older, has that extra edge that I just don't know yet that I could still learn. So, it's worked."
Republished courtesy of Phoenix Police Department. Photo credit: PPD.