An Interview with Morgan Grant, Enforcement Officer, Eastern Region, Detachment 22 Morgan Grant started working for WDFW in 1982 in Snake River habitat development, fish creel census in the Forks area, fish hatcheries at Cathlamet, Spokane, and Tucannon, and habitat development in the Palouse. His first enforcement job was in 1993 as a fisheries patrol officer in the Longview area. In 1995 when the Whitman County enforcement position opened, close to the eastern Washington area where Grant grew up on a farm, he and his wife jumped at the chance to "come home" and raise their two sons in the small, rural community of Colfax. There Grant says he has been "adopted" by the community and its other law enforcement authorities, from the city police department to the Washington State Patrol which provides him office space. Together, he says, they provide true "community policing."

Q: What's "community policing"? A: Being involved in everyday aspects of your community and taking ownership in that. It goes beyond your professional time. In my private time I'm a baseball coach, I'm a wrestling coach, I get involved with civic groups. One thing about being a fish and wildlife enforcement officer, there is no "on-duty" and "off-duty." There's a time when I have my uniform on, and there's time when I'm out-of-uniform but I'm still perceived as an officer. Community policing is maintaining that level of caring for the community and letting people know that it's not just a face I wear. I like the people, I like the community, I want to be a part of it. You don't let it stop with just fish and wildlife needs. I think we're just a part of the bigger community. Q: Are you perceived, or functioning, as more than a fish and wildlife officer then? A: Oh yes. There's been a real evolution of fish and wildlife officers in the last ten years. Recently I ended up arresting a family, booking a mom and grandpa and cuffed up dad at a fishing spot near Clarkston. I was watching the lake for over-bags, and I saw mom, dad, grandpa and three young children. Dad had caught six fish, mom had caught five or six, grandpa over- bagged by one or two, and one of the little guys was hotter than a firecracker, catching seven, eight, nine fish. My intention was to contact them as they left and let them know that this is a limited resource. I would never arrest a child. I just wanted them to understand the importance of respecting the limits and educate them to the reasons for them. They had an Idaho license plate on their car, but when I asked for fishing licenses from the adults, they all gave me Washington resident licenses. I asked some questions and did a driver's check and I found out grandpa had a felony warrant, mom had a misdemeanor warrant, and dad had just taken care of an assault two warrant the day before. While taking care of grandpa, dad jumped up and started running on me. I ended up catching him and cuffing him... Is that the role of a fish and wildlife officer? It's an evolution. No matter what position you're in, if you're in a uniform and you have on a firearm and a badge and the tools that we have to perform our duties, people are going to recognize you as law enforcement. The thing that tipped me off that something was wrong with this group was they were real nervous by my presence. They're wondering, is he a trooper, is he a deputy, is he city PD, is he a game warden? I'm a law enforcment officer, and that's the evolution of this job. The majority of the people who abuse our natural resources, abuse other state laws. We're in an environment now where things have changed so much. Before I took this position, I talked with Steve Dauma (who held the position prior to Grant), and he said in the 17 years he was in Whitman County, he never pulled his handcuffs out once. I compliment him on that, it shows he was a great officer. But the change in our society today, about the importance of human life and other values, makes the working environment different. The thing that I think makes me successful is the ability to be in the public and let them know they can trust me and that I'm there for their needs, to be part of the solution of problems in the community, and take my training and expertise and apply it to my community to make it better. As a state officer, the training I have is second to none. Fish and Wildlife officers are probably the very best cops that you can find anywhere in Washington state. Q: What kind of training do you get for this job? A: When we're hired we go through CJT (Criminal Justice Training), mandatory for all police officers throughout the state. That was 440 hours of training when I went through it, which meant leaving the family for almost three months and just coming home on weekends. And then the agency usually has from two to three months of additional training, focused on the fish and wildlife we protect. CJT is basically learning how to be a police officer. In my opinion you have to learn how to be a good person first. I mean how do you teach empathy? How do you teach someone to have feelings for other people? If a police officer doesn't have feelings for other people, he's going to fail. And I think that's true whether you're a trooper or a fish and wildlife officer. You can't build such a stone wall that you don't feel some of that emotion. Part of the training helps you deal with that emotion while maintaining professionalism. I once responded to a shots fired report in Whitman County where a 73-year-old woman was shooting at her husband over a lawn mower. It started out as an argument over who got to drive the John Deere lawn mower versus the Montgomery Ward lawn mower. They'd been married 50 years. The sheriff and I were the first on the scene and we were able to sneak up on her and get her into handcuffs, and she was all of about four-foot-three or so. It was hard not to be emotional. I looked at her like my grandma. I asked her "What's going on?" And she said "Well he took the lawn mower!" She had just shot three or four rounds with a .22 and she told me she could have hit him and killed him, but she didn't. She had to go to jail, and she didn't want to ride in the back of the police car so I let her ride with me in the patrol car. On the way in, she told her life story, how they had met out in the Winona area, and she remembered the first dance they danced, and all the children they had raised. How do you not get emotional with that? Part of the training in CJT helps you deal with that, to help you recognize certain things, to have empathy but remain professional. The training also helps you deal with all kinds of people, and with confrontations. Any cop has to be a jack-of-all-trades to a point. People come up to me on the street, for instance, just wanting to know where to fish or hunt. People are drawn to you not because your role is any more important than any other in the agency, but because you're in the public eye and you're in uniform. I think what the police academy does is take a person who might be normally paranoid about that, or about being in confrontations with people who are abusing the resource or laws of the state, and it provides you with the tools to make situational decisions to protect the resource and the people. It helps build confidence. Q: How do you balance the super-vigilance of a law enforcement officer with the nice guy role? A: The key is to be prepared, not paranoid. A lot of it is in the excellent training we get. It's also personality. I'm naturally friendly and talkative, so when I'm dealing with people I may be diffusing things as I talk, but evaluating the situation. I also love my job, and I'm personally motivated to keep that balance. So it's a combination of good training, desire to want to do this job, and paying attention. You have to keep your head up and pay attention, especially when you work alone, as most of us do much of the time. From a safety standpoint, you have to pay attention. I do things all the time that I wish I didn't have to do, but that's what I get paid for. Q: Have you ever been really afraid on your job? A: Absolutely. Q: For instance? If you don't mind sharing? A: The Russian bear poacher one. I still get nightmares and stuff about that one. I was the guy in the gilly (sniper) suit, way up in the canyon by myself, hid. My closest help was a mile away. I was laying about thirty yards from an individual with an assault rifle, who actually attempted at one point to see if I was there by throwing a bottle at me to make me move. I didn't move, and I think it's the only reason I didn't get shot. He couldn't see me, but he had some pretty in-depth training in the military in a foreign country, and he knew there was something out of place, he just didn't know what. I was scared to death. My instinct was to get up and run, but I knew if I did I'd probably get shot. We ended up catching that guy (and successfully prosecuting on multiple charges of black bear snaring in a grizzly bear recovery zone.) There are more normal contacts that are scary. I remember a sturgeon fisherman along the Cathlamet highway who was smoking marijuana when I approached the car. He and his girlfriend were sitting there smoking weed. He was a big guy, probably six-seven, from Alaska, where evidently they can have personal use. He charged me. I was more worried about getting thrown out on the highway. As it turned out, I was able to overcome him and get him cuffed. Another time I followed a rig into Bonnie Lake, and it turned out to be three felons from Tacoma with a stolen pick-up and a stolen boat. I was able to get the three of them cuffed up, but it took state patrol about an hour and a half to finally find me down there. Q: So you mostly work by yourself? Can't you double up? A: Very seldom in law enforcement do we have the luxury of manpower to double up. It's just not cost-effective. In a city, police departments can have several officers within two minutes of response. But if I'm in Riparia, 60 miles from Colfax, and I accidentally fall into something that I had no intention of dealing with, my back up is over an hour away. That's why it's so important for me to network with other law enforcement in this community and throughout the county. When people out in remote areas fishing and hunting see me with my badge and my gun, they don't draw a line and think "he's not going to arrest me because I'm a wanted murderer out of Kentucky, he's just here to check my fishing license." That's been the evolution of the modern fish and wildlife officer. You can't expect us to go out and just ticket a guy for fishing with a worm in a bait-prohibited water, while he does methamphetamines. Q: Do you find that people who are in trouble with the law in other ways use the outdoors and remote fishing and hunting areas as cover? A: Sure. Fishing and hunting is best where there's a lot less human population. Those are the places where you're not seen by anybody, and you can do illegal activity. As a fish and wildlife officer, my number one priority is fish and wildlife. But as a police officer, I can't ignore the other crimes. Q: How much "environmental crime" is part of your job now? A: The protection of habitat is just as important as catching poachers. If a person is doing something in a creek, and they're going to wipe out a traditional spawning ground, it can have a major impact on fish. I think some of the people involved in these kinds of things don't know what they're doing or are just frustrated with the system. We've created a system where so many people have a say in what we do, whether it's public or private land, that some people are just frustrated. What I want people to understand is that WDFW isn't saying that you can't do projects on your own property. What we're saying is we want you to think about impacts to fish and wildlife. I look at myself as the person to network between the landowner and our people, habitat biologists, who have more expertise. People in this agricultural county love fish and wildlife. But there's been such a change in environmental awareness, in what we understand can impact fish and wildlife and all the permits that are needed and work methods that are preferable, that some of them get frustrated with the system. Q: Do your farming roots give you natural empathy in dealing with landowners on this issue? A: Possibly. But I think it's mostly personality. Which I suppose came in part from the way I grew up. I try to say to people, "If you do stuff, think of fish and wildlife, because I know they're as important to you as they are to me. I'll do everything I can to help you. I know you're frustrated, but so am I." And I'm honest with people. If they ask me a question I don't know the answer to, I don't pretend I do. I don't put myself at any different level than them. We all play a role in the community. My role is to protect fish and wildlife. It's one tool in the toolbox to make this community a good place to live. Q: What's your advice to young people who want to have a job like yours? A: If you set your mind to do something, you can do it. It took me a long time to realize my goal of becoming a fish and wildlife officer. I have a two year degree in communications from Spokane Falls Community College, and if I had it to do over again, I'd probably go through a four-year degree program at WSU. Instead, I had about 10 different jobs in the agency, and moved about 13 times in 11 years. But it was good exposure to almost all parts of this agency and great experience -- experience I'd never get out of a diploma. Being near WSU, I get lots of requests from students who want to become fish and wildlife officers. Most are in wildlife management coursework, and I tell them, by all means, finish school and get your degree. Then I tell them to put in for work with small town police departments to learn that part of the work and to get the academy training. Get as much experience as you can. The more you can put on your resume, the better. Then I'm honest with them about how the turnover in these positions is almost zero. There's only about 140 officers in this agency, so if you really want to do this work, you'll have to do a lot of other things first. But it'll be worth it, because this is the greatest job in the world.